Perhaps more than that of any great composer, Dmitri Shostakovich's music is inseparable from the ideology of his time and country. And much can be learned about the composer and what went into the works from what he – and his contemporaries – said while he was composing them. We have compiled 11 quotes that give more than a hint as to how Shostakovich's music wasn't always what it seemed…
Memorable Shostakovich quotes
1. On the beauty of music
‘A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo, with or without rhythmic nuances, and it will still be great music. That's how music should be written, so that no-one, no matter how philistine, can ruin it.’ – in a letter to Isaac Glikman, 1955
2. On laughter in music
‘What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in ‘‘serious’’ music.’ – Sovetskoye, 1934
3. On despair
‘When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.’ – from Testimony, Solomon Vokov's book of Shostakovich's memoirs
4. On a pleasing finish
‘I finished the Fifth Symphony in the major and fortissimo… It would be interesting to know what would have been said if I finished it pianissimo and in the minor?’ – 1936 (alluding to the Fourth Symphony, which does just that)
5. On the need to compose
‘If they cut off both of my hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.’ – another letter to Isaak Glikman, 1936
6. On creativity
'A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.'
7. On his homeland
'I think it is clear to everyone what happens in Russia. We are afraid of everything. We are afraid of the past, we are afraid of the present, we are afraid of the future.'
8. On his livelihood
'I have written serious music, and music that has meaning. But I have also written music in order to have food on my plate.'
9. On Stalin
'There will be music dedicated to Stalin, and there will be music about Stalin. But I am for the latter.'
10. On his first mature opera, The Nose
‘I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.’ – 1930
11. On ideology
‘There can be no music without ideology. The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a political theory. Most of them, of course, were bolstering the rule of the upper classes. Only Beethoven was a forerunner of the revolutionary movement. If you read his letters, you will see how often he wrote to his friends that he wished to give new ideas to the public and rouse it to revolt against its masters.’ – New York Times, 1931
12. Some unusual instructions for his Violin Sonata
‘Play it so that flies drop dead in mid-air, and the audience start leaving the hall from sheer boredom.’ – Said to the first performers of his Violin Sonata during rehearsals, September 1974
What others said about Shostakovich
'Shostakovich lived in constant fear. His music is his diary, written in code.” – Solomon Volkov, author of Testimony
'Shostakovich was able to tell the truth through music when it was impossible to tell it in words.” – Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov
Rostropovich on Shostakovich
'He was the conscience of Soviet music.' – cellist and longtime friend and collaborator Mstislav Rostropovich
'He was a man who wore many masks. But his music—his music was the truth.” – violinist Rostislav Dubinsky
'Shostakovich’s symphonies are monuments to human suffering and survival.' – music writer Alex Ross
'His quartets are like secret letters, hidden messages from an artist trapped in tyranny.” – author Julian Barnes
'In his music, Shostakovich buried history for those who would one day listen.' – musicologist and critic Richard Taruskin
Critic Daniil Zhitomirsky on Shostakovich
‘Who should dare hint that Shostakovich does not share the general delight in our victory over Hitler? His Symphony does not reflect this triumphal, fanfare-like reality, but the opposite. It has … integrity in the face of monstrous evil, sorrow and anger.’ – 1943 (on Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8)
Pierre Boulez... not a fan
‘Shostakovich plays with clichés most of the time, I find. It's like olive oil, when you have a second and even third pressing, and I think of Shostakovich as the second, or even third, pressing of Mahler.’ –composer and conductor Pierre Boulez on Shostakovich
Conductor Nicolas Slonimsky on Shostakovich
'Not since the time of Berlioz has a symphonic composer created such a stir. In far-away America, great conductors vie with each other for the jus primae noctis of his music. The score of his Seventh Symphony, the symphony of struggle and victory, has been reduced to a roll of microfilm and flown half-way across the world ... to speed the day of the American premiere. How the old romantics would have loved to be the center of such a fantastic adventure!' – The Music Quarterly, 1942
Illustration: Risko