[2/12/2011] Preview: Remembering an impromptu encore performance of the Shostakovich 4th String Quartet (continued)

Only the first 13 Shostakovich quartets had been available to the original Borodin Quartet at the time first violinist Rostislav Dubinsky emigrated from the Soviet Union to the U.S., in 1975.


WE HAVE THE DINNER GUESTS IN THE HOTEL
RESTAURANT FOR THEIR POST-CONCERT DO

Not surprisingly for a gathering of Russians (and other Soviets), there was a lot of drinking -- a lot of drinking. The gathering was interrupted by the reappearance of an unsavory leather-jacketed man who had earlier been thrown out of the restaurant.

He came up to the table, looked everyone over, as if deciding whom to address, stopped at Shostakovich, and drawled, with a Ukrainian accent, "Russian people! Would you let me sit with you a little at the same table?"

The waiters looked into the room, ready to throw him out at the first sign from us.

"Of course, of course," said Shostakovich hurriedly. "Sit down with us at the same, so to speak, table."

The man was offered a chair and a glass of wine.

"Thank you for not scorning an ordinary man," he said, and raised his glass in the air. "To the Russian people!" he shouted, draining his glass in one breath and looking around triumphantly.

Conversation at the table had stopped. Our guest evidently felt that he had impressed the "Russian people," because he reached for the bottle, poured for himself, and suddenly, imitating a Jewish accent, began in an unpleasant voice, "Abram! What front did you fight on? The Tashkent line? And how much did your medals cost? And how much did you sell them for?"

"What filth!" Shostakovich shuddered. He reached for the vodka bottle. Seizing it and pouring with trembling hands, he spilled vodka on the tablecloth.

There was a heavy silence around the table. How often, in the presence of rudeness, cultured people are petrified! [Composer Nikolai] Peyko [the person who had invited the quartet out to post-concert dinner], however, marched right up to the man, who stood up, sensing no good. Next to him, the skinny Peyko seemed like a little boy. Looking the intruder in the face, Peyko said very distinctly, "You, it turns out, are shit!"

The man gasped in surprise. "What?"

"Shit!" Peyko repeated firmly. "We welcomed you to the table as a man, and you . . . Get out!" he shouted.

In Dubinsky's telling it took five waiters to drag the man out of the restaurant.

I glanced around carefully. Not counting Berlinsky [who, for the record, was half-Jewish], I was probably the only Jew at the table! But around me were the kind of Russians who, at the least hint of anti-Semitism, are mortally offended, both for the Russian nation and for Russian culture.

Everything was quiet. People were trying not to look at one another. I felt there was a way to save the evening and, without thinking, I said, "What if we bring our instruments and play Dmitri Dmitrievich's quartet one more time?"

Everyone spoke together.

"Please do . . ."

"A wonderful idea!"

"What do you think, Dmitri Dmitrievich?"

"Well, why not? Go on, of course, very good . . . Let's play it once more . . . "

"I can't play," said [cellist Valentin] Berlinsky. "I'm drunk."

"That doesn't matter," answered Shostakovich. "That's, you know, even better . . . "

"I'm drunk, too," said [violist Dmitri] Shebalin. "But I'm a sportsman!"

"Bravo, bravo!"

Dubinsky asks "Nikolai Ivanovich" Peyko, the composer who first proposed dining with the Borodin members, to help him fetch their instruments "while my colleagues have one more drink for courage." But second violinist Yaroslav Alexandrov, with whom Dubinsky had the most difficult relationship of his quartet colleagues, intervened, offering to come with Dubinsky instead of Peyko. He wasn't really trying to be helpful.

We left the restaurant and headed for the elevator.

"Let's take the stairs," suggested Alexandrov. "I want to tell you something."

We climbed up one flight.

"Well, I could refuse to play now," he began uncertainly.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't have the right to propose a concert without the agreement of the whole quartet."

"You saw the situation, and Shostakovich's face, when that thug . . ."

"True. There was no time to discuss it, so you shouldn't have suggested anything."

"Everyone was so glad."

"That's their business. But I've warned you. Today I'll play, but it's the last time. Remember!"

"I will," I said.

We each took two instruments and two music stands and headed downstairs without speaking. Four chairs were already waiting for us in a corner of the room. I opened my case, got out the violin, checked the tuning . . . And suddenly I felt an unusual lightness and freedom in both hands. What was it? Surely not a glass or two of wine? If so, then such a creative path threatened to become extremely dangerous.

And the quartet prepared to play. We're going to hear the individual movements played both by the Borodin (the same performance we heard last night) and by the St. Petersburg Quartet.

I looked at my colleagues. Alexandrov was tensely tuning his instrument and probably cursing me. Shebalin and Berlinsky had clearly drunk to excess, and it showed. The former wisely did not try to tune his instrument, but repeated that he was a "sportsman," while the latter's hands were visibly uncoordinated. He tried his solo from the second movement, and at one point his fingers turned up on one string while his bow was on another. He laughed and turned to Shostakovich.

"Dmitri Dmitrievich, forgive me if something is not just so . . ."

"Everything will be 'so,' don't worry, everything will be 'so' . . ."

SHOSTAKOVICH: Quartet No. 4 in D, Op. 83:
i. Allegretto
Borodin QuartetSt. Petersburg Quartet

We began to play. In the first movement there were problems. Someone was always late, and it proved impossible to lead the quartet; instead, it was led by whoever played the slowest.

SHOSTAKOVICH: Quartet No. 4 in D, Op. 83:
ii. Andantino
Borodin QuartetSt. Petersburg Quartet

The second movement went better. A peculiar, drunkenly rhythmical balance, from which it was dangerous to diverge, had settled in the music. We played fairly successfully up to the recapitulation, where the initial melancholy melody reappeared. Several voices began to sing along with us. . .

It really means something if people sing Shostakovich's music!

SHOSTAKOVICH: Quartet No. 4 in D, Op. 83:
iii. Scherzo: Allegretto
Borodin QuartetSt. Petersburg Quartet

They sang along again in the scherzo, which we played in the manner of a street gang's song. With the discordant voices there appeared a particular musical effect, which would be impossible to write into a quartet score. This seemed to please Shostakovich, because he also started singing . . .

This was unexpected and even frightening. I never heard Shostakovich sing before or after that evening.

SHOSTAKOVICH: Quartet No. 4 in D, Op. 83:
iv. Allegretto
Borodin QuartetSt. Petersburg Quartet

Gradually the quartet got used to the drunkenness, and by the "Jewish" finale we were all playing confidently. After the incident with the man in the black leather jacket, it rang out in a somewhat different key.

There was neither applause nor praise, only the long silence that is so necessary after such music, until at last Peyko said, "We have to drink. And right away!"

Around the table people stirred; there was the sound of pouring liquid and the clink of glasses.

I put my violin in its case and furtively watched our vice minister. I saw his frozen stare and his forehead covered with sweat. It was clearer than ever, to him and to all of us, why this music had been banned, and not very understandable why they had suddenly permitted it. Schepalin rose decisively from the table. "Dmitri Dmitrievich," he said to Shostakovich, "it's already late, and tomorrow we have an important meeting early in the morning. I think it's time we got some rest."

"Yes, yes, it's already late and time to go, time to go," Shostakovich hurriedly repeated, also standing up. "My gratitude to the quartet. It's time for us . . . And the quartet . . . Thanks very much. You see, it's late already, and early tomorrow morning . . . "

Schepalin headed for the door, and Shostakovich hastened after him.

"We still have to drink," said Peyko, and in a sort of frenzy added, "To Shostakovich!"

Nothing better could be suggested now. We all raised our glasses and held them in the air, until the mystical link between Shostakovich and the wine became tangible . . .

THE COMPLETE SHOSTAKOVICH FOURTH QUARTET

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

i. Allegretto
ii. Andantino
iii. Scherzo: Allegretto . . . iv. Allegretto

Borodin Quaret (Rostislav Dubinsky and Yaroslav Alexandrov, violins; Dmitri Shebalin, viola; Valentin Berlinsky, cello). Melodiya/Chandos, recorded in the early '60s
St. Petersburg Quartet (Alla Aranovskaya and Ilya Teplyakov, violins; Konstantin Kats, viola; Leonid Shukaev, cello). Hyperion, recorded April 1999


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

As promised, we sample Shostakovich's Sixth and 14th Quartets.


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