Shostakovich Quartet No.9 in E Flat Major Op.117 [May 1964]

The composer is sitting at his desk with his feet up.

LIGHTING SUGGESTS PERHAPS A GREATER SENSE OF RELATIVE CALM

Time and again I was told to produce

Music that everyone could understand

So I gradually developed

Under considerable duress

The ability to knock off

Easily digestible airs and themes

For every occasion and program

I scored music for an asinine tribute

To the great Michurin

scientific hero

of the great inept T. D. Lysenko,

whose hackneyed theories

of inherited characteristics

resulted in crop failure

widespread famine

and cannibalism!

One day Stalin decided he liked Lysenko.

Lysenko in turn helped in his own way to decimate the Ukraine

And ultimately he saw to it that competent botanists

were removed from their positions and even sent to Gulag.

He makes a wry face and smiles in a sickly manner.

Oh dear! Did I say Gulag?

Terribly sorry!

Let’s get on with this

and I’ll keep a civil tongue in my head.

A cigarette is withdrawn from the pack, the cardboard tube is momentarily clamped between his teeth but then he removes it and uses it, unlit, as a gestural implement.

Remember how annoyed they were

at my sixth and ninth symphonies?

When it came time for the twelfth

I followed instructions precisely:

You want something simple and

easy to follow without thinking?

Here! We’ll say it’s about….Lenin!

It’s a cartoon about Lenin!

A picture of a picture of a symphony

Assembled according to government specifications

I am very practiced at this sort of charade.

For years in order to get by I wrote easily

understood variations on superficiality

for movies and stage productions

At night I’d write my string quartets

or other formalistic digressions.

He pronounces those last two words almost as if he were Boris Karloff.

Having survived for some unaccountable reason

It is from here that I can see my way to what

might be called an absolute vantage point

I have not resolved anything

but simply stand on the other extremity

of a very wide and somewhat dangerous

region of nervous combustion

LIGHTS INTENSIFY

Angst

It is never too late to hold one’s heart to the light

and shake out the fear point by point

See how I squeeze my heart

as it was compressed

by the state

He pushes back his chair, stands and begins to pace the room, a bit more slowly than before in a manner which suggests habit rather than imminent necessity.

I will never submit entirely.

But neither can I exist without

Some measure of caution and compromise.

At times in their eyes I am awkward

Those who are younger or who live elsewhere

Having not the context for pain and paranoia

I cannot offer completely rational explanations

For my every action, particularly when they

Place documents in front of me—I sign their

Shit and sometimes read it aloud in public

Do you have any idea of what that does

To my heart?

And brain?

LIGHTS HAVE BECOME REDDER

I have these people

Pulling at the strings

Abruptly

So it’s written it into the score that way

The composer picks up a postcard and examines it, then displays it to the audience.

In “The Lion Hunt” by Peter Paul Rubens

I know that they cannot kill the animal.

Instead the lion eats the horses and the men.

In fact the lion eats the painter - and the spectators.

He sets the postcard down and adjusts his spectacles.

Gazing sternly at the audience:

This is Shostakovich speaking

My quartet is quoting Rossini—William Tell—ever so slightly

Do you understand me yet?

Hear my voice.

Tapping the folder containing sheet music

Inside of the score, here, where it lasts.

BLACKOUT

© arwulf arwulf 2015