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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
In 1957 the second Congress of Composers of the USSR took place in Moscow. It was as of little significance and just as boring as the previous ones. In the name of the Central Committee of the CPSU we were instructed by Shepilov, a secretary of the Central Committee on questions of ideology. Wishing to 'show off’ his ‘scholarship’, he weighed down his speech with a mountain of great names. In one phrase he combined the names of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, and Rimsky KorSAkov – this was how Shepilov declaimed the name of the composer of The Snow Maiden, making an illiterate howler by misplacing the accent on the A of the middle syllable. Shostakovich, who had been languishing from boredom, immediately revived and even started laughing on hearing this example of ‘scholarship’ in the speech of our instructor. Sitting down next to me, he warned me that as soon as the session was over, we were to go together to his dacha at Bolshevo outside Moscow. During the journey there he spoke of nothing but Shepilov's learned speech.
* These are distortions of the names of Yarustovsky, Ryumin, and Apostylov, who wrote the texts of the party chiefs' speeches on matters concerning music. D.D.S.'s changes give these names completely different, vulgar connotations, i.e. ‘I-shit-ovsky’ to attempt to convey the meaning in English. (Trs).
* Saltykov-Schedrin's influence: As a musical example which confirms this influence I would point to my article on the ‘Choruses on the Words by Revolutionary Poets by D.D. Shostakovich’.