St Petersburg полностью

Shostakovich’s anxieties were unfounded: the premiere and subsequent performances drew tears from listeners. But even this fact was used by the Soviet propaganda machine. The Seventh Symphony was a real find for them: it was a work of world-class stature, expressing tragedy and pathos. It truly moved audiences but, like any symphony, it was subject to the most general interpretations. A spate of ecstatic reviews followed the premiere, and on April 11, Pravda published the decree bestowing the country’s highest cultural award, the Stalin Prize first class, on Shostakovich.

Stalin put great store by propaganda aimed at Britain and America, his allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. The Seventh Symphony fit his plans beautifully. Shostakovich’s name had been known in the West before the war, but news of the Seventh, which spread quickly in the British and American press, made him particularly popular. Curious details surrounded the work, written up by Western correspondents languishing in Kuibyshev, who were permitted neither in Moscow nor at the front lines.

For instance, a photo taken earlier in besieged Leningrad appeared in publications around the world, depicting Shostakovich, in full fire-fighting uniform and helmet, “putting out a fire” on the Conservatory roof. Later a Shostakovich friend admitted,

Of course, it was a stage show of sorts. The brass fireman’s helmet was becoming to Shostakovich’s antique features. And he looked amazingly effective in the photograph in his uniform and holding a nozzle. Later we ran into each other, and I reminded Shostakovich of that photo. He merely lowered his eyes in response.136

But in Britain and America, where people were eager to learn more about their unexpected mysterious Soviet allies, the clever propaganda photo was met with delight. The image of Shostakovich in the golden fire helmet against a background of burning buildings appeared on the cover of Time magazine, captioned “Fireman Shostakovich” and subtitled “Amid bombs bursting in Leningrad he heard the chords of victory.” The magazine wrote about the coming U.S. premiere of the Seventh Symphony: “Not since the first Manhattan performances of Parsifal (in 1903) had there been such a buzz of American anticipation over a piece of music.”137

In addition to the dramatic story of the symphony’s creation, Time rehashed the excitement of getting the microfilmed score to the United States—by plane from Kuibyshev to Teheran, by car from Teheran to Cairo, by plane from Cairo to New York—and the sensational battle of the most famous conductors for the right to premiere the symphony for American audiences. Millions of Americans heard the broadcast from New York’s Radio City played by the NBC Orchestra, under Arturo Toscanini. After that the concert premiere of the work was done by Serge Koussevitzky, the director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who announced,

It is my deepest feeling that there never has been a composer since Beethoven with such tremendous appeal to the masses. No one since Beethoven has had the esthetic sense, the approach to musical material that Shostakovich has. He is the greatest master of musical wealth; he is the master of what he desires to do; he has melody without end; his language is as rich as the world; his emotion is absolutely universal.138

During the 1942-1943 season the symphony was played more than sixty times in the United States—unprecedented success for a modern work of classical music lasting over an hour. Often those performances were turned into demonstrations of support for the Soviet war effort and of sympathy for besieged Leningrad. Shostakovich’s contemporaries in the music world were nonplussed. Virgil Thomson, expressing the opinion of many American musicians, wrote condescendingly that if Shostakovich were to continue composing in the same manner, it “may eventually disqualify him for consideration as a serious composer.”

The usually restrained Bela Bartok, who was living in New York City at that time, was so incensed that he vented his anger by including a parody of the “invasion” theme from the Seventh Symphony in his Concerto for Orchestra. Bartok bitterly told a friend about his disappointment in the huge success of a work that he felt did not deserve it in the least.139 Stravinsky privately expressed similar feelings while enthusiastically supporting the Russian War Relief and hailing any news of the successes of the Red Army that he had earlier hated.140