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Letter
to Gramophone Ian
MacDonald
In his review of the St Petersburg Quartet's recording of Shostakovich's Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth quartets (March, p. 76), David Gutman refers, as if scornfully, to "revisionist orthodoxy" concerning the Eighth Quartet, i.e., that it is "not so much a memorial to the victims of totalitarianism (sic) and war, as an anti-Communist tract-cum-suicide note". Readers should be aware that this prejudicially presented "orthodoxy" stems from statements made by Shostakovich himself, by his son Maxim, and by his colleagues Isaak Glikman, Lev Lebedinsky, and Rostislav Dubinsky (see Allan Ho and Dmitry Feofanov, "Shostakovich Reconsidered", pp. 160-4). As such, this view is shared by the curator of the Shostakovich Archive in Russia, Manashir Yakubov (concert notes to the LSO's 1998 Shostakovich seasons, pp. 60-62), by Elizabeth Wilson ("Shostakovich: A Life Remembered", pp. 336-41), and even by arch anti-revisionist Richard Taruskin ("Defining Russia Musically", pp. 493-5). If David Gutman has an argument against all this, perhaps he would care to let us in on it? As for his general posture of superior knowledge about Shostakovich and the ethos he worked in, Mr Gutman might also care to explain why, in approving Robert Matthew- Walker's "serious-minded booklet", he failed to notice the wild historical howlers these sleevenotes contain. Matthew-Walker writes: "Soon after the end of World War II, Stalin chose Marshal Zhdanov, a famous war-time soldier, to outline the Party demands... In September 1946, Marshal Zhdanov censured two of the best living Russian writers -- Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova. He then attacked modern Russian film and drama and some months later criticised G. F. Alexandrov, whose *History of Western Philosophy* was much admired..." The figure of "Marshal Zhdanov" is imaginary. Matthew-Walker is confusing Marshal Georgiy Zhukov with Andrei Zhdanov -- rather like mixing up General MacArthur and Senator McCarthy. As for the "philosopher" G. F. Alexandrov, he was a notorious quasi-Nazi apparatchik who vied for power with Zhdanov during the 1940s; hence the attack on his book, which was much admired by no one but his own sordid clique of fellow anti-Semites. Alexandrov is the sort of shady character familiar only to those who take an interest in the Soviet background. Andrei Zhdanov, on the other hand, is a central figure in the Shostakovich story. If David Gutman, like Robert Matthew-Walker, imagines that this political hatchet-man was "a famous war-time soldier", he should perhaps do some background reading before he next passes ex cathedra comment on matters relating to Shostakovich's life and work. Hyperion Records, too, might care to vet their sleevenotes more closely: Matthew-Walker's "serious- minded" booklet contains two more factual inaccuracies and the barely believable claim that "From time to time during Shostakovich's life, the totalitarian Communist rule in Russia impinged directly upon his work..." Impinged?? From time to time?? Good grief. Ian MacDonald Excerpt from the Gramophone review in question: Gramophone
In similar vein (not mentioned by MacDonald) is Gutman's review of the Emerson Quartet cycle on DG:
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