Art Must Reflect Reality "Dmitri Shostakovich" Home | Back to contents | Power of music index It has somehow become a habit with us to oppose innovation to tradition. Composers are even sometimes divided into "innovators" and "traditionalists." Yet tradition and innovation are inseparable links of one and the same dialectical process of the development of art, and they must not be divorced from each other. Every form of innovation rests upon the foundation of the best traditions and, vice versa, those traditions which at their very inception contain elements ahead of their own time prove to be most hardy and fertile. Hence it is essential to distinguish between dead and living traditions and between genuine and spurious innovation. Living traditions and genuine innovation are brought together to form one dialectical whole, for both are rooted in contemporary life, depend on the vital needs of life and are determined by the laws of social development. We decidedly stand for innovation, for the search for new forms and for bold experimentation, but the goal must by all means be a more perfect reflection of the new and progressive in our life, which can no longer be expressed in the old way. We must seek for means of expression that are more forceful and striking than the old ones. We must experiment without drifting away from life. We must seek short-cuts to the heart of the people. It is far simpler to concentrate one's energies on sensational novelties, substituting blots for bars of music, ignoring counterpoint and juggling with notes - it does not require much musical inspiration to indulge in such tricks! Each one of us can in a very short time become very adept at such things and stagger our families by the strangest cacophony of sound. But all this had nothing whatever to do with what we mean by true innovation, which is always a concomitant of new artistic concepts and ideas. The confusion of ideas that holds sway in the capitalist world with its undercurrent of despair, fear and overhanging doom, with its absence of positive ideals and clear aims in life, is responsible for the large number of current trends in art, so far removed from the requirements of the people and in their very essence devoid of prospects. To such trends belong dodecaphony, electronic music, "concrete music" and other manifestations of the so-called "avant garde" movement. (This proud name evidently should be understood as the screaming signboard! "Look, we are moving ahead of progress - progress is trailing way behind us!") These utterly individualistic fads and trends are completely cut off from living music as well as from the living pulse of life. They are based on artificially invented "systems." This applies, first and foremost, to dodecaphony: to be able to listen to a dodecaphonic piece one must know the "rules of the game," which have no analogy in either the world of natural sounds or the history of musical art. What is known as "electronic music" is even more hideous and subjective. A piece of music written in the manner of dodecaphonic nonsense is made to undergo a certain cutting operation for a tape-recorder, subjected to the action of various speeds, enhanced by such microphone effects as blasts, splashes, bubbling, snorting, squealing, roaring, etc. The resulting hash is recorded on film, magnified, and fed to the audience. "Concrete music" is extremely primitive. By the way, a collection of the sound-imitating and noise effects of this form of "art" can be used for certain episodes of radio-telefilm with an appropriate subject, or in certain instances for sound effects on the stage: for example, shipwreck, fire, railway accident, earthquake, etc.We cannot be too emphatic in stressing the fact that all these anti-humanistic trends are entirely alien to socialistic realism, as well as to the requirements of Soviet people in general and creative artists in particular. Our music develops on a different basis altogether. To the Soviet composer genuine professional mastery begins with the ability to convincingly and truthfully translate into his medium a definite creative concept and idea. For this purpose he selects the musical material he requires. When his idea is clear he knows what counterpoint he needs and how the orchestral score must be composed in each individual instance. Unfortunately, however, there are composers among us who do not come up to the level of good craftsmen, let alone masters of their own art. Such composers often cannot write an accompaniment to their own songs. There are composers of light music who fail to orchestrate their own fox-trots and waltzes, and operetta composers unable to do a thing without an orchestration specialist, and even writers of operas who hand in scores that are only half done to opera theatres; do what you might! And we are confronted today by a whole set of aesthetic problems directly arising out of the new Party Programme and Rules, in which we find declared the noble moral code of the builder of communism. The heart fills with pride at the thought that a new moral code has come to take the place of the capitalist law of the jungle. According to that new code man is to man a friend, comrade and brother! It is our major task to propagate the great ideas of the communist manifesto of our age - the new Programme of our Party. This must be done with great power of conviction, great ardour, great energy and singleness of purpose. To do this we must learn to understand correctly and to faithfully reflect the essence of the great socialist changes in our land, and must fully realize the fact that the value of our art is determined by the extent to which we are able to truthfully reflect in it our reality. We are happy that our creative work is inspired and guided along the path of serving the people by the glorious Communist Party. It urges us to raise high the banner of socialist realism and creates favorable conditions for the most successful development of artistic culture. Music Journal, Sept 1962.
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