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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
Much of what follows concerns itself with issues which are inevitably (and properly) extra-musical. But the musical significance of the recently-exhumed and now partially recorded ork by Dmitri Shostakovich which seems to be called (or thought of as) Antiformalisticheski Rayok is worth stressing at the outset. This little cantata ‘for reader, four basses, mixed chorus and piano accompaniment’ could hardly be claimed as one of the Soviet master's major utterances: it is, rather, a particularly bitter and subversive satirical squib – much of its fascination stems from the explicitness and political discomfort of the attack, and the identity of its targets. On the other hand, it is a not unimportant contribution to a specifically Russian tradition of musical satire: it can be seen to be taking its place in – and rendering more intelligible – the development of Shostakovich's personal commitment to that tradition, as he moved from the zany and anarchic grotesquerie of his early film, ballet and theatre scores to the oblique but devastating critique of officialdom and philistinism that underlies such enigmatic pieces as the Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works, op. 123 and his very last song-cycle, the Verses of Captain Lebyadkin, op. 146. Rayok belongs in their company, but is neither oblique nor enigmatic: it represents, in an extreme vitriolic form, an aspect of Shostakovich's musical humour that could only express itself publicly through a protective mask of irony. The vitriol is here undiluted, because Rayok was written with no thought of publication: was indeed unpublishable at the time, and in the political conditions, under which it was conceived.
1 Testimony: The Memoirs of Shostakovich as related to and edited by Volkov, Solomon (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979), preface p. xxxGoogle Scholar. The piece is obliquely referred to in the main text, p. 111, and Volkov's footnote to this reference (p.223) describes it as a ‘satiric vocal work’.
2 Jonathan Deutsch, Eric Halfvarson, Julian Rodescu, Andrew Wentzcl (basses). Members of the Choral Arts Society of Washington, directed by Mstislav Rostropovich (piano).
3 Erato ECD 75571. For the Russian-language version Rostropovich directs Nicola Ghiuselev, Nikita Storoyev, Romuald Tesarowicz and Arcadi Volodos (basses), with the Ensemble Vocal Audite Nova.
4 Yuvenalov Bich(‘The Scourge of Juvenal: concerning an unknown composition of D.D. Shostakovich’) by Alexandrov, Andrei. Sovietskaya Kultura, 20 01 1989Google Scholar. As Tempo goes to press an English translation of excerpts from this article has appeared in the January-March 1990 issue of Musk in the USSR, entitled ‘Juvenalian Lash”.
5 On this occasion the work was given in a stage production by Valery Polyansky, who also conducted; the other performers were Dmitri Dorliak (speaker), Igor Khudoley (piano), and the State Chamber Choir of the USSR Ministry of Culture. The bass soloists, presumably members of the choir, are not named either in the programme-book or the libretto that accompanied this performance.
6 A facsimile of the title-page in Shostakovich's handwriting was reproduced as an illustration to the 20 January 1989 Sovyetskaya Kultura article.
7 At fig.33 the music quotes the ever-popular song ‘Kalinka’.
8 The Lezghinka is a popular Georgian folk-dance. Reputedly, the issue which finally damned Muradeli's The Great Friendship in Stalin's eyes (and thus sparked off the anti-formalist campaign) was that, in his ‘Caucasian opera’, the hapless composer had dared to write a Lezghinka of his own rather than using a tune familiar to the Great Leader and Teacher. It should be remembered that to re-ingratiate himself Muradeli joined enthusiasitically in the attack on Shostakovich et al. and made quite a career out of exhibiting himself as a repentant formalist.
9 The Preface has already involved much heavy-handed humour at the expense of Troikin's pronunciation: that great critic, Opostylov, points this out as ‘a major shortcoming of the composition…it is universally known that it should be pronounced Rimsky-KorsaKOV’.
10 ‘Dzerzhinka’: the composer Ivan Dzerehinsky (1909–78) whose Quiet Flows the Don (1935) was loathed by Shostakovich and praised by Stalin as an exemplary socialist opera. ‘Tishinka’: see Editorial footnote on p. 18.
11 It is unlikely that the spatchcocked ending on the Erato disc, where the chorus rounds off with one final couplet of Kalinka (almost its major melodic contribution so far) has manuscript authority.
12 Mussorgsky by Calvocorcssi, M.D. (London: J.M. Dent, 1946), pp. 82–3Google Scholar. Calvocoressi died leaving his book in a halffinished state, and Abraham completed and edited it for publication: much of the chapter on Mussorgsky's songs, including this passage, is his work.
13 For what it is worth, we may note that up to the finale, Rayok's tonic has seemed to be C major. Troikin's first solo (‘Glinka, Tchaikovsky’) is in that key, but for his Kalinka burlesque he goes into E major, and the finale stays in E for most of its length, the coda suddenly diverting to A major-in which the work finishes, rather the expected C. On the other hand, Rayok is hardly the place to look for musical literacy.