Shostakovich's Last Word

As he lay dying in August 1975, Shostakovich completed his final work, a deeply personal summation of his entire creative life (obliquely referencing each of this fifteen symphonies)—the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147. I will be playing this, one of my very favorite Shostakovich works, several times this season with both Timothy Ridoud in the UK and Hsin-Yun Huang in the US. Below is a live performance of the 2nd movement for WQXR here in New York.

Hsin-Yun Huang, viola, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn, piano, play the second movement of Shostakovich's Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147, in the WQXR studio.

Michelangelo and Shostakovich, Part 3

Dante Alighieri | ca. 1300

As readers of this blog already know, I’ve put together a program bringing together two of the last three works of Shostakovich: the Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti for Bass and Piano, Op. 145 (1974); and the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 (1975). I am performing it, with brilliant colleagues Simon Barrad, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Timothy Ridout, in the USA and the UK during 2021-22. As the season progresses, I’m sharing snippets of thought and reflection about these masterpieces.

Today a few words about the seventh song of Op. 145, entitled To the Exile. The text Shostakovich sets here is a Russian translation, by the gifted poet Avram Efros, of Michelangelo’s Rime/250. Michelangelo here pays noble tribute to his great countryman and predecessor, Dante, along with a wrathful condemnation of his homeland (Florence), that repaid Dante with black ingratitude. "Just as there was never a viler exile than his / So also did the world never know a greater man.” According to the editors of the new Shostakovich urtext edition, DSCH, Shostakovich’s setting, equal parts accusatory and lyrical, was perceived by many of its early listeners in 1975 as the composer’s response to the unjust arrest and exile of my father, the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Here below is the song in a live performance by Simon Barrad and myself. And further down you will find the Russian text, then Simon’s translation into English, and finally, for good measure, Michelangelo’s original Italian.

7. Изгнаннику

Как будто чтим, а всё же честь мала.

Его величье взор наш ослепило.

Что чернь корить за низкое мерило,

Когда пуста и наша похвала!

Он ради нас сошёл в обитель зла;

Господне царство лик ему явило;

Но дверь, что даже небо не закрыло,

Пред Данте отчизна злобно заперла.

Неблагодарная! Себе на горе

Ты длила муки сына своего;

Так совершенству низость мстит от века.

Один пример из тех, которых море!

Как нет подлей изгнания его,

Так мир не знал и выше человека.

7. To the Exile

We think we honor him, yet honor him too little.

His majesty has blinded our sight.

Why do we chide the mob for its crass yardstick,

When our own praise is empty!

He descended into the domain of evil for our sake;

The Lord’s kingdom showed its face to him;

But the door that even heaven did not close,

The fatherland maliciously locked in front of Dante.

Ungrateful land! To your own harm

You stretched out the suffering of your son;

Thus baseness takes vengeance on perfection from age to age.

One example among those of which there is a sea!

Just as there was never a viler exile than his,

So also did the world never know a greater man.

7. {Rime/250}

Quante dirne si de' non si può dire,

ché troppo agli orbi il suo splendor s'accese;

biasmar si può più 'l popol che l’offese,

c'al suo men pregio ogni maggior salire.

Questo discese a' merti del fallire

per l'util nostro, e poi a Dio ascese;

e le porte, che 'l ciel non gli contese,

la patria chiuse al suo giusto desire.

Ingrata, dico, e della suo fortuna

a suo danno nutrice; ond'è ben segno,

c'a' più perfetti abonda di più guai.

Fra mille altre ragion sol ha quest'una:

se par non ebbe il suo exilio indegno,

simil uom né maggior non nacque mai.

Michelangelo and Shostakovich, Part 2

Michelangelo Buonarroti | portrait by Daniele da Volterra, ca. 1545

As discussed in an earlier post, I’ve put together a program bringing together two of the last three works of Shostakovich: the Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti for Bass and Piano, Op. 145 (1974); and the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 (1975). I will be performing it, with brilliant colleagues Simon Barrad, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Timothy Ridout, in the USA and the UK during 2021-22. As the season progresses, I will be sharing snippets of thought and reflection about these masterpieces.

Today a few words about the opening song of Op. 145, entitled Truth. The text Shostakovich sets here is a Russian translation, by the gifted poet Avram Efros, of Michelangelo’s Rime/6. Shostakovich’s arresting setting, from the oppressive Soviet 1970s, immediately proclaims his solidarity with Michelangelo, writing in the 1520s, whose text expresses the bitter “truth” that God has seemingly chosen to reward, here on earth, blandishing chatterboxes rather than true artists like himself.

Here below is the song in a live performance by Simon Barrad and myself. And further down you will find the Russian text, then Simon’s translation into English, and finally, for good measure, Michelangelo’s original Italian.

1. Истина

Есть истины в реченьях старины,

И вот одна: кто может, тот не хочет.

Ты внял, Господь, тому, что ложь стрекочет,

И болтуны тобой награждены;

Я ж твой слуга: мои труды даны

Тебе, как солнцу луч,– хоть и порочит

Твой гнев всё то, что пыл мой сделать прочит,

И все мои старанья не нужны.

Я думал, что возьмёт твоё величье

Меня к себе не эхом для палат,

А лезвием суда и гирей гнева.

Но есть к земным заслугам безразличье

На небесах, и ждать от них наград –

Что ожидать плодов с сухого древа.


1. Truth

There are truths in the sayings of old,

And here is one: whoever’s able, never wants to.

You listened, Lord, to the one who prattles lies,

And chatterboxes are rewarded by you;

But I’m your servant: my labors are given

To you as rays are to the sun—though your wrath defames

All that my zeal intends to do,

And all my efforts are unneeded.

I thought that your majesty would take me in,

Not as an echo in a chamber,

But as a blade of justice and a weight of wrath.

But there is indifference in heaven

To earthly merits, and to await its rewards

Is to expect fruit from a dry tree.


1. {Rime/6}

Signor, se vero è alcun proverbio antico,

questo è ben quel, che chi può mai non vuole.

Tu hai creduto a favole e parole

e premiato chi è del ver nimico.

I’ sono e fui già tuo buon servo antico,

a te son dato come e’ raggi al sole,

e del mie tempo non ti incresce o dole,

e men ti piaccio se più m'affatico.

Già sperai ascender per la tua altezza,

e 'l giusto peso e la potente spada

fussi al bisogno, e non la voce d'ecco.

Ma 'l cielo è quel c’ogni virtù disprezza

locarla al mondo, se vuol c'altri vada

a prender frutto d'un arbor ch'è secco.

Reverse Immortality

I recently read a most illuminating essay by the brilliant pianist, educator, presenter Sarah Rothenberg, called Reverse Immortality: The Memory of Music. Among other things, it is a profound reflection on the past and on music’s unique ability to transcend time. It more than repays attentive, uninterrupted reading, the kind that “allows us to concentrate on inner dialogue” (Hannah Arendt). Read it in full here, and below I quote the arresting final paragraph.

“Immortality is not about living into the future, it is about having access to the unending past. This is the magic of great art, this time capsule that comes to us breathing life. It is an error to view immortality as a forward trajectory. When I sit at the piano, the music is of a culture and the culture is of a time and when I live in it, which is often, I live elsewhere. We could call it reverse immortality.”
— Sarah Rothenberg

Bernard Haitink, 1929–2021

For a “dry business newspaper,” the Economist writes strikingly poetic obituaries. This week’s is no exception. It is a fitting tribute to my great colleague, and captures what, to me, was most important about his music-making—service of the composer.

“He was their simple conduit to the world, channelling each composer’s dream like a beautiful flower that unfolded itself. The shape of the piece was the most important thing, the onward drive and flow, knowing just where he was going. Yet the delicate inner discoveries were endless.
[…]
On the podium he was ever-aware of hundreds of eyes on his back. It was the last place, you would think, for someone so shy. But he was there not simply to channel the music, though that was the main point. He was also bound to do his humble best to fill in for an assembly of ghosts. ■”
— The Economist

Michelangelo and Shostakovich

Night | by Michelangelo Buonarroti | 1520–34 | part of the Tomb of Giuliano | Medici Chapel, Florence

Night | by Michelangelo Buonarroti | 1520–34 | part of the Tomb of Giuliano | Medici Chapel, Florence

I have put together a program bringing together two of the last three works of Shostakovich: the Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti for Bass and Piano, Op. 145 (1974); and the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 (1975). I will be performing it, with brilliant colleagues Simon Barrad, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Timothy Ridout, in the USA and the UK during 2021-22. As the season progresses, I will be sharing snippets of thought and reflection about these masterpieces.

Today a few words about the extraordinary ninth song of Op. 145, entitled Night (A Dialogue). The text Shostakovich sets here is a Russian translation, by the gifted poet Avram Efros, consisting of the famous quatrain by (the elder) Giovanni Strozzi, paying homage to Michelangelo’s wondrous statue depicting Night, and Michelangelo’s noble, proud reply published in his own later Rime. Shostakovich’s eerie setting leaves no doubt that the oppressive environment around him in the 1970s, as around Michelangelo in the 1520s, gives no cause for Art or the Artist to wake. And yet what a gift for us that both these artists continued to create rather than slumber.

Here below is the song in a live performance by Simon Barrad and myself. And further down you will find the Russian text, then Simon’s translation into English, and finally, for good measure, the original Italian of Strozzi and Michelangelo.

9. Ночь (Диалог)

— Вот эта Ночь, что так спокойно спит

 Перед тобою,– ангела созданье.

 Она из камня, но в ней есть дыханье:

 Лишь разбуди,– она заговорит.

 —Мне сладко спать, а пуще камнем быть,

 Когда кругом позор и преступленье:

 Не чувствовать, не видеть – облегченье,

 Умолкни ж, друг, к чему меня будить?


9. Night (Dialogue)

—Here is this Night, that so calmly sleeps

Before you, the creation of an angel.

She is of stone, but there is breath in her:

Only awaken her—she will begin to speak.

—It’s sweet to sleep, but better still to be a stone,

When all around is shame and crime:

Not feeling, not seeing is a relief,

Fall silent then, friend, why awaken me?

9. {Strozzi & Rime/247}

 —La Notte che tu vedi in sì dolci atti

 dormir, fu da un Angelo scolpita

 in questo sasso e, perché dorme, ha vita:

 destala, se nol credi, e parleratti.

—Caro m'è 'l sonno, e più l'esser di sasso,

 mentre che 'l danno e la vergogna dura;

 non veder, non sentir m'è gran ventura;

 però non mi destar, deh, parla basso.

Beethoven's Inner Life

A reader brought attention to an old post of mine that might bear re-posting here, specifically this quote from Sullivan about the Master:

“An inner life of quite extraordinary intensity was in process of development till the very end. Other artists, of those few whose spirits were both sensitive and free, seem to have passed through similar stages of development. But perhaps even Shakespeare never reached that final stage of illumination that is expressed in some of Beethoven’s late music. The other steps of the journey he knew, but Shakespeare never wrote his C-sharp-minor quartet. It is possible, indeed, that Beethoven’s late music is unique, not only in music, but in the whole of art.”

VIRTUAL PHILADELPHIA CONCERT

Here is some Scarlatti, Haydn and Debussy recently presented on the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia “Musical Jukebox” series.

Chamber Orchestra Conductor Laureate Ignat Solzhenitsyn talks with us about Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ with a performance of the final words for solo piano. He also performs the virtuosic music of Scarlatti and the colorful, imagistic "Poissons d'or" of Claude Debussy.