PAR TIS AN R.EVlEW
formance to opera houses, symphony orchestras and touring virtuosos.
Prokofiev, who did not teach nor hold any official post, was
ostracized by the simple means of removiI}g nearly all his works from
the opera and concert repertories. The same measure was applied, of
course, to the other purged composers, but less drastically. Shosta–
kovitch's First and Fifth symphonies, Miaskovsky's Symphony on
White-Russian Themes, Katchaturian's Cello Concerto and divers
other pieces by the denounced "formalists" have gone right on being
played, at least occasionally, since the purge.
Last year's offense, let us recall, was not the first for Shostako–
vitch. Back in 1937 he had been subjected to disciplinary measures of
a similar nature lasting a year and a half. His chief offense had been
the opera
Lady Macbeth of M zensk
and his work of restitution, the
Fifth Symphony. This time the troublesome piece was his Ninth Sym–
phony, and his comeback has been accomplished through two film
scores,
The Young Guard
and
Michurin.
The first of these is a heroic
and optimistic melodrama about the exploits of the Komsomol during
the defense of the Don Basin. The other is a biography in color of the
Soviet hero
I.
V. Michurin, founder of Soviet anti-Mendelian biology.
Though neither film has yet reached the Stanley Theater, they have
passed the musical judges; and two musical excerpts from
The Young
Guard
have been printed
in
Sovietskaya Muzyka
of October, 1948.
Both excerpts will disappoint the congenial American Shostako–
vitch lover-they are timid to a degree which makes them pitifully
empty (it seems that poor Shostakovitch is afraid of using
any
kind of
dissonance, even the most conventional ones). At the same time they
do not exhibit any turn to "the classical Russian tradition" which is
one of the goals set by the famous decree nor do they show any
increase of melodic inventiveness. These two frightened little frag–
ments sound more, like a
devoir d'ecolier
from a Prussian conservatory
of approximately 1880 than anything else. But then, maybe this kind
of music responds better to the provincial tastes of the middle-layer of
the Soviet bureaucracy.
The cases of Katchaturian and Prokofiev are simpler than that
of Shostakovitch. The former's "formalist illness" is in a sense
recently contracted and is fifty per cent non-musical, anyway. This
half is a result of his political position.
As
a Party member, president
of the Orgkomitet and Secretary General of the Composers' Union,
