An Interview with Rudolf Barshai

One-day Shostakovich Event held in Doelen, Antwerp, Belgium on

21 April 2002

by Henny van der Groep

Rudolf Barshai opened the event with two works; the Chamber Symphony in D major, op. 83a (arranged by Barshai) and the Suite on verses by Michelangelo Buonarotti, op. 145a sung by Sergei Leiferkus. The Koninklijk Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaanderen were particularly attentive to Barshai's direction: many conductors have, of course, a vivid body language and Barshai is no exception - as indeed we were also able to observe during the interview.

This was conducted by myself with the help of Metin Paksoy, who interpreted from Russian into English, Banu Kilan Paksoy, who took careful notes, and Egbert Baars, who took the photographs.

DSCH Journal: You conducted the premiere of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony and it was a huge success. Do you have any reminiscences regarding that first performance?

Rudolf Barshai: The success of the symphony with the public was impossible to describe! The premiere took place in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and was attended in the main by a specially invited audience. The majority of them were officials of the Communist Party and the Ministry of Culture. In addition, there was a small number of people in the audience who had been able to find tickets. The hall was so packed that, to use the Russian expression, there was no room for an apple to drop. Shostakovich introduced the work and said that he had for a long time dreamt about realising a composition about death, adding: "not because I am a pessimist. Death is an inevitable and a normal natural process. But, nevertheless, I protest!". You can hear it in the last movement. It is actually a very virulent protest.

DSCH J: When I was young I heard it for the first time, it made a big impression on me. I found it so emotional!

RB: You know, an unfortunate incident occurred that night. During the performance, I heard some kind of a commotion at the back of the hall. In one of the seats was Apostolov, an official who had pursued Shostakovich for much of his life: and it turned out that he had died there! After the concert, Shostakovich ran up the steps to the dressing room, grabbed me by the arms and exclaimed: "I did not want this!" [Laughter] It really happened.

In the first performance, the soprano was Margarita Miroshnikova and the bass was Yevgeny Vladimirov. They both were personally chosen by Shostakovich himself. He had originally wanted Vishnevskaya, but she was very busy and did not have the time to learn the part, so he said to me "I know another singer, someone who has already sung my works. She is currently singing Prokofiev. Let's go and listen. If you like her, maybe we could have her sing the Fourteenth Symphony". We listened to her and I liked her singing very much. She had a beautiful voice, very well trained. She was also a professional pianist and I think that this is why she had just the right singing voice; not only a vocalist, but an all-round musician too. It's for this reason that I would like to specifically acknowledge her participation. Similarly, the first recording of the Symphony was also made with her.

[At this point during the interview, a small group of female musicians gathered backstage to tune their instruments for the upcoming performance. Barshai looked at them, and said: "Frauenkapelle"! Seeing our quizzed looks, he recounted the following story:

RB: We were with Richter during his last concert in Tokyo. When we met the orchestra we were scheduled to play with, we were surprised to see that most of the members of the orchestra were women. Richter turned to me and said: "Rudi, this is not an orchestra, this is a Frauenkapelle!."]

DSCH J: You recently recorded a cycle of Shostakovich's symphonies. You had not recorded many of them up to then. What made you decide to record the cycle at this point in your career?

RB: I hope that with age, I also matured in music.

DSCH J: I find the recording of the Fourteenth Symphony very successful. And I also like the Ninth Symphony very much, especially the way you present its ironic elements.

RB: You know that in the Ninth, Shostakovich mocked Stalin. It was also a work that relates to Stalin's anti-Semitism. Shostakovich himself was not Jewish, but he wrote this symphony in protest: a protest against anti-Semitism and not only against Stalin himself. In the Ninth, Shostakovich composed the final movement using a Jewish dance song [the main theme]. He used that theme in the coda. The tune is played on the tuba and the trombone, creating the effect that the stomping boots of the Red Army Ensemble are dancing to this Jewish melody - a particularly sarcastic melody at that. Of course it was only by chance that Stalin did not understand this. It was very dangerous thing to have done. You know, after Shostakovich's funeral his friends went back to his home to talk, and one of them said: "What a person Shostakovich was. He was not afraid of Stalin, but he was afraid of the yard-keeper!" Because the yard-keeper might well have been a KGB agent. Very possible so!

DSCH J: Did you ever discuss private or personal matters with Shostakovich?

RB: No. We had quite enough to discuss with music! As soon as we met, we would begin discussing music. One day I went to his house and he was alone. He opened the door: he was in his pyjamas and slippers. "Tell me", he said excitedly, "Have you ever played Beethoven's Fifteenth Quartet?". That was his first question. I said "No". Then he said, "You must play it immediately, I do not know of better music!" He continued: "This is the quartet about which Beethoven's violinist friend Clement said: "Ludwig, you wrote something almost impossible to play' and Beethoven said "Don't you talk to me about your damn violin, while I am conversing with the heavens!'". Those were the types of conversations I had with Shostakovich. And of course I also used every single opportunity to ask him about his symphonies, quartets, etc.

DSCH J: What could you say about the relation between Shostakovich and Eric Satie? The structure of the Ninth Symphony has much in common with Satie's Parade.

RB: To be frank, I really do not know, but it is an original thought.

DSCH J: You also orchestrated of some of Shostakovich's string quartets.

RB: Yes, first of all the Eighth, then the Tenth, the Third and the Fourth.

DSCH J: Did Shostakovich see these?

RB: Yes, Shostakovich saw the score of my orchestration of the Eighth Quartet. He was very happy with it: he was the one who gave it the name of "Chamber Symphony", op. 110a. I also found symphonic ideas in his other quartets. Especially in the Fourth. These ideas even allowed me to use the tam-tam as one of the instruments! Dealing with big ideas with minimum elements: this was an important part of Shostakovich's instrumentation. He asked me many times: "Could one live without any of the instruments? If you think so, just throw it away - no mercy!" At that time, I was working on an orchestration of one of Handel's compositions. He looked at the draft, and saw that I had erased something in the score. He asked: "Had you planned to put horns in there?" I said, "It could have been an idea." "No!", he said. "Throw them away! I can only congratulate you that you did without them!"

There was a lot of humour in his music. He made fun of everything. One day, I brought him the score of my orchestration of Bach's last fugue, together with a recording made during a rehearsal. He said: "Can we listen to the whole fugue?" Then he listened, and said "We can't just leave it like that!". He called to his wife: "There is a quarter of vodka in the fridge, bring it here and also make some scrambled eggs, we have to celebrate this!" Then he said: "Everybody thought that one could not complete the work of a great artist. But you set a precedent. Maybe you could complete my octet that I didn't finish!"

When he was writing the Fourteenth Symphony, he was very ill. Once he jokingly said: "If am not able to finish it, I would ask you and Weinberg to complete it for me!". He was a very ironic man.

DSCH J: During the time he spent with Meyerhold, Shostakovich learned a lot about Jewish music. Mikhail Gnesin composed theatre music and Shostakovich played the piano part in the Jewish orchestra. Did this experience influence his orchestration?

RB: The typical instruments in Jewish music are the double bass, clarinet, accordion and violin. These are almost obligatory!

DSCH J: And the xylophone?

RB: I would say that this influence comes from Mahler. The importance of the xylophone occurs particularly during passages for strings and high-pitched woodwind; here the xylophone helps to define the upper pitch more precisely. It is not good to make solos out of xylophone passages. The only role for the instrument is to better define the upper registers. Sound-engineers sometimes make a very big mistake in highlighting the xylophone. There are of course exceptions, like the Fourteenth Symphony, for example.

When I produced a new score of Mahler's Tenth Symphony last year, some Mahler fans criticized me. A friend from Holland said to me: "I must protest against your use of the xylophone." You have to use it correctly. The xylophone does not just serve to create the mood of a "Danse Macabre" like in Saint-Saens. In Mahler it is used to support the strings and the high woodwind.

DSCH J: And what about Prokofiev?

RB: [Smiling] Oh, I won't begin to discuss Prokofiev's instrumentation! I can't mention his name in the same sentence as Shostakovich. Just like Anton Webern wrote to Alban Berg: "My dear friend, you wrote to me in your last letter about Bach and Handel, but we cannot pronounce these two names in the same breath." The same is also true for Shostakovich!

In the evening Barshai gave a performance of the Seventh Symphony. In a never-ending "parade" we heard thousands of marching steel boots. The tension was unbearable and the sound stupified us. Soldiers with empty eyes were dancing a Jewish dance. Here we heard Shostakovich in a most grotesque and highly ironic mood (as in the Ninth). Barshai's approach was clearly unromantic and the tempo of the introduction moved mercilessly into the "invasion theme".

In the final movement a huge screen, filled with robotic soldiers, unrolled before our eyes. This is a march to the death. A battlefield appears slowly, studded with corpses and mourning widows. There's an allusion to the film New Babylon. The final brass, under Barshai's baton, were strikingly vulgar. The curtain fell and the spectacle ended.

In this music Shostakovich created a world of death and destruction that everybody is able to understand. Barshai's direction brought to our eyes a War movie where no victory can ever be.

Thank you, Mr. Barshai!