Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T00:22:45.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shostakovich's Turn to the String Quartet and the Debates about Socialist Realism in Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Katerina Clark
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As Katerina Clark argues here, Dmitrii Shostakovich's turn to the quartet form in 1938 and his account of his First Quartet should be seen in the context of ongoing debates from that time about how the mandate for socialist realism might apply in music, a problematical question since music is the least representational of the arts. In making this point, Clark does not analyze the quartets themselves, but instead probes Shostakovich's statements about them, moving out from that narrow focus to place his remarks in the context of overall developments and controversies in Soviet culture of that decade—more specifically in the context of efforts aimed at liberalizing socialist realist practice.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , Fall 2013 , pp. 573 - 589
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The First String Quartet was his second chamber work after the Viola Sonata of 1934. He had been promising to write a quartet since at least 1931 when he produced two movements for one that he did not complete.

2. Lesser, Wendy, Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets (New Haven, 2011), 42–43 Google Scholar.

3. Taruskin, Richard, On Russian Music (Berkeley, 2008), 351 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. For discussions of socialist realism, see, e.g., Dobrenko, E. A., Political Economy of Socialist Realism, trans. Savage, Jesse M. (New Haven, 2007)Google Scholar; Groys, Boris, The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, trans. Rougle, Charles (London, 2011)Google Scholar; Robin, Regine, Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic, trans. Porter, Catherine (Stanford, 1992)Google Scholar; and Clark, Katerina, The Soviet Novel: History As Ritual (Bloomington, 2000)Google Scholar.

5. Lifshits, M., “Chelovek tridtsatykh godov,” V mire estetiki: Stat'i 1969-1981 gg. (Moscow, 1985), 255 Google Scholar.

6. The chief outlet of the Lukacs coterie, Literaturnyi kritik, was closed on 26 November 1940. See Clark, Katerina and Dobrenko, Evgeny, eds., Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917–1953 (New Haven, 2007), 210–15Google Scholar.

7. E.g., Mikkonen, Simo, Music and Power in the Soviet 1930s: A History of Composers’ Bureaucracy (Lewiston, N.Y., 2009), 268 Google Scholar.

8. Fay, Laurel E., Shostakovich: A Life (Oxford, 2000), 92 Google Scholar.

9. [unsigned], “Sumbur vmesto muzyki,” Pravda, 28 January 1936, 3.

10. N. Strel'nikov, “O kamernoi muzyke v nashi dni,” Zhizri iskusstva, 1918, no. 14 (15 November).

11. Taruskin, , On Russian Music, 351 Google Scholar.

12. M. D. [Mikhail Druskin?], “Novye raboty kompozitora D. Shostakovicha,” Izvestiia, 29 September 1938.

13. Shostakovich, D., Moi “Svetlyi ruchei” (Leningrad, 1935)Google Scholar.

14. As quoted in M. D. [Mikhail Druskin?], “Novye raboty kompozitora D. Shostkovicha.”

15. Lebedev, A., “V masterskoi A. M. Gerasimova,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 25 January 1939 Google Scholar.

16. Kuhn, Judith, Shostakovich in Dialogue: Form, Imagery, and Ideas in Quartets 1-7 (Burlington.Vt., 2010), 7,9Google Scholar.

17. ” Vystuplenie tov. Shostakovicha (Diskussiia o sovetskom simfonizme),” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1935, no 5: 33.

18. Mikkonen, , Music and Power in the Soviet 1930s, 156 Google Scholar.

19. Ibid., 234.

20. Cheliapov, N., “Osnovnye voprosy sovetskogo muzykal'nogo tvorchestva,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1935, no. 2:3Google Scholar.

21. Ibid., 5–6.

22. Mishra, Michael, ed., A Shostakovich Companion (Westport, Conn., 2008), 86 Google Scholar.

23. Ryzhkin, I., “Zadachi sovetskogo simfonizma,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1935, no. 6: 26 Google Scholar.

24. Ostretsov, A., “Sovetskoe simfonicheskoe tvorchestvo,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1935, no. 5: 3,10Google Scholar.

25. Ryzhkin was discussing the symphony as a historical subject (a subject then advocated for all Soviet culture in Pravda and other authoritative sources).

26. Ryzhkin, , “Zadachi sovetskogo simfonizma,” 14,24Google Scholar.

27. “Vystuplenie tov. Belogo,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1935, no. 5: 34Google Scholar.

28. Lukacs, Georgi, “Reportage oder Gestaltung: Kritische Bemerkungen anlässlich des Romans von Ottwalt,” Die Linkskurve 4, nos. 7 and 8 (July and August 1932)Google Scholar; “Lukach, Georg, “Reportazh ili obrazotvorchestvo? Kriticheskie zamechaniia po povodu romana Otval'ta,” Internatsional'naia literatura, 1933, no. 2:91–104 Google Scholar.

29. Lukach, G., ”“Rasskaz ili opisanie,” trans. N. Vol'kenau, Literaturnyi kritik, 1936, no. 8:48Google Scholar. Emphasis in the original.

30. “Vystuplenie tov. Shostakovicha,” 33.

31. Shostakovich quoted in Izvestiia, 3 April 1935.

32. “Diskussiia o sovetskoi opere (po materialam stenogramm),” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1935, no. 7–8: 38–55 Google Scholar; Mikkonen, , Music and Power in the Soviet 1930s, 231 Google Scholar.

33. “Vydaiushchii uspekh sovetskoi muzyki: Triumf nashikh skripachei v Briussele,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1937, no. 16 (5 April)Google Scholar; “Kontserty lauriatov: Dva skripacha,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1937, no. 46 (5 October)Google Scholar.

34. Lazarenko, M., “Iubileinye plany Filarmonii,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1937, no. 34 (28 July)Google Scholar; “Kamernye kvartety v tekushchem sezone,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1937, no. 97 (24 July)Google Scholar.

35. “Khronika: Dekada sovetskoi muzyki,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1938, no. 12:81 Google Scholar.

36. Kuhn, , Shostakovich in Dialogue, 22 Google Scholar.

37. Kuznetsov, K., “Dekada sovetskoi muzyki,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1939, no 1: 20–21 Google Scholar; Soludkho, la., “Kontserty dekady sovetskoi muzyki,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1939, no. 2: 73–74 Google Scholar.

38. “Khronika: Konkurs smychkovykh kvartetov,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1938, no. 12: 82–83 Google Scholar.

39. Here I am polemicizing with Vladimir Papernyi, who in his seminal book on Soviet architecture, Kul'tura dva (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1985), characterizes the 1930s with a single model.

40. See Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “Ascribing Class: The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Russia,” Journal of Modern History 65, no. 4 (December 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 758, where she cites as an authoritative source Viacheslav Molotov's speech of 6 February 1935 to the Seventh Congress of Soviets on forthcoming changes to the Soviet Constitution.

41. E.g., Efros, A., “Monumental'naia statua parizhskogo pavil'ona,” Arkhitektura SSSR, 1937, no. 5:16 Google Scholar.

42. Ryzhkin, I., “Miaskovskii i sovetskii simfonizm,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1937, no. 49 (23 October)Google Scholar.

43. Shostakovich, D., “Moi tvorcheskii otvet,” cited in G. Khubov, “5-ia simfoniia Shostakovicha,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1938, no. 3:16 Google Scholar.

44. Khubov, “5-ia simfoniia Shostakovicha,” 17,20. Emphasis in the original.

45. This account of the typical socialist realist plot is to be found in Clark, The Soviet Novel.

46. Asaf ev, Boris, Evgenii Onegin: Liricheskie stseny P. I. Chaikovskogo. Opyt intonatsionnogo analiza stilia i muzykal'noi dramaturgii (Moscow, 1944)Google Scholar.

47. A similar trend in ballet might be seen in Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet of 1935–1936Google ScholarPubMed.

48. For the observations in this paragraph I am indebted to the remarks made by the musicologist Anna Nisnevich in a discussion in Moscow on 11 June 2011.

49. “Vladimir Maiakovskii,” Pravda, 5 December 1935 Google Scholar.

50. E.g., Russkii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstvo, f. 634, op. 1, d. 177,11. 4-83.

51. Bullock, Phillip R., “The Pushkin Anniversary of 1937 and Russian Art-Song in the Soviet Union,” Slavonica 13, no. 1 (April 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sandler, Stephanie, Commemorating Pushkin: Russia's Myth of a National Poet (Stanford, 2004), chap. 3Google Scholar.

52. Frezinskii, Boris R., Pisateli i sovetskie vozhdi: Izbrannye siuzhety 1919–1960 godov (Moscow, 2008), 475 Google Scholar.

53. E.g., Evgen'ev, A., “Proshchanie s liubimym: O chetyrekh sonetakh S. Kirsanova,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 15 October 1938 Google Scholar.

54. E.g., Gus, M., “A gde zhe liubov'?” Literaturnaia gazeta, 13 October 1940 Google Scholar.

55. Simonov, Konstantin, “Zametki o poezii,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 28 December 1939.Google Scholar

56. “Vystuplenie tov. Belogo,” 34.

57. Simonov, “Zametki o poezii.“

58. See, e.g., Usievich, E., “K sporam o politicheskoi poezii,” Literaturnyi kritik, 1937, no. 5: 62–102 Google Scholar and the response by Al'tauzen, Dzhek, “V zashchitu politicheskoi poezii,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 15 November 1937 Google Scholar. In the following number, no. 63 (20 November 1937), there is a whole page of criticism by assorted writers in which Usievich is accused, among other things, of peddling the Bukharin line.

59. Simonov, “Zametki o poezii.“

60. Usievich, “K sporam o politicheskoi poezii,” 70, 87, 89, 90, and 102. She is also attacked in “O politicheskoi poezii,” Pravda, 1937, no. 58.

61. Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, 2006), 183, 241; Maksimenkov, Leonid, “'Partiia-nash rulevoi Postanovlenie TsK VKP(b) ot 10 fevralia 1948 g. ob opere Vano Muradeli ‘Velikaia druzhba’ v svete novykh arkhivnykh dokumentov,” Muzykal'naiazhizri, nos. 15–16 (1993): 34–39 Google Scholar.

62. Shostakovich, D., “O podlinnoi i mnimoi programmnosti,” in “Disput o programnosti,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1951, no. 5: 76 Google Scholar.

63. Ibid., 76–77.

64. Ibid., 77.

65. Sitsky, Larry, Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900–1929 (Westport, Conn., 1994), 64 Google Scholar; Frolova-Walker, Marina, ‘“National in Form, Socialist in Content': Musical Nation-Building in the Soviet Republics,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 51, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 336n8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66. Shostakovich, “O podlinnoi i mnimoi programmnosti,” 77.

67. Mikheeva, L. V., Zhizri Dmitriia Shostakovicha (Moscow, 1997), 274 Google Scholar.

68. Berggol, Ol'ga ‘ts, “Razgovor o lirike,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 16 April 1953 Google Scholar.

69. Ibid.

70. The list includes: II’ ia Erenburg, “O rabote pisatelia,” Znamia, 1953, no. 10:160–83Google Scholar; Pomerantsev, V., “Ob iskrennosti v literature,” Novyi mir, 1953, no. 12:218–45Google Scholar; Abramov, F., “Liudi kolkhoznoi derevni v poslevoennoi proze (Literaturnye zametki), Novyi mir, 1954, no. 1: 210–31Google Scholar; Lifshits, M., “Dnevnik Marietty Shaginian,” Novyi mir, 1954, no. 2: 207–31Google Scholar; Shcheglov, Mark, “'Russkii les’ Leonida Leonova,” Novyi mir, 1954, no. 8: 220–41Google Scholar; O1'ga Berggol'ts, “Protiv likvidatsii liriki,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 28 October 1954.

71. Film examples include Marlen Khutsiev and Feliks Mironer's Vesna na zarechnoi ulitse (1956), El'dar Riazanov's Karnavainaia noch’ (1956), and Mikhail Kalotozov's Letiat zhuravli (1957). In literature one should note not only the love plot of Ne khlebom edinym with its motivated adultery but more particularly the progressive development of the love plot in Viktor Nekrasov's works of this time (compare V rodnom gorode, Novyi mir, 1954, nos. 10,11, to his Kira Georgievna, Novyi mir, 1961, no. 6).

72. E.g., Gibian, George, Interval of Freedom: Soviet Literature during the Thaw, 1954–1957 (Minneapolis, 1960), 3 Google Scholar.