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A
Bitter Music Harlow
Robinson
Born in czarist St. Petersburg on the eve of the Russian Revolution and pushed by fate to the ramparts of history, Shostakovich witnessed many of the defining events of the 20th century: Lenin's rise, Stalin's terror, Hitler's invasion of Russia, the cold war, Khrushchev's aborted thaw, Brezhnev's era of stagnation. Even more important, he wrote these experiences into his music, an abstract and evanescent medium that invites subjective responses and widely divergent political and psychological interpretations. As numerous writers, filmmakers and playwrights have already discovered, Shostakovich's strenuous, contradictory and very public career contains no less dramatic pageantry than ''Dr. Zhivago,'' as much soul-searching as ''The Idiot'' and enough intrigue to rival ''The Spy Who CameIn From the Cold.'' Alas, little of this tumult and conflict comes across in''Shostakovich: A Life,'' Laurel E. Fay's mostly lifeless attempt to produce the definitivebiography of the composer. Insistent on sticking only to the facts and avoiding even a hint of thesometimes fanciful speculation that has characterized much of what has been published andbroadcast about Shostakovich both in Russia and in the West, Fay has squeezed herprovocative subject dry. Cautious, dutiful and choked with details, her book reads more like anextended encyclopedia entry than a biography. Nor do its meticulously gathered piles ofinformation challenge the interpretation presented elsewhere of the composer as acowardly, embittered, Chekhovian figure profoundly uncomfortable with his role as theKremlin's official composer but lacking the moral strength to rebel. A musicologist by training, Fay has been researching themusic and career of Shostakovich for more than 20 years. It shows. Like many scholars whoattempt to write biographies, she seems to have fallen so deeply in love with her research thatshe became incapable of distinguishing between the trivial and the essential. (Only287 of the book's 458 pages are text; the remainder are devoted to notes, an index, aglossary, a list of works and an admirably definitive bibliography.) True, Fay was givenaccess in Russia to archival collections opened since glasnost, but her exhaustiveexamination of all the available documents has failed to uncover any startling revelations.She does excel, however, at rectifying mistakes about dates and chronology. While somemay find her precision about such matters a useful corrective, the general reader seekinga deeper understanding of Shostakovich's Delphic personality or a vivid sense of theoften cosmically tragic times in which he lived may well be left frustrated. Reading''Shostakovich'' is a bit like hearing only the second violin part of an epic symphony. Something isdefinitely missing. In her introduction, Fay expresses distrust of the''treacherous resource'' of the many interviews and memoirs offering personal reminiscences ofShostakovich that have appeared in recent years. Such caution is understandable and evencommendable in a work of pure scholarship. But facts alone do not a biography make,especially in the case of a creative artist so encrusted in myth. For the last two decades, theShostakovich legend has been propelled by the contents of a highly publicized volume,published in 1979, called ''Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as Related toand Edited by Solomon Volkov.'' Based on what Volkov maintains were interviews heconducted with the composer during his last infirm and often inebriated years,''Testimony'' paints a harrowing picture of a bitter man profoundly alienated from the Soviet system thatalternately punished and rewarded him. This image of a ''closet dissident'' led manyto rethink the prevailing view of Shostakovich as a loyal and obedient Soviet artist. Almost immediately, some reviewers questioned the memoir'sauthenticity. The most aggressive of these was Fay, who charged that Volkov hadmisrepresented his sources. Even today, the controversy over authenticity and authorshipcontinues to rage, with plenty of indignant feelings on both sides. Meanwhile, ''Testimony''has become a basic text in Shostakovich studies and its contents have been accepted bymany musicians and scholars. In ''Shostakovich,'' Fay retreats a bit from her earlierposition on
''Testimony,'' admitting that ''there can be little doubt that it was
a major factorin 'cracking the facade' of Shostakovich's public image
and that it helped toreinvigorate interest in Shostakovich's music.''
Even more important, her characterization ofShostakovich -- which draws
heavily on letters published in Russia since the appearance of''Testimony,''
especially those to Isaak Glikman -- generally conforms with that in
Volkov'sbook. In Fay's portrait, the composer seems somewhat more courteous
but no less cynicalabout the elaborate cat-and-mouse game he was forced
to play with severalgenerations of Soviet bureaucrats. Those who have
wanted to idealize Shostakovich's behavior maybe dismayed by what she
describes as his ''apparently unresisting acquiescence tomanipulation
by the party and Just how Shostakovich dealt with the cultural commissarswould interest
us not at all, of course, if he hadn't written so much brilliant and
enduringmusic. Sad to say, ''Shostakovich'' disappoints most keenly
in its discussion ofthis aspect of its subject's life. Dates of composition,
dates of premieres and quotations fromreviews flow by in a constant
and impressive stream, but the ability to analyze,contextualize or convey
the mysterious essence of this miraculous and disturbing music apparentlylies
beyond Fay's descriptive powers. In a 1980 article in the journal Russian
Review thatquestions the authenticity of ''Testimony,'' she suggests
that the memoirs are at least inpart a product of ''Volkov's fertile
imagination.'' On the basis of ''Shostakovich: ALife,'' no one can accuse
Laurel E. Fay of having an imagination, fertile or otherwise.
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