Shostakovich, although a determined and avid composer was not to be pitied. He was strongly criticized for his work, although he can not be considered a trailblazer. He never strayed from the Marxist-Leninist aesthetic. He stated, “I consider that every artist who isolates himself from the world is doomed. I find it incredible that an artist should want to shut himself away from the people who, in the end, form his audience. I think an artist should serve the greatest possible number of people. I always try to make myself understood as widely as possible, and, if I don’t succeed, I consider it my own fault.” He blames the opinions of the public on himself. I personally disagree with his statement. I think he was ahead of his time, and the only reason his failures were critiqued so harshly was the political climate and country that he released them in. Do you believe that Shostakovich was right in taking the blame for his failures, or is it deeper than this?
This information is from Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia pages 109-140 by Boris Schwarz
Great idea Grace, who is responsible for a failure? I would normally say that the person who committed the failure was responsible., but what if something is not truly a failure? What if one system tells you it is a failure and another it is a masterpiece? These questions all fall back to the idea that Shostakovich was called a failure by the “Pravda” and probably Stalin himself. It was a product of the political situation of that time. Then by 1963, “Shostakovich’s opera [had] been declared an undisputed masterpeice, and much of the original criticism… obsolete. ” (Schwarz 130). The words of the “Pravda” only limited the potential that he had and clearly hindsight was 20/20 in this case.