Leningrad Productions of Documentary films LSDF
Dmitri Shostakovich SONATA FOR VIOLA
Script: Boris Dobrodeev
Directors: Semion Aranovich, Alexander Sokurov
Camera: Yuri Alexandrov Yuri Lebedev
Sound: Eugenia Belyaeva
Consultants: Kara Karaev, Sofia Hentova, Mikhail Yakubov
Production supervisor: Taissa Jansson
Production manager: Jeanna Airapetiants
Materials from:
Central Archive of Cinema and Photo Documents
Gosfilmofond of the USSR
The Leningrad Audiovisual State Archive
Mikhail Glinka Museum
Leningrad State Museum of Music and Theatre
Shostakovich Family Archive
Special thanks to
Irina and Galina Shostakovich, Tamara Kholodilina,
Alisa Shebalina, Sofia Shirinskaya and Dmitri Sollertinsky
The summer of 1975...
...was Dmitri Shostakovich's last.
He was living in his dacha, finishing a sonata for viola.
His illness made his suffering unbearable.
He could hardly walk.
On July 3 the TV showed
a rehearsal of "The Nose".
40 years after its creation, the opera was back on stage.
Perhaps it sounds false because it's too slow?
- Perhaps. - It may be the reason...
Oh, Lord!
It doesn't stick! Ivan, Ivan!
At your service!
- Go there! - Where?
To the doctor!
Go, tell him...
He never forgot his parents' home
in Petrograd,
with grief for his father, who died early;
warmth for his mother,
and sisters, who invented all their games,
and dressed him like a girl.
But his frailty hid a strong will.
He inherited not only his father's delicacy,
but also his love of hard work.
And his mother's, forcefulness,
her character.
He was born in this city in 1906,
and had lived half of his life here,
35 years.
In the summer of 1919,
Sofia Shostakovich brought her son to the Conservatory.
He was 13.
Alexander Glazunov, the Director,
first discovered the boy's exceptional talent,
of Mozart-like strength.
Later, when Dmitri caught
tuberculosis of the lymph glands,
Glazunov mourned:
"His death would be an irreparable loss
to music."
Shostakovich successfully graduated from two faculties:
Piano and composition.
It wasn't easy:
He was 16, when his father died.
He played the piano in cinemas.
Improvising for the screen was where he created his music.
Soon its novelty was to take everyone by surprise.
Give me vodka!
Cheers! This vodka's bitter!
It's good! It's bitter!
Who is brighter than the sun...
in the sky?
Who shines brighter...
...than the sun...
...in the sky?
"I had to work a lot in cinemas.
All that greatly damaged my health and nerves.
Now I don't bow to anyone.
Even in the worst poverty,
I won't go to the cinema.
The mechanical illustration of human passion
is too tiresome.
If ever I succeed in earning a living,
I will work relentlessly in the field of music,
and will give it my life.
Now I need a summer break to recover my health."
Nina Varzar, a student in physics.
They lived in the same town, but weren't yet acquainted.
It's in the future.
"On May 12, 1926 in the Philharmonic Hall,
Nikolas Malko conducted...
...my First Symphony, to much applause."
Among those applauding the composer,
was Alexander Glazunov.
The conductor, Nikolas Malko, confessed:
"I feel I have opened a new page
in the history of music.
Here is a new great composer."
"In 1921, I met Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky.
I knew at once he was quite out of the ordinary,
and not easy to get along with.
But we became friends.
He made me love music, as they say,
- Bach to Offenbach -
...since then, I like all music,
provided it's genuine."
It was the first generation of Soviet musicians.
One day, works by Shebalin and Shostakovich
were performed together.
Though the public preferred Shebalin, they became friends.
Their friendship was to undergo severe ordeals.
In 1927
Shostakovich got an invitation
for the first Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.
It was timely:
Shostakovich began to have doubts about composing.
He saw himself as a pianist.
The Polish press singled out Shostakovich,
his simple, natural and noble reading of Chopin.
The winners were named.
The First Prize:
Lev Oborin.
Shostakovich got only a special mention.
"I deem it my duty to counter the muddy stream
of pornography,
poured onto the general public
as an excuse for greater accessibility.
I consider it my duty to fight tasteless music."
In 1932, Shostakovich married Nina Varzar.
He hesitated a lot,
fearing that family life would push music aside.
But Sollertinsky took them to Detskoe Selo,
where their family life began,
without any festivities, any toasts...
They were just happy.
"My dear man, why is there so much goodness in the world?"
On July 5, 1975
he finished his sonata
and called the viola player Druzhinin.
"Fedya!
I made an effort and finished my sonata."
The sonata for viola and piano,
"Altovaya Sonata",
became the only work Shostakovich
was never to hear performed.
In the late 1920's,
he wrote an opera based on Gogol's "Nose".
The opera was shown
in the newly built House of Culture in Leningrad.
Where is my nose, where is it?
- I can't see it! - Here it is!
After the show, opinions were freely expressed.
A question: "Will the opera be understood?"
Shostakovich:
"Judging from today's audience yes, it will.
People applauded, nobody hissed."
A question: "Why this form, for what kind of public?"
"I live in the USSR,
"I work actively for a public of
workers and peasants."
Stepanov, People's Education:
"What's 'The Nose?'
"Where is the root of bureaucracy?
When one thinks only about one's nose.
This is our problem, too.
This is why the opera concerns us.
We should get rid of our noses
and turn to the common cause."
Khokhlov:
"Many music-lovers prefer beautiful arias.
Shostakovich does it in a different way.
Art is difficult.
It requires attention and an effort of will.
Art isn't like...
...lemonade in summer."
Ivanov, Baltic Works:
"The composer has almost been called a genius.
That's wrong.
Our judgements should be more moderate.
Sollertinsky:
"I'll answer that reproach of praise for the composer.
He mustn't be compared to the average.
He is exceptional."
A genuine artist,
he understood his times well.
He inevitably went beyond personal subjects.
In getting to know the world,
his talent acquired its strength.
The Golden Age
An industrial exhibition in a big capitalist town.
A Soviet football team enters with modesty.
For an ad, a boxing-glove maker
pits a black and a white boxer against each other.
A swindle...
...allows the white boxer to win.
Everyone is looking forward
to seeing Diva, the famous dancer.
General delight.
Diva performs an erotic dance,
making use of her charm for political blackmail.
The head of the Soviet team attracts her.
She invites him to dance.
He refuses politely.
A Komsomol girl unveils a fascist provocation.
Final dance of solidarity
between the Western workers and the Soviet team.
Shostakovich's first ballet.
It failed, like the following two.
Only time has shown the author was not to blame.
Dawn greets us with its freshness,
the river with its wind.
My curly girl, aren't you happy
to hear the merry factory whistle?
Don't sleep, wake up,
the workshops are a-ringing,
our country rises with glory
to greet the new day.
Joy sings without end,
its song rings out to greet us,
people laugh, greeting each other,
the sun rises to greet them.
It is ardent and brave,
it gives me its vigour.
Our country rises with glory
to meet its new day.
On the night of July 7, 1975
at Shostakovich's no one slept.
He was having a bad attack of asphyxia.
The next morning
he came down these stairs to the dining-room.
He was ashamed to be in pyjamas.
"I'm so unwell," he said.
He was taken to hospital,
and X-rayed.
Writer Altmatov called,
then doctor Elizarov.
On July 12, another X-ray. Doctors to confer.
On July 13, Shostakovich called home.
He gave his phone number in the hospital: 140-94-06.
July 21: Situation unclear. Waiting for doctors to confer.
A great human tragedy gave birth
to great music by Shostakovich.
Years later, the 7th Symphony by Shostakovich
still reminds us of the war.
The composer of the Leningrad Symphony
was 35.
Evacuation train
We are Russian, and we are proud of it.
Throughout today's severe ordeals
we shall stand up for our great Motherland,
we shall defend our immortal culture and art!
Our people will overcome!
Dear girls!
Our time has come.
You know well
that all, young or old,
rise up to defend our great Motherland.
I played a nurse in "Friends at the Front".
Now it's time to be one for real.
I've already joined a medical unit.
Everything I did in the film,
I will be doing on the front,
I will be fighting with all my strength,
regardless of my life,
and if needed, I will give my life...
...to my Motherland, as Zina Maslova did
in our film.
Girls, the Motherland needs you!
Join medical units!
I'm sure all of you will follow my example.
Dear friends! There will be a lot of work.
The work will be hard.
But we'll win.
The Red Army will crush the loathsome fascist gang,
and we, girls, will help it.
Down with fascism!
Long live our beloved Red Army!
Long live our Communist Party!
No to fascism!
Long live comrade Stalin! Hurrah!
History trusted
us contemporaries of this great battle
to express the ideals
of humanity's struggle against fascism.
To fire up the hatred towards fascism,
to show, by means of art, its true image,
to inspire our men, -
this is what our work should be aimed at.
There isn't any task
worthier than this.
So let our hearts turn
to the war against the enslavers,
like the hearts of millions throughout this world.
Let "Everything for the front!"
Be the goal of all our creativity.
Our day will come very soon.
So let us be worthy of such a day.
May everyone, when the war's over,
and happiness returns,
say proudly that his war-time work
against bloody fascism, was
for our radiant future.
Ivan Sollertinsky,
then in Novosibirsk,
got the 7th Symphony performed there,
after Kuibyshev and Moscow.
It was conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky.
Despite serious heart disease,
Sollertinsky spoke before each performance.
In 1941, they were about to celebrate
20 years of friendship.
War separated them.
The war was changing.
People felt the approach of victory.
Shebalin called Shostakovich in Kuibyshev.
He invited him to teach at the Moscow Conservatory.
Shostakovich came to Moscow.
He taught at the Conservatory.
The Leningrad Conservatory also
asked him to teach composition.
In 1947, Shostakovich began teaching
at the Conservatory in Leningrad.
"Dear Vissarion!
It's been 20 years since
we first met.
I thought about that stretch of time,
and feel that
I ought to do more for my country.
I began a quartet for you.
I hope you like it.
Once more, my congratulations," wrote Shostakovich to Shebalin.
While finishing his 8th Symphony,
bad news came on February
Ivan Sollertinsky had died.
"Dear Olga Panteleimonovna,
words cannot express the grief
which overwhelmed me at the news of Ivan's death.
He was my dearest, my nearest friend.
I owe my progress to him.
Life will be unbearably hard without him.
We rarely met in recent years.
But I was always happy to think
that Ivan Ivanovich was there.
We talked of many things,
and of the inevitable end that lay ahead,
of death.
We both feared and loathed it.
We were fond of life, but knew that...
...we would have to leave it.
Ivan has left us very prematurely.
He died, I stayed alive.
We always kept in mind
our near ones.
We thought about our children,
and gave each other the solemn promise
that if one of us died,
we'd help out our bereaved near ones.
Dear Olga Panteleimonovna,
if in any difficulty,
any hardship, I pray you,
in the name of the memory of Ivan Ivanovich,
do tell me about it.
Kiss the children for me.
Yours Shostakovich."
"In my work, there have been many serious failings,
but throughout my composing,
I've been thinking of our people.
I try to be self-critical of each of my works,
still, with a few exceptions,
I like them.
Otherwise, I wouldn't compose."
Artist
"While the Soviet people were cultivating a musical ear
gradually developing a sense of melody,
some of our composers preferred false innovations,
crippling their music with formalism,
depriving it of melody" -
alleged Asafiev.
"The 9th Symphony
- a thoughtless, formal work -
is unworthy of our musical culture."
The composer Bely:
"In the 7th Symphony, we felt a deep patriotic inspiration,
so we accepted it
and temporarily excused Shostakovich
for the flaws in his music.
But the 8th Symphony made a stunning
yet also repulsive impression.
He fell prey
to individualism.
He must overcome the inequality of his work,
the withering influence of formalism and naturalism."
Dunaevsky:
"Our exaggerated consideration
and complacency,
after his 5th Symphony,
made us declare Shostakovich a true Socialist realist.
We didn't want to wait
for his work to provide proof of this.
His formalism is tenacious.
The dead seize the living."
"The country is being rebuilt.
We read about heroic deeds in factories
and fields.
Ask these people, - wrote composer Zakharov,
are they really so fond of the 8th and 9th Symphonies,
as our press pretends?
To lead people, one must speak
a language they understand.
In Leningrad, the dying
asked for folk music,
not the 7th Symphony.
We must say openly:
Our symphonic music has come to a standstill."
"One cannot say all our composers
write only cacophonic or disharmonic music.
It's debatable.
Perhaps to some it was difficult," -
Shebalin, head of the Moscow Conservatory.
"The teaching staff of the Leningrad Conservatory
have bad tendencies", -
said professor Serebriakov.
"As a result, we find in our students
little Shostakoviches and little Prokofievs."
"Decree n? 154 of the Leningrad Conservatory.
Due to the new rules for music education
concerning staff,
from September 1, 1948 on,
Professor Shostakovich D. D. must leave his position,
as he holds
another at the Moscow Conservatory."
The Motherland hears,
the Motherland knows,
She watches him...
...breaking through the thunder-clouds.
For however long the dark storm rages,
no matter what happens,
The first Soviet composers
were now mature.
Shostakovich's birthday celebrated
all our music.
Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich turned 50.
During those years, Dmitri and Nina Shostakovich
were often separated from each other.
Nina spent months in Armenia,
at the remote Aragats laboratory.
There she suddenly fell ill. Dmitri came at once.
He worried that with an open window
she might catch a cold.
He didn't know she was dead.
No one knew how to tell him.
He wasn't to know then that 21 years later
their tombs would be side by side.
The best conductors felt the happiness
of interpreting Shostakovich.
His music is reborn with every concert,
like here
with the finale of the 5th Symphony,
by Mravinsky and by Bernstein.
1958.
Together with other Soviet artists,
Dmitri Shostakovich goes
to receive his Lenin Prize.
He was nominated the year before,
but he convinced everyone
that the first Soviet composer to get this prize
should be Sergei Prokofiev.
In 1957, Sergei Prokofiev received...
...the Lenin Prize posthumously.
A year later, Shostakovich himself was awarded the Prize.
Shostakovich was preparing for a tour in France.
His 1st piano concerto
was part of the programme.
He came to Paris.
The concert and a recording
were being prepared.
At the last rehearsal, he suddenly felt
his right hand go weak.
This terrible illness, weakness of the limbs
and fear of moving -
was developing, but no one...
...knew its origin.
The concerto he used to play brilliantly
had not been done in Paris.
"If my work is going well,
I compose almost
morning to night.
Perhaps it's the wrong method.
I write very quickly, this could be a problem, too.
I want my music always to reach the public.
Sometimes it works immediately,
Time was taking its toll on his friends.
Shebalin died.
That's that. Thanks.
We'll see tonight...
After one more heart attack,
Shostakovich stayed in his dacha.
He couldn't attend David Oistrakh's
performance of his violin concerto
but heard a recording.
Oistrakh called Shostakovich,
wanting to know his opinion.
He taped their conversation.
- Hallo! - Dmitri! - Yes.
- Oh, it's you, David. - Am I disturbing you?
Can you call in
I'm afraid I shall be gone by then.
Will you? Then I'll tell you right now.
Let me tell you now. - No, I can wait.
Anna Akhmatova came to visit him.
It was their last meeting.
They spoke at length.
She liked his music.
He liked her poems.
These verses of hers speak of his music:
A wonder burns in it
as its facets take shape.
It keeps speaking to me
when others fear to come close.
When the last friend turned away
it was with me in my grave,
and sang as a spring thunderstorm,
as if all flowers were to talk.
Up this staircase at the back
he was physically carried into the Chamber Theatre,
for the premiere of "The Nose", before the performance began.
He didn't want others to see his physical weakness.
The opera performed again
40 years after its creation.
Irina Antonovna Shostakovich.
She became the wife of Dmitri Dmitrievich
in 1962.
Till the end of his life, she remained
his most devoted and faithful companion.
Here it is! Here it is!
My nose, indeed!
My nose is in its place, between my two cheeks!
Ivan! Ivan!
Yes, master!
Look here, Ivan.
I believe I've got a pimple on my nose.
Bother! Ivan might say,
not only the pimple, the nose itself isn't there!
You've nothing!
No pimple at all! Your nose is clean!
It's good! It's damned good!
August 6, 1975.
A heart attack?
August 8: The attack is not confirmed.
On August 9 he improved.
He asked his wife to read him a story by Chekhov,
his favourite one, "Gusev".
"It seems someone has come, voices are heard in the ward.
Five minutes later, all calms down.
"It's hard, - says Gusev.
I'll go on deck.
For God's sake, bring me up to the deck."
"All right, - says a soldier.
I'll carry you. Hold onto my neck."
They stand at the edge,
silently looking up and then down.
Above them, the deep sky, radiant stars,
calm and silence.
Nobody knows why waves make noise.
Each wave, as you watch it,
tries to rise higher,
pressing and driving the other,
its mane glowing with white.
A third wave overrides them all,
severe and ugly.
The sea has neither sense...
...nor compassion."
In the afternoon, Shostakovich persuaded his wife
to bring the mail from home.
She wouldn't.
He insisted.
At 6 o'clock, an asphyxia began.
At 6h30,
he was no more.
- Hallo! - Dmitri! - Yes.
- Oh, it's you, David. - Am I disturbing you?
- Can you call in 10 minutes?
- I'm afraid I shall be gone by then.
- Will you? - Then I'll tell you right now.
I'll tell you now.
- I can call in...
- No, better now. - Please wait.
I'll take my score. - I will take mine, too.
Page 88? - No, page 96.
- Page 96? - At the 68th.
Yes, I have it. It's fast, isn't it?
Mitya, what is your tempo for the start there?
Now that's a bit fast for the finale.
Good. Now tell me, my dear...
...would you keep the adagio in the 3rd part?
No, you're right.
What would you put?
We should find the term for that tempo.
For the 67th, the French horns, your tempo is good.
- Hard? - Hard...
Like this.
And then, like that.
- Perhaps a bit. - A bit.
Otherwise it's too much.
But to be sure, you know,
it's the most magnificent interpretation.
I have a silly compliment for you,
it was as if I were playing it.
I'm very happy to hear it.
Even the unmentioned ritenuto,
the unmentioned accelerando...
When it's published, you'd better mention them.
These nuances are so understated...
When can we speak?
I'll be at the Conservatory from ten to five.
Tamara will be at home. - I'll call around nine.
Thank you so much. Kisses.
Thanks a lot. We'll speak tomorrow.
All right. Good-bye.