Word: shostakoviches
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...boss, Leonid Ilyichev, called in the poet and a number of other young intellectuals for an attitude talk. Ilyichev was especially angry over Evtushenko's poem Babi Yar, which condemned Soviet anti-Semitism and which had just been enthusiastically received in a new symphonic setting by Composer Dmitry Shostakovich. Cultural commissars quickly canceled further performances of the symphony. As for the poem, said Ilyichev, it should be changed to include an attack on West Germany. After a sleepless night, Evtushenko agreed to "improve" Babi...
Richter was so exhausted for his final concert that he talked of canceling out, then appeared to play a brutal program of Hindemith's First Sonata, five Shostakovich preludes and fugues, Prokofiev's Sixth Sonata and, for encores, a bouquet of Prokofiev Visions Fugitives. Had his playing improved? Though the atmosphere that surrounded him could not help but candy the reviews, Paris could only say: "Such taste, such wonderful music, such flair...
Shock Effects. Last week Moscow heard what Shostakovich had composed instead, and the thin jokes vanished in a wave of applause. A masterful 13th Symphony rang through the Moscow Conservatory with a power and daring that proved that 20 years of apologizing for the art-for-art beauty of his early work had not, after all, sapped Shostakovich's strength...
...final movement is a song of praise to nonconformists. "Forgotten are those who cursed, remembered are those accursed." Evtushenko's poem says - good advice for Shostakovich...
...opening-night crowd understood the message perfectly. Grinning behind his round glasses. Shostakovich joined the orchestra for seven curtain calls. The ovation was more than a tribute to the work - it was a welcome back from watery-eyed submissiveness. and Shostakovich accepted it gladly. Shy Evtushenko was eventually goaded onto the stage, and there, in triumph, he exchanged with Shostakovich a profound hug and kiss...