Does Song Compose Heroes?

The story of Mitya Shostak...

Part Two (Extract)

by Julia Lozos

From the first I heard of the life and person of Dmitri Shostakovich, I knew I wanted to write something about him. But to write on the topic of any controversial figure, particularly a more recent one, is no simple task. Such a project about Shostakovich would have only been rendered less daunting by the recent publication of several books on the composer.

But I didn't want to write a biography. From early on, before I was even very far into Testimony and before I had heard even one-fifth of the quartets and symphonies, I knew I wanted to attempt a project more along the lines of creativity rather than along those of pure research. I wanted to write from the point of view of Dmitri Shostakovich.

I knew immediately that it would not be wise to write as a human character with that name. Testimony is already too controversial for it to suddenly be joined by a work of histo-biographical fiction with the similar aim of retelling Shostakovich's life. In pondering how I might go about my project without the prospect of being shot down or condemned, my mind jumped directly to a favorite series of books.

Brian Jacques' Redwall books are set in a medieval universe populated by anthropomorphic animals. I have been reading these for many years, and my next thought on the Shostakovich project went to interpreting his story in a Redwallesque manner. "Does Song Compose Heroes?" was originally set in the Redwall universe, though I have since modified it to stand alone (you are about to read the second part of that new version).

Anyone familiar with Shostakovich (and that would be anyone reading the Journal) will have no trouble determining which characters represent which actual figures. The main character and narrator, Mitya Shostak, is the most obvious of all. All of the events in the first twelve chapters mirror events in Shostakovich's life, though not necessarily in the same order in which they actually occurred. The final four chapters are purely fiction; this reflected my necessity for climax and victory while Shostakovich never fully experienced such.

There was also my chance to further explore the character beyond accounts I had read in various sources, to hypothesize actions, and to further exhibit strengths in the composer's character.

This is easily my most ambitious undertaking and will probably be controversial to the varied opinion on Shostakovich, even though I have attempted to bear this in mind. I would be very grateful to receive any comments readers might have at DSCH@redwall.net.

I warmly thank you all.

Chapter Twelve

"When I die, it's hardly likely that someone will write a quartet dedicated to my memory. So I decided to write it myself. One could write on the frontispiece, ‘Dedicated to the author of this quartet.'"

- Dmitri Shostakovich

I've always been somewhat puzzled by the term "off the deep end." It's used to describe a creature gone insane, you know, stark raving mad. That makes very little sense if you think about it. An insane creature is unaware, his senses have flown off and he floats in his own world, so to speak. Beneath a great depth of water, you know, the deep end, you're hardly floating. Rather, you'd be under very enormous pressure from the water, pinned down instead of floating off. You can leave nothing behind in all that water, you're forever surrounded by its blue quandary. And that's why I think "off the deep end" should refer not to the obliviously insane but rather the heavily depressed.

In my own thoughts, you know, I can use my own definitions for figurative terms like that. So one might therefore say that, upon returning from my discussion with Bolt, I was very far off the deep end. The meeting, so to speak, had resuscitated my soul - a completely dead spirit cannot feel anything, it cannot be depressed. Until then, I'd let all the negative events come and pass indifferently, inattentively. But upon being revived from that death and promptly depressed, I actually recognized in full what I'd been through, what had happened, and what I'd done. I saw I'd done nothing at all while the truly insane workings of Mtsensk ranted on, tearing further into the world. I'd let it all pass like a harmless parade. And not just the occurrences of when my soul was dead, but everything I'd missed my whole life - the oppression of artists before I'd felt it, the utter cruelty of the prison ward, the concept that some beasts will stoop to killing others for just violation of nonsensical "rules." That revelation was more overwhelming, so to speak, then it would be to have the entire "deep end" poured upon me. It was enough to make me wish for death - the physical variety. A dead spirit still sees, but a dead body's eyes are closed.

Throughout history, famous creatures in tough situations have always wished for "honorable death," so to speak. As it were, I couldn't have defined that term in the state I was in, and probably wouldn't have bothered seeking it had it been defined. I felt dirty and useless; objects defined by those adjectives are ones that should be thrown out, gotten rid of as efficiently as possible. But to continue on the issue of definitions, the most effective disposal method was another thing I wasn't certain about. You know I'd never felt like that before, and so, naturally, I'd never previously considered the issue. On that evening, though, many ideas ran through my pressured mind, each possible yet none seeming tolerable, nothing seeming something I could really do. (This does not surprise me now.) I wished I could just lie down and sleep forever, but that situation wasn't doable by will.

Frustrated, but not abandoning the plan I'd sunk to, I numbly made my way to the old music room, planning to further my consideration there.

For some time after Volklov's death I'd avoided the old study, and with very little effort, you know. I wasn't certain if the guards had previously found the study or not, and so I steered clear. But in my newer situation, the chance that the guards did know suddenly appealed to me. Though it would have been a victory for Mtsensk, so to speak, had I died at the paws of the officials, it was an idea I could handle slightly better. Maybe that I couldn't approach doing away with myself subliminally meant I still had a will to live somewhere, though I only recognize that possibility in hindsight. As it were, letting the guards have their fun, so to speak, was what I would have gone for. I figured going and playing forbidden music on the piano in Zlaya's main hall would draw their attention soon enough. But in consideration of exactly which pieces to play, a totally new idea began to form in my mind, one that did involve postponing the guards' arrival.

You've probably heard my string quartet if you've heard any of my music at all. It's certainly one of my more widely played pieces currently, the single piece most creatures know me by for its sound. If you've heard it, though, you certainly have no idea what it means - for I've never explained it before, you know. It's an autobiographical quartet, so to speak, and I wrote it feverishly in three nights of depression in the old study. It was meant as a farewell to life, an attack on the evils I hated enough to push me to death - the guards would hear it and kill me then, but at least I would have made one final statement against them, I wouldn't have died so easily, so unresolvedly. One might say it's a summary of all the pieces I'd written to that point; I cried as I was writing it.

Very evident through the entire piece is my musical signature, my initials. And by that, I don't mean simply a motif I often use. I mean my signature, literally. I recall from when I was a student another notation system, a very old one based on an ancient alphabet that's not used and makes no sense. I'm not certain why I committed it to memory, actually, but it allowed me to put my initials to tones. In ancient notation, the sequence D-E flat-C-B familiarly becomes, oddly, M-S-H-K - that is, my initials. I was pleased with the idea when I first used it, though applied to the quartet it swirls through all four parts often and with no joy.

The first movement is slow, and it establishes my situation. My signature begins it and drifts through it mournfully in my very own states of mind. It crescendos, my self-criticism embodied, to fade to near inaudibility, the level I was at, at the time of composition. It comes back up then to a single drifting melody line, a tragic monologue of introduction backed up by the soft, indifferent, drone of the other three parts. Those parts act as if to ignore; as I ignored so much, that's why three players drone. I do eventually pull another moving voice to the fore, but the conversation is brief and subdued, soon releasing the second voice back to the dead drone, losing the one friendly contact. And from there the sounds build, mostly menacingly. At one point, the chords mimic the bells of a free place, almost holy in respect to the dark brooding tones that are quick to return, perhaps not as quickly as my own hopes were dashed, as my signature rises and falls again.

The second movement arrives immediately, loud, fast, rawly brutal like a Dictator's tirade or a physical sweep for prisoners. It's relentless, unforgiving on performers and listeners alike, pressing forward jarringly but seeming to last forever in the same beating pattern. It's a creature overwhelmed or a village stormed. Images from kithood flashed to me as I wrote, of soldiers overtaking my town, rampaging the streets, sabering old and young alike. Images flashed in foreboding of future wars, ventures I knew would be forthcoming and equal to what I saw in person. Just as nonsensical, as chaotically structured, perhaps worse. Twice over the din rises a screaming melody of pain, utter anguish, and helplessness, or of twisted victory over the previous. Interpret that as you will - I meant it as both at once. My signature too storms through the melee, my revenge on myself for not paying attention to the realities before, for letting them storm past. As physical violent horror suddenly became so conspicuous to me, I placed myself as conspicuous in the portrayal.

The storm of the second movement breaks full force into the third. The third movement is slower, but it's still in a quick three. One might call the third movement a sick little disfigured waltz, so to speak. The meter and tempo are right for dancing, but the melody is a wraith of its own, twisting in ways that are undeniably devilish, ways that would certainly deter dancers. It's too mocking to dance to, perhaps, and I meant it to be. The passive criticisms and insults of lesser authorities, mocking and decidedly wrong sounding. Though I did also mean it as a dance, the dance of prisoners into their open graves I'd heard about and elaborated on in my mind. Percussive pizzicati accent the upbeat in places, the swift arrowshots from the guards. In the middle of this movement as well, a solo rises, this time swaying as uncontrollably depressed, hopeless weeping. It comes from the creatures in the prison, perhaps, but from me as well, in reaction to the sight and sounds of such horrors as well as the prominent placement of my initials, mocking again, as mocking as the uniform I'd willingly donned.

All of the movements are continuous; the third dies away as one may turn or walk away, return to sit in his quarters and ruminate. And then the fourth interrupts, initiated with three loud, sharp, very purposeful blasts of sound. Three knocks on the door, repeated as there's no answer. I'm too terrified to answer, I was terrified in memory when I wrote those notes, terrified those knocks would reoccur in reality as I wrote. I still jump when someone knocks innocently in that rhythm, for I always fear the incessant accusatory ranting I portray next in screamed three-way unison, one other note barely holding out against it, overwhelmed. The knocks punctuate the whole movement as they still haunt me, coming even when they wouldn't have. Before a section of hopeless minor musing, then again before the only major-key segment of the piece. You can't call that segment peaceful, though; it's a drawn out longing for something, it's fantasizing on an unreachable, be it freedom from oppression or forever abandoning the decapacitating terror, the state of being a creature bound in blind fear by three knocks on a door!

The fifth movement serves as a conclusion; it represents no event that actually happened. Rather, it becomes a fugue on a permutation of my signature, a slow sort of relentless this time, the driving insanity of acute depression. The sound swells like a rounded wave, rolling up then sliding back down to near loss at the deep end. And then I bring back the beginning, the exact same sequence with which I open the piece. There is a difference, though, in that after another appearance of my signature, no solo ensues but rather a held minor chord, held to last until the sound completely dies away. To start again, perhaps, but never to finish because of being more completely finished. The story of this piece, my life...

I was wet when I put the final double bar down on the page, three nights after I'd started composing. Wet from sweat and, of course, from tears. Probably more from the second. I stared at the manuscript, hot on the desk, so to speak. What to do with it then? Still feverish, I decided I'd play through it once on the big piano. If that didn't get me killed, I'd try to take it to Evgeny and Venyamin Sobareka myself. I didn't plan on anything beyond that - I was certain that I'd be dead upon getting that far. But the quartet would be the last words from my physical self. Either way, it'd be played, others would hear, could interpret. And, as I would be dead, hatred and misinterpretation could not hurt me. At the time I conceived it, my plan made me happy indeed, the happiest I'd been in a long time.

(Extract from the concluding part of Julia Lozos' "Story" - see the printed editions for the complete edition)