Dmitri's Dacha

[Madiel]

Not only has the point been made repeatedly, any evidence to the contrary is ignored.

The composer of the Anti-Formalistic Rayok was NOT feeling well disposed to the regime at the time of that composition. The text makes fun of the leaders in very unflattering ways. He also kept it hidden in a drawer for decades because quite frankly it could have got him in serious trouble. There were other compositions that got hidden away for periods of time until the climate improved.

[ChamberNut]

Anymore political diatribes slung against Shostakovich by AnotherSpin and I feel it justifies a permanent ban. Full stop.

It has been going on for far too long and repeatedly.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Anymore political diatribes slung against Shostakovich by AnotherSpin and I feel it justifies a permanent ban. Full stop.

It has been going on for far too long and repeatedly.

If he was on the other forum, he would've already been banned as political discourse is discouraged.

[Karl Henning]

If he was on the other forum, he would've already been banned as political discourse is discouraged.

It's the nature of his behavior which I find objectionable. If he has a perverse obsession with badmouthing Shostakovich, that's his sorry affair. But acting as if the Shostakovich thread is your privileged spleen-venting outlet borders on narcissistic behavior. 

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

It's the nature of his behavior which I find objectionable. If he has a perverse obsession with badmouthing Shostakovich, that's his sorry affair. But acting as if the Shostakovich thread is your privileged spleen-venting outlet borders on narcissistic behavior.

Exactly. Well said, @Karl Henning.

[AnotherSpin]

@Madiel - He wrote "for the drawer" — yes. And yet, at the very same time, he was openly accepting awards, honors, and material favors from the regime, right in front of everyone. That's what really stands out.

I'm simply saying what I think. Of course, I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Let me say it again: If you enjoy this composer's music — great, by all means, listen to it. Just don't try to silence a different opinion. That's one of the basic freedoms, isn't it?

I don't see any point in continuing to post in this thread.

[ChamberNut]

@Madiel
I don't see any point in continuing to post in this thread.

You are free to post to your heart's content about Shostakovich's music.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

@Madiel - He wrote "for the drawer" — yes. And yet, at the very same time, he was openly accepting awards, honors, and material favors from the regime, right in front of everyone. That's what really stands out.

I'm simply saying what I think. Of course, I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Let me say it again: If you enjoy this composer's music — great, by all means, listen to it. Just don't try to silence a different opinion. That's one of the basic freedoms, isn't it?

I don't see any point in continuing to post in this thread.

I guess you didn't see this post I made in response to your unwarranted and unnecessary political slights against Shostakovich:

And at what point do we forget about all of this and just enjoy the man's music?

This thread is about Shostakovich's music. Everyone here knows his history just like everyone here knows of your bias against that history.

If you don't have anything of substance to add about the music, then I ask you to kindly never post in this thread again.

[Brian]

First I'd like to thank the person who finally reported the last few pages of this thread to the mods.

The forum guidelines state the following:

"Religion or politics is not to be brought into threads in other categories unless it has a very definite and direct relation to the music being discussed." (emphasis added)

Some posts here clearly do align with the rules, e.g. discussion of the political reasons why DSCH would set Jewish poems. The forum would be worse if we did not discuss such things.

Other posts here clearly do not align with the rules, e.g. broad characterizations of DSCH's courage or cowardice or other such feelings.

I know this post will disappoint some users who wish the politics were entirely off-limits here. I also know it will disappoint the user who wants to repeat his views on DSCH's personal character. Maybe by disappointing everyone, we can calm down the temperature of activity in this thread. To help that along, I'll lock it for about 6 hours.

Any additional mod action will be private.

[Karl Henning]

 Cross-post:

This is from Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered.
Rumours that Shostakovich had written a work 'in secret' satirizing the Zhdanov Decree had been in circulation for some time after the composer's death.The existence of the satirical cantata Rayok (variously translated as The Peep-Show, The Gods, and A Learner's Manual) was finally confirmed when it received a first public performance in Washington in January 1989 by Mstislav Rostropovich. He used a copy made available to him by the musicologist Lev Lebedinsky. The Rayok was  a popular entertainment at traveling fares, where a booth housing a box which has specially made peepholes allowing viewing of a series of pictures turning on a revolving drum. The booth was manned by a 'Rayoshnik' whose running commentary was made in doggerel verse, using many invented and ridiculous diminutives. When young, Shostakovich had been fascinated by the Rayok and its language, as he informed his friend Oborin in a letter dated 26 September 1925. 'How are your delishki [diminutive of "dela," meaning "affairs, things"] [...], how go things with Shebalishki [Shebalin] and Mishki [Misha Kvadri]?  Forgive the last two phrases — I have recently begun to study rayoshni language.' This typically Russian form of musical satire has its roots in the centuries-old Skomorokhi lampoons. Shastakovich also knew and loved the satirical songs of the 19th-century classics such as Dargomyzhsky's The Worm and Mussorgsky's 'The Seminarist' and 'The Flea.' In Soviet times the most popular form of musical political satire could be found in the 'shastushki', a kind of limerick usually peppered with indecent puns and illusions, and also the kapustnik, a kind of home bred 'review'. Shostakovich's Rayok nevertheless has a direct antecedent in Mussorgsky's work of the same name. Whereas he created a caricature of the enemies of the 'New Russian School' (more commonly known as 'The Mighty Handful'), Shostakovich lampoons the cultural activists who launched the 'struggle with formalism'.

Shortly after the Washington performance Shostakovich's widow produced from the family archive the original manuscript(s) together with some preliminary sketches. They are written in the characteristic purple ink Shostakovich used until the early 1960s, and none of them are dated. The work was performed in the Soviet Union a few months after the Washington premiere in a slightly different version. Later that year an additional excerpt was found, constituting an extended concluding scene (which Venyamin Basner remembers Shostakovich playing to him around 1967.)  There is also disagreement about the time of Rayok's creation. The curator of the Shostakovich archive, Manashir Yakubov. who was responsible for finding all the rough sketches and various manuscript versions of it in the archive, claims that the work was conceived and partly written already in 1948 and that it was completed in two further stages, in 1957, then the late 1960s. This version of events is supported by Izaak Glikman. He alone of Shostakovich's friends claims that the composer played Rayok for him in the summer of 1948 from a rough sketch written on a single sheet of paper. Vissarion Shebalin's widow remembers Shostakovich playing it at their Moscow flat 'sometime in the 1950s', in any case after Shebalin fell ill. Shebalin's  advice to Shostakovich was to destroy all trace of the work, as 'you could be shot for such things'.
Lebedinsky dates Rayok to the time of the second Union of Composers' Congress, which took place between 28 March and 5 April 1957....

[Cato]

Shebalin's  advice to Shostakovich was to destroy all trace of the work, as 'you could be shot for such things'.

Wow, Bob!

Proof that composing music can be a dangerous, unmutual activity!!!

Thanks for the link!  It is on my list of things to hear!

[Cato]

Wow, Bob!

Proof that composing music can be a dangerous, unmutual activity!!!

Thanks for the link!  It is on my list of things to hear!

I am reminded of Elias Canetti's The Agony of Flies, which is a fascinating collection of one-sentence thoughts, anecdotes short and long, postulations, opinions, and other things.

One of them goes basically like this:

"A word which kills, and which everyone knows, but which no one dares to speak."

Imagine: Music that murders!   

(Why an I suddenly thinking of Alanis Morissette ?     )