Grant wrote, "if you know the music [of Shostokovich]...and I mean
REALLY know the music, then this element of protest and pain of
persecution is overwhelmingly obvious."

Even if it could be proved that Shostokovich expressed his protest and
pain in his music, a question could still be asked: is writing painful
music the best way to protest? Imagine Rand protesting against
totalitarianism and collectivism by writing Atlas Shrugged and
Fountainhead as novels of pain and suffering. No, she fought ugliness by
presenting beauty, she fought evil by extolling the good. Not so with
Shostokovich. Contrasted with his other music, the Andante from his
2nd Piano Concerto was a far more powerful protest.

Whether Shostokovich was a dissident or sympathizer of communism may be
debatable, but whatever dissidence he did show, in music or in words,
is neither courageous nor inspiring.


-Monart

(Of interest to some, a summary of the Shostokovich debate is at
http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/deb/begin.html )

------

Revisionism versus anti-revisionism

At its simplest, revisionism consists of the view that Shostakovich was,
for much of his life, in conflict with the Soviet regime; and that, as
such, his actions, creative and personal, betoken a man of considerable
moral stature whose associated thoughts and feelings are tangible in his
music, in ways both general and particular. (The particular instances of
this orientation consist of a language of musical codes, many of which
are already known and others of which are in the process of being
discovered.) In this view of Shostakovich, the composer is often said to
have been a "secret (or hidden) dissident
<http://www.siue.edu/%7Eaho/musov/deb/qdis.html>" - i.e., a moral
dissenter who differed from the paradigmatic Soviet dissidents of the
1960s in refraining from public verbal expressions of his dissent,
confining this to his music. (Exceptions -- more or less explicit
expressions of dissent -- can be found in Shostakovich's letters to
Isaak Glikman <http://www.siue.edu/%7Eaho/musov/doubletalk.html>, in
several of his reported statements to friends and colleagues, and in the
disputed memoir Testimony.) Anti-revisionists often accuse revisionists
of adopting an "ideological" line on Shostakovich which mirrors that of
the Soviet Union. Revisionists argue, on the contrary, that the debate
is a question not of ideology but of morality.

At its simplest, anti-revisionism takes the form of several, not
necessarily mutually exclusive, views of Shostakovich which stand
opposed to the idea of him as a "secret dissident" resistant to the
Soviet regime. Anti-revisionists see Shostakovich as a morally flawed
man for whom Testimony (insofar as any of it can be trusted) represented
an attempt to rewrite, and hence justify, an inglorious life. This life
was either that of an earnest communist who never seriously questioned
the Soviet system; a cowardly trimmer who conformed out of fear and
self-seeking cynicism; or a naive blunderer who took on the false
appearance of a secret dissident through farcical coincidence or as a
result of over-interpretation by his contemporaries or those who came
after him. For most anti-revisionists, speculation on the composer's
outlook is bogus or irrelevant (although some hardline anti-revisionists
remain convinced that he was an orthodox Communist and that "his" public
statements are dependable evidence of this). Suggestions that
Shostakovich's music contains hidden meanings is, generally, anathema to
anti-revisionists, who concede with reluctance and aesthetic distaste
any instances of this which cannot be definitely rejected.

-----

http://www.geocities.com/rickredrick/Overview.html

* Shostakovich was a patriotic Soviet citizen and lifelong socialist. He
revered Lenin and the revolution. He rejected Stalinism. He was a member of the
Communist Party from 1960 until his death in 1975. He was himself a Soviet
official- a deputy member of the Supreme Soviet and also the Secretary (highest
office) of the Union of Composers of the Russian Federation. In many works,
including symphonies 2, 3, 7, 11, and 12, he honored heroic accomplishments of
the Soviet people. Despite a two brief periods of friction much dramatized in
the West, he was by far the most often, and most highly, officially honored
member of the Soviet musical establishment in its history.

These facts were obvious in 1975 and remain consistent with everything that
Shostakovich can be proven to have ever said or written.