[2/11/2011] Preview: What did it take to get a string quartet banned in Soviet Russia? Meet Shostakovich's 4th (continued)

In 1956 the Borodin Quartet traveled to the Moldavian SSR for a "new music" festival. "Festivals of Russian music in the Soviet republics," Borodin first violinist Rostislav Dubinsky (1923-1997) wrote in his 1989 memoir Stormy Applause: Making Music in a Worker's State, "were meant to cover up the destruction in Soviet music caused by the Party and the government in 1948. The musical depression which ensued was passed off by obedient propagandists as the flowering of music."

For its "official concert" in Moldavia, the Borodin played "what was recommended to us: something we didn't believe in ourselves and which could not give any pleasure to the listeners." But there was totally unexpected compensation: The quartet was allowed to play Shostakovich's still-banned Fourth Quartet on the second half of the program.

In contrast to the toothless and anemic music, each note of Shostakovich spread through the hall like a voice crying out in the wilderness. The big concert hall, filled with the Moldavian Party elite, of course, was that very wilderness, but the first row was occupied by leading Moscow composers, with Shostakovich himself in the center.

Sitting in front, he probably thought no one could see him, and his face unwittingly reflected what he had wanted to say with his music. But I saw his face: the contorted mouth and the eyes of a pursued, wounded animal. His face was the strongest impression I remember of the whole festival, a sharp contrast to the officially lacquered lie with which the authorities covered their crimes.

Twice in his life -- in 1936 and in 1948 -- Shostakovich had suffered a "civil execution." Stones flew through his windows, accompanied by shouts of "Formalist," "Traitor," "Trotskyite," and even "American spy." The natural end of this "ideological" campaign should have been physical execution, but by some miracle that didn't happen. The expectation of violent death, however, became the main theme in Shostakovich's music and was stamped forever on his face.

We played the Fourth Quartet with this subtext of life and death. We were in no danger: the music was officially permitted, and the notes, after all, were only innocent sounds, all sorts of F-sharps and B-flats. Even Mozart and Beethoven played with them! Notes are not words, not yet -- even in the U.S.S.R.! But playing now to Shostakovich about Shostakovich, we felt we were not obedient Soviet court musicians but fearless unmaskers of evil and hypocrisy. It's easy to be brave when there's no menace, but what kind of courage must it take when you risk your life for the truth!

The final pianissimo, like a last sigh, flew off into the hall and returned to us as a barely audible echo. We tried to prolong the silence, but the audience interfered. Destroying the fragile world of brief truth, uncertain applause broke out in the hall. We rose slowly, bowed very low to Shostakovich, and left the stage. The applause died out without gaining strength.

"Well, to hell with all of you," swore [Borodin Quartet cellist Valentin] Berlinsky softly.

"I agree," I answered. "To understand that music, they'd have to forget about their Party card for half an hour."

Here's the recording the Borodin eventually made of the piece.

SHOSTAKOVICH: String Quartet No. 4 in D, Op. 83

i. Allegretto
ii. Andantino
iii. Scherzo: Allegretto [without pause -- ]
iv. Allegretto

Borodin Quartet (Rostislav Dubinsky and Yaroslav Alexandrov, violins; Dmitri Shebalin, viola; Valentin Berlinsky, cello). Melodiya/Chandos, recorded in the early '60s


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW

Still to come on this extraordinary night in 1956: what happened after the "official concert" -- as we prepare for Sunday's preview of the completion of the St. Petersburg Quartet's New York Shostakovich cycle-with-Beethoven quartets next weekend at Bargemusic.


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