Laurel Fay's 'Shostakovich, A Life'

Laurel Fay's Shostakovich biography, Shostakovich, A Life, came out in 2000, but it's still a really interesting read, as I learned when I checked it out from the library. 

The collisions between politics and music are a recurring theme, and there were some surprises as I went through the book; while there are a few obvious bad guys (such as Stalin) and some unreservedly good people, many (such as Shostakovich himself) veered from accommodation with the regime to acts of decency. (Fay stresses that the composer learned to cooperate with the regime under Stalin, when the price of resistance could mean death or a stint in a labor camp; some of Shostakovich's younger critics came of age when dissidence did not carry a huge price.)

As an example of somebody who changed depending upon the circumstances, consider Moisey Grinberg. who wrote a piece sucking up to Stalin that accused Shostakovich's Piano Quintet, to my ears a fine piece of music, of being too "formalist," i.e. not Socialist Realist enough. Grinberg griped about "stilted, singular new sounds resulting from abstract formal quests ... This is music that does not connect with the life of the people."

My favorite Shostakovich symphony is the Fourth, so when Fay began Chapter 11 by describing how it was finally performed in the Soviet Union in late 1961 (after a 25-year ban), I followed the account carefully. Fay writes, "The idea of resurrecting Shostakovich's 'missing' symphony originated with the [Moscow] Philharmonic's artistic administrator (1)." Because of my strong interest, I turned back to the notes to learn more. And I found out the administrator who pushed for the revival of the Fourth was the same Moisey Grinberg! 

Similarly, Tikhon Khrennikov, a minor composer and the general secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, plays the role of a Stalinist dirtbag for much of the narrative. But when Shostakovich's Lady MacBeth of the Mtensk District was being considered for a possible revival in in 1961 (it had been banned since the infamous "muddle instead of music" editorial in Pravda), Khrennikov played a positive role, making the case to authorities that "continued prohibition of the opera would be extreme awkward," Fay writes. 

There's also quite a bit about two of my favorite composers, Gavriil Popov and Edison Denisov, and their interactions with Shostakovich. Popov was a longtime friend; Shostakovich provided important early help and encouragement to Denisov.