|
Editorial Review Product Description
With the composer's consent, the manuscript was smuggled out of Soviet Russia - but Shostakovich, fearing reprisals, stipulated that the book should not appear until after his death. Ever since its publication in 1979 it has been the subject of controversy, some suggesting that Volkov invented parts of it, but most affirming that it revealed a profoundly ambivalent Shostakovich which the world had never seen before - his life at once triumphant and tragic. Either way, it remains indispensable to an understanding of Shostakovich's life and work. Testimony is intense and fiercely ironic, both plain-spoken and outspoken. ... Read more Customer Reviews (24) 
Memoirs centered around one main character (Stalin)
Shostakovich's terrible memories brush a dark and desolate picture of the living conditions under Stalin's leadership in the Soviet Union, with memorable portraits of the dictator himself, of friends and enemies: `I thought of all my friends. And I saw only mountains of dead bodies. I am not exaggerating, just mountains.'
Stalin
Stalin was a spider. Anyone who was trapped in his web had to die. Some even didn't deserve a sparkle of mercy. They really wanted to be so close to him to get pats on their back. Defiling themselves with blood of innocent people was absolutely no problem.
Stalin had no ideology, no convictions, no ideas or principles. Stalin's only aim was to tyrannize people, to make them fearful and obedient in order to consolidate his power. People literally sh.t in their pants when they had to appear before him and they considered this to be an honor!
Stalin ruled by ukases. One day the leader and teacher said this and the next day something completely different. It was pure madness. He was a man full of black envy for those who had more fame than himself (Zhukov, Akhmatova).
Atmosphere in the USSR under Stalin
In those days everybody wrote denunciations. Composers wrote it on their scores and musicologists on plain paper. And not even one of them repented. Blind folk singers were executed, because they sang songs with a dubious content: one couldn't correct texts of blind people.
Why did Shostakovich survive unlike his friends Meyerhold or Tukhatchevski? Because he wrote good film music and Stalin considered movies as important propaganda tools.
Cynicism about artists and politicians
He is extremely harsh for Solzhenitsyn (the so-called humanist), Sakharov, Shaw, Malraux, Romain Rolland, Lion Feuchtwanger (he never really saw Moscow) or Mayakovsky (power was for him the great moral law).
His advice is: do not try to save mankind. Try to save one man; that's much harder. Saving the whole of mankind nearly always turns into genocides.
These memories contain excellent information on Russian musical life: Glazounov, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov.
The whole book bathes in blood, in innocent blood, in a Kafkaesque atmosphere full of terror and dead bodies. And what about music in these horrific times? It came also under attack ... for formalism.
This tragic work is a must read for all those interested in music and the history of mankind.
A fascinating portrait of a brilliant man
There has been great controversy surrounding the truth and accuracy in this book. Allegedly his last wife claimed that he never spoke with Solomon Volkov, but there is a photo in the front cover of Mr. and Mrs. Shostakovich with Volkov and Tishchenko, Shostakovich's favorite student, so I don't know what the basis of her comment was. Maxim and Galya Shostakovich, his children, both agree that the book is factual, so that's good enough for me. With that said, the book is by no means an autobiography. Volkov assembled this volume after compiling his notes from his interviews with the composer. He could not record their discussions, as Shostakovich shied away from microphones.
Most of the pages are filled with Shostakovich's musings about the people in his life, and little about his own life experiences. He was well cultured, and makes frequent references to important Russians in theater and literature, as well as in music and history. This results in many footnotes so the average reader can understand what is being discussed!
With that said, one can learn much about the composer's beliefs and personality by reading this, much as a literary character can be characterized through their interactions with other characters. I regret that he does not speak more about his music, but I suppose he is right when he says that his music is meant to speak for itself.
It is lamentable that this musical genius did not live a more fulfilling life. The last section of the book implies that he has always lived a very troubled and melancholy life, but perhaps that is why his music was so brilliant.
I rate this 4 stars instead of 5 because of the lack of discussion about his life.
Far worse than we thought.
I'm still reading the book, but I have read enough to have realized how malignant the Soviet Regime was.I am also left amazed, alarmed and dissapointed that the Russians are still willing to grant their leader (Putin) unlimited power, that they are willing have dissent stifled, tolerate murder of those who disagree including prominent journalists, and leaders who declare speech they don't like as treason.Humanity can learn from its mistakes?
That Shostakovich could write such magnificent music within the constraints imposed by the "Leader and Teacher" and his followers and under the threat of exile and deportation or death is mind-boggling. As I read the book, I feel like Shostakovich is talking to me.He teaches me about himself, but also other artists including great ones who were murdered because somebody didn't like the art they produced or because the art didn't promote Stalin's intentions.What he says also tells a lot about that regime and others who think they know the way for the rest of us and are willing to kill us if we don't practice what they preach.
I recommend that anyone who reads the book also read the preface and introduction.They are a little tedious, but they set the stage for the maestro.Once he starts "talking,"there is no tedium.
True lies
Dmitri Shostakovich, now over thirty years removed from his death in 1975, represents one of the greatest virtues in art: that it can break painful silences and transcend an oppressive few for the good of many.Unlike the minor roles that classical composers hold in society nowadays, the premiere of a Shostakovich symphony, string quartet, or song cycle was a major, socially relevant happening.In extraordinary instances like his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies (written in 1941 and 1943), Shostakovich's work attracted millions of listeners throughout the world.It is a separate issue as to whether or not the composers of today have isolated themselves from the masses, but Shostakovich's music was certainly a willing and able contributor to the betterment of mankind.
By the time that Shostakovich and musicologist Solomon Volkov are said to have begun work on 'Testimony' in 1971, the 65-year-old composer was much a living record of Soviet cultural history.Shostakovich's pensive look was conditioned by the Bolshevik Revolution, its difficult aftermath, the Second World War, persecutions at the hands of Josef Stalin, and a continuous siege on Russian artists of every medium.According to Volkov, these experiences had grown cobwebs in Shostakovich's mind; no Soviet citizen discussed history under the Stalinist regime, which was equally heart-wrenching and dangerous.Letters, diaries, and other written records were destroyed to prevent 'guilt by association' and avoid one's sentence to the Gulag.Fear and paranoia were inevitable results: even during the slow 'Thaw' under Nikita Khrushchev, Shostakovich remained largely silent (except for his music) and kept memories under wraps.
Volkov claims a strong bond with Shostakovich through two pivotal events: the suppression of 'Rothschild's Violin,' an opera written by Shostakovich's late pupil Veniamin Fleishman, and the censoring of historical information provided by Shostakovich for Volkov's book on young Leningrad composers.Experiencing another generation's worth of censorship is what supposedly gave Shostakovich the longing to dust those mental cobwebs off and begin work on 'Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich As Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov.'Arguably the most controversial book in world musical literature - save for the philosophical writings of Wagner - 'Testimony' has managed to survive fierce attack from critics and is still looked upon as a vivid portrait of the man and oppressive society he was immersed in.
Originally published by Harper & Row in 1979, 'Testimony' won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for distinguished music writing and has enjoyed several later impressions.Limelight Editions, who released its first paperback edition in 1984, has now commemorated Testimony's 25th anniversary with a 2004 printing, which contains the brief foreword of conductor-pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy.Ashkenazy, a staunch supporter of 'Testimony,' credits Volkov with elucidating Shostakovich's persona and breaking the myth of Shostakovich as a willing Soviet propagandist.He also extends Testimony's support to Rudolf Barshai, who conducted the premiere of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony and claims 'Testimony' as '100 percent correct.'
Those who read 'Testimony' for the first time will perhaps judge it a fascinating tome on Soviet cultural and social history.The book opens with a preface by Volkov that explains how the working relationship developed between Shostakovich and himself.Volkov's lengthy introduction follows, placing Shostakovich's career in striking relief to the conditions under which he lived.Trailing the Ashkenazy foreword are 273 pages of Shostakovich's 'recollections and opinions,' said to have been compiled in shorthand and later edited by Volkov.The memoirs are in loose chronological order: Shostakovich first touches upon his 'uninteresting' childhood (though interesting from an outsider's point of view), his conservatory studies, and personalities he met at a young age.According to Volkov, Shostakovich found it easier to discuss his life in relation to others - a 'mirrored style.'Of the many people he knew in his earlier years, three names stand out: Alexander Glazunov, a well-known composer and head of the St. Petersburg/Petrograd Conservatory; Vsevolod Meyerhold, the famed dramatist whose company employed Shostakovich in his early twenties; and friend Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Marshal of the Soviet Union, who was executed on treason charges drummed up by Stalin.
Middle sections deal with Shostakovich's nightmares in 1936 and 1948, when he was reproached by the Soviet Communist Party for 'formalism' and 'bourgeois decadence.'The Leningrader paints a disgusting scene of tribunals for composers, writers, and other artists who looked to pass blame onto their colleagues and avoid a death sentence.Shostakovich only goes so far in discussing these events, apparently too repulsed to describe matters for long.The remaining pages alternate between Shostakovich's thoughts on Soviet life, his compositions, and his attitudes toward the West.Particularly engaging are his reorchestration of Mussorgsky's 'Boris Godunov' and how the USSR oppressed culture in national republics such as the Ukraine and Kazakhstan.Shostakovich often delves into the process of writing music, which is both fascinating and instructive for any young musician.
'Testimony' is written in a conversational language, which gives the pseudo-memoirs an intimate feel.The book was translated by Antonina W. Bouis, highly regarded for her work on Soviet authors, including poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov.There is much idiosyncratic language, which is unavoidable, but the writing maintains flow and balance.The text also conveys plenty of wry humor that Shostakovich was known for.Stalin and his apparatchiks are never free from Shostakovich's vitriol and the composer can unearth a joke in describing his worst hours.It was Shostakovich, after all, who wrote the sarcastic Thirteenth Symphony and 'Rayok,' a cantata that spat upon the 1948 anti-formalist campaign and was not heard publicly until 1989.
Volkov was in his late twenties when compiling 'Testimony' and admits to his relative inexperience as a writer.The recollections are mostly chronological, but Volkov could have arranged them more sensibly.Shostakovich's discussions of Glazunov pop up at tangential moments when all of these recollections could have been grouped together.In fact, Glazunov is discussed far too often: Shostakovich's opinions of Tchaikovsky are hardly noted, while Rachmaninov and modern Czech composers such as Martinu and Suk are not mentioned in the text at all.There is also not enough said about musical performance; Shostakovich hardly discusses his technique for playing piano and says nothing about exceptional instrumentalists like Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh, and Leonid Kogan.One wonders if Shostakovich chose not to discuss these men or if Volkov decided to omit the conversations.It's moments such as these when Volkov is disappointing as a young biographer.
The nagging question, of course, is how much of 'Testimony' contains pure Shostakovich (if any) and how much consists of Volkov and Soviet gossip.Disputes over 'Testimony' have reached a level of farce in American academia, both sides trying to preserve their scholarly reputations.If alive today, Shostakovich might very well have a laugh (and perhaps even write an operetta) over what has raged since Testimony's appearance.American musicologist Laurel Fay heads the anti-Testimony camp, citing articles written by Shostakovich years earlier that match the openings to each 'Testimony' chapter (excluding the first).Allan Ho and Dmitri Feofanov support 'Testimony' in their book 'Shostakovich Reconsidered,' using psychological evaluation (who's next, the optometrists?) to back a claim that Shostakovich read these articles for historical context and could rehash such passages from memory.The 'Testimony' debate has grown so ugly between these two camps that Shostakovich is now something of a football for academics to kick around.
Significant names besides Vladimir Ashkenazy have supported 'Testimony:' Shostakovich's two children, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and soprano Galina Vishnevskaya have all backed Testimony's general sentiment, though none would accept it as 'absolute truth.'Certainly, Volkov's book cannot be taken as gospel, but 'Testimony' was written by a young journalist with first-hand experience of the Soviet system.Volkov was, in many ways, better equipped to understand Shostakovich's dilemmas than plush academicians of the West who look to discredit him.
Shostakovich's ability to write was limited by a muscular disorder in his final years, which placed the task of his memoirs in a secondary writer's hands.Even if compiled by an older, more experienced journalist, 'Testimony' would still not have originated from Shostakovich's pen and its controversy as a second-hand (and explosive) tome may have been equally apparent.Decades of confusion over Shostakovich's place in Soviet art - the belief in his role as a compliant celebrity - may require decades of adjustment.Ignorance of Soviet reality continues to linger in the worst places.
It must be said that 'Testimony,' even in Limelight's 25th anniversary edition, is completely unchanged from the original 1979 printing.In Volkov's essays and footnotes, 'Soviet affairs,' for instance, are still discussed as current and now-deceased figures are still mentioned as living.Occasional typographic errors also remain intact.It is perhaps in the best interests of 'Testimony,' however, to leave these sections unaltered and as they were originally conceived.While outdated, the book keeps a certain historical authenticity and shows that Volkov has refused to compromise in the face of those questioning his journalistic integrity.
And to fully appreciate Shostakovich's inner workings, there is no better source than his music, which continues to grow in popularity.'Testimony' offers a remark that no listener or scholar of any persuasion can dispute: 'I write music, it's performed.It can be heard, and whoever wants to hear it will.After all, my music says it all.''Testimony,' in the meantime, remains widely circulated at bookstores, in libraries, and on the Internet.
memoirs of a past age
good reading for people acquainted with 20th century european music and politics. Awful details on the Stalin and post-Stalin era.
... Read more |
