The Shostakovich String Quartets in Historical Context
I.
Although he was born in the waning years of Tsarist Russia, Shostakovich’s life and creative years were lived under the Communist rule of the Soviet Union. Following the second revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks came to power. Their government system became “Communism.”
The major defining feature of the Communist ideology was its idealism: an utter conviction that its policies would inevitably lead to a utopian society. The word “utopia” originated from the title of a book written by the renaissance humanist and Lord Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). His book Utopia, published in 1517, describes an ideal society in which property is owned by the community rather than individuals. In his own words,
“I’m quite convinced that you’ll never get a fair distribution of goods, or a satisfactory organization of human life, until you abolish private property altogether. So long as it exists, the vast majority of the human race will go on labouring under a burden of poverty, hardship, and worry.”
It was this belief of heralding the beginning of a new age for human society that explains Communism’s attraction to intellectuals on both sides of the “Iron Curtain.”
The German Karl Marx (1818-1883), the founder of modern communism, arrived at a similar conclusion based on his historical analysis of economic classes (the book is called Das Kapital), which convinced him of what he regarded as a fundamental truth: the owners of the means of production (capital) exploited labor which had no ownership. His theory argued that the increase of value in a product, because of laborers, was kept by the owners of production. He argued that the means of production should therefore be owned by the workers, thru the agency of the state. Such a situation could only be accomplished by revolution, fomented by the workers. The declared goal of a fully egalitarian, classless society was its ultimate justification: fairness in allocation of goods..
In practice, the Russian state after the revolution and the deposition of the Tsar became authoritarian, with all political power being held by a relatively small group, the Central Communist Party. After discussion of a significant issue at various levels, once a decision has been taken by a higher Party body, all debate ceased and the policy decided upon was to be implemented in society.
A basic tenet of state Communism banned any capitalistic ownership of the means of production. Instead, production would only be permitted under state ownership. The economic structures of a Communist society were highly managed. Communist states would have command economies, rather than market ones. This meant that what was to be produced, as to both quantity and selling price, was subject to central decisions. They were not to be the result of interactions between individual consumers and producers in a free market. Everyone would be employed according to a central plan and it was the wishes of the planners that were paramount, not those of potential customers. These features acted against individual freedom.
The cumulative result of these distinguishing features was to produce a society where, in the absence of private production, only the state could offer a career. There was simply no other alternative to the state-controlled economy. All possibilities to actively participate in society were under the control of the Party. To run afoul of their ideology by uttering any kind of public dissent could be at best career destroying, at worst life threatening.
But what did this have to do with music?
In a society in which was assigned to workers and farmers, the importance of artists and other members of the intelligentsia was secondary. Their role was not so vital to the functioning of society that they were required to become Party members. Nevertheless, their artistic creations were expected to support the ideology, in particular its ideals and its sense of progress and struggle which was required to achieve a utopia.
What this came to mean was that art should conform to the tenets of 'Socialist Realism'. The doctrine of 'Socialist Realism' was introduced in 1936 as the only musical style acceptable to the Soviet Communist Party.
Unfortunately, simple definitions of Socialist Realism don’t clarify what the censors wanted.
The concept was based on the writings of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), whose idea of history included the concept that human society was in a trajectory of the evolution of human freedom. Marx provided a materialistic (economic) interpretation of this process. He postulated that every stage of cultural (societal) development would produce its own specific form of art. Since a work of art was produced within a society by a member of the society, it would reflect the values of that society.
Given these beliefs, it was natural to expect that the Russian Revolution would produce a society whose art would be substantially different from the Bourgeoise society that it had overthrown. What form would that art take?
Following the revolutions of 1917, the Bolshevik leadership began to consider how art associated with post-revolutionary Russia would be defined. In Europe, music was known as a privilege of the ruling class – it required financial resources and a significant amount of leisure time (away from working). Think of J. S. Bach’s career in service to various German nobles. Gradually, as the bourgeois class emerged, music production and consumption evolved toward today’s market model supported by the sale of concert tickets.
More practical matters pressing on the leadership pushed these deliberations back until the Fall of 1932 (fifteen years after the Revolution). Eventually, the party leadership considered the issue of art in Soviet Russia. During those fifteen years between the Revolution and the “Socialist Realism,” Shostakovich was living, growing, and … composing. After all, he was a composer! He was composing during this period before the new “rules” were established. Those rules were written by men who were not composers – men whose knowledge of music was limited. They developed the concepts of revolutionary music, but how to implement them in writing new music?
Socialist Realism wanted a new Soviet music that transcended the traditions of the past but was free of bourgeois elements. Soviet Russia failed to achieve this goal. In practice its music tolerated restricted modifications to classicism and conservative harmony: any perceived excess justified brutal suppression.
Shostakovich was a strong supporter of Soviet Communism and of the goals of the socialist revolution. He worked very hard to produce music that met with the approval of the Soviet administration. But his genius led him to run afoul of the regime.
Until January of 1936 things had gone well for him. He had rocketed to fame with his first symphony at age of 19, and had produced two further symphonies, two operas and music for the ballet. His works for the musical stage were clownishly grotesque – and successful. But with “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District,” Shostakovich reverted to a more traditional Russian theme – the tragic. His opera was biting, sordid and highly ambitious, as well as a great success. Quoting Shostakovich: “I want to write a Soviet ‘Ring of the Nibelungen’ – an operatic tetralogy about women culminating in an opera around the heroine of the People’s Will Movement.”
The opera was based on a novella published in 1865 – in Russia of course. By the beginning of 1936, the opera “Lady Macbeth…” had been running for two years in both Leningrad and in Moscow; it had also been performed in New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Buenos Aires, Zurich, Prague and Stockholm.
On 26 January 1936, Stalin, Molotov, Mikoyan and Zhdanov (of the Party leadership) attended a performance of the opera in Moscow. They left before the final act. Two days later, the major newspaper carried a critical article, unsigned, that condemned the opera in ferocious terms. For example: “Everything is gross, primitive and vulgar.” Further attacks and condemnation ensued.
The opera ends without a sense of optimism. A Leningrad musician, Vladimir Iokhelson, later said: “Socialist realism is above all a style of profound optimism. The whole historical experience of the proletariat is optimistic in essence.”
A week later, another review pilloried his new ballet, “The Limpid Stream.”
Performances of Shostakovich’s recent works, both the opera and the ballet, were immediately cancelled. The composer made no effort at public defense. He spent the next two years working on new symphonies; the Fifth which he called ‘a Soviet artist’s practical creative reply to justified criticism” was performed in Leningrad on 21 November 1937; it received a standing ovation. Shostakovich lived in contrast and abject fear, unable to write or speak freely. Denunciations recurred in 1948 and 1962, with publication of his Thirteenth Symphony, which included a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko about the German massacre of 33,771 Jews at Babi Yar, a ravine in Kiev, in one weekend in 1941.
Shostakovich began to write his string quartets after the rejection of his opera “Lady Macbeth.” His earliest quartets tend to be symphonic in concept, with the late quartets becoming more personal. The first quartet was composed after the fifth Symphony. Thus, the young Socialist Revolutionary who labored over his early Symphonies was not represented in the medium of the string quartet. We can content ourselves with knowing that all the quartets date from his real maturity, not with experimentation.
Within the idioms of modern music composition, Shostakovich expresses his dramatic instinct in various movements of his string quartets. He wrote these for his friends and himself, not for the world stage or the Soviet music world. Post-War bitterness finds expression, along with “all that is beautiful.” He employs his powers of melodic invention along with wit and good humor. One could almost say that Shostakovich retreated to the personal world of his string quartets in reaction to huge attacks on his public compositions by Soviet authorities.
After the death of his first wife, Nina Vasilyevna, Shostakovich wrote Quartet Number 7 in her memory. From that point, a gradual withdrawal into himself resulted in music which became increasingly introspective.
Whereas the Soviet powers required his symphonic music “on the world stage” to adhere to the strictures of official limits, the authorities paid much less attention to chamber music.
Much of this essay is based on information found at:
http://www.quartets.de/ by Stephen Harris. Jan. 2021
and
The Fifteen Quartets: Analysis and Commentary by Alan George. www.maramarietta.com/the-arts/music/classical/shostakovich/
Violist Alan George is a founding member of the Fitzwilliam Quartet.