PART I
DOCUMENTS
Shostakovich:
Letters to His Mother, 1923-1927
SELECTED BY DMITRII FREDERIKS AND ROSA SADYKHOVA INTRODUCED, AND WITH COMMENTARY, BY ROSA SADYKHOVA TRANSLATED BY ROLANDA NORTON
From their first parting in 1923, Dmitrii Shostakovich corresponded with his mother for almost thirty years. Sofia Vasilevna Shostakovich kept her sonâs letters and even the short postcards he sent her from here and there on his travels. After her death in 1955, Sofia Vasilevnaâs personal archive remained in the family of her eldest daughter, Mariia Dmitrievna Shostakovich, and then of Mariiaâs son, Dmitrii Vsevolodovich Frederiks.
In 1981, an exhibition was organized by the Leningrad Philharmonic with the participation of the Leningrad Museum of Theatre and Music to mark Shostakovichâs seventy-fifth birthday; during the creation of this exhibition Dmitrii Frederiks established a partnership with the museum. A few years later Sofia Vasilevnaâs personal archiveâcontaining albums of family and theater photographs, several documents and musical autographs, and also lettersâwas handed over to the museum; the letters, however, were placed under the conditions of a private archive.
Several of the letters, dating from 1923 to 1927, were published in a somewhat abridged form in the journal Neva (1986, no. 9). Dmitrii Frederiks and I then chose the letters that we considered necessary to introduce into academic circles and that, it seemed to us, would be of interest to the general public. These letters are published here in their unabridged form for the first time.
The period of 1923-27 was one of unusually intense spiritual and creative growth for Shostakovich. Let us recall: in 1923 Shostakovich was seventeen; he was studying in two classes at the Petrograd Conservatory (piano and composition); he was a favored pupil, arousing the boldest predictions for his future; and he was already the author of several works that were striking in their originality, freshness, and clearly outlined individuality. By 1927 he was a famous composer and the diplomate of an international piano competition; his name was at the center of the most interesting musical discussions of the 1920s; and he was the author of the famous First Symphony and First Piano Sonata in which his not insignificant spiritual experience was already formed. In a few years he had traveled an enormous distance. Only a few of these events are reflected in these published letters. Of particular interest to researchers will be the letters in which Shostakovich tells of his links with composers in Moscow during those years. His letters both embellish and clarify existing factual material.
Because these letters are addressed to the composerâs mother, they contain many domestic details that give a flavor of the familyâs daily life and the relationships therein. In 1922, when the composerâs father, Dmitrii Boleslavovich Shostakovich, died, the family was left with no income. Sofia Vasilevna attempted to work; her eldest daughter Mariia, also a student at the conservatory, started giving music lessons; the youngest daughter, fourteen-year-old Zoya, was still at school. In 1924, while continuing his study at the conservatory, Dmitrii Shostakovich started working as a piano accompanist in the cinema, which had a bad effect on his health. As is apparent from his letters, both his friends and the teachers at the conservatory tried to help him. It is well-known, for example, that the rector of the Petrograd Conservatory, Aleksandr Glazunov, obtained a personal stipend for Shostakovich and additional rations. However, the family was always desperately short of money.
Shostakovich was particularly close to his mother at this time. He thought of himself as her principal support and shared the familyâs concerns with her. Directed by Sofia Vasilevnaâs advice he began to conduct his affairs with the seriousness of an adult. âMitka is displaying great efficiency in administrative affairs and does not allow himself to be swindled,â the composer Mikhail Kvadri wrote to her from Moscow. âEverywhere he goes he talks with self-respect and above all he is adored by everyoneâ (17 January 1927).
It must be said that Shostakovichâs relationship with his mother was never idyllic. Sofia Vasilevna had a powerful and difficult nature. Loving her son as she did unreservedly and believing absolutely in his genius, she tried to be his âleaderâ in life, and, as often happens with frenzied parents, was somewhat overbearing. As a result their relationship sometimes had dramatic moments, but even in his young years, when they were closest, Shostakovich both missed his home and was constantly striving to leave it. Yet whenever he did go away, he wrote tender letters home, giving detailed, diary-like accounts, warmly sharing the joys of his first successesâso sacred to a musician who is just starting his careerâknowing how his mother looked forward to receiving them. Shostakovichâs letters to his mother are so sincere and contain so much direct perception of life that they give us a sufficiently full picture of the character of the young composer.
Koreiz,1 3 September 1923
Dearest Mother,
I am terribly bored here so far from Piter2 and canât wait till we get home. I never thought I would be so homesick. My darlings, one day I will see you and embrace you again. Little Zoyaâsheâs so good, so lovely. What is she up to? I guess her lessons have already begun in school? Really, Zoya is a wonderful person. Here I spend all my time in the sanatorium and I get terribly bored. I suppose it is fall in Petrograd now. I expect itâs drizzling and the wind is bracing. Oh, dear Petrograd weather! Here all the really splendid people have gone their separate ways; there remain only rather dry, erudite fellows. The weather is still fine, thank goodness. Itâs as if the sun senses that it has to heal my lump and it is shining with all its might. Recently I caught sight of myselfâitâs terrible how I have tannedâIâm so brown. Incidentally, there are often big fires at the moment between Alupka and Simeiz. Fire is even threatening Ai-Petri. It is a huge natural disaster. The day before yesterday a singer, Epaneshnikova, gave a recital. She is amazing. Her voice is crystal clear. Iâm not much of a fan of the voice and chamber singing, but she sang so well that I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I just canât tell you how Iâm longing to go to the Mariinsky Theatre and hear Kitezh, The Queen of Spades, Coppelia, and The Nutcracker. On the whole itâs awfully boring here. I donât suppose youâve seen Maksimilian Oseevich?3 Whatâs up with him? Why hasnât he replied to my letter? And Leonid Nikolaev4 too. Itâs pig-headed of them. I warned both of them that I cannot and do not enjoy writing letters, yet when I left they still both asked for a letter from me and now they havenât replied. I just donât know whatâs the matter with them. Epaneshnikova has just arrived; sheâs going to sing. She sang well. Mariia, Oleg, Galia, and I went off to the tower (we have a tower here in Gaspra) to look at the fire. Itâs a terrible sight, but beautiful. Purple smoke is rising above Ai-Petri and has surrounded all of the left-hand side. I didnât like Alupka much. True, where it flattens out down at the bottom it is very beautiful, but in the town itâs horrible. Mother dear, donât send us any more money as we have easily enough. Iâve just come back from the sea: there were some people there with a life belt. I put it on, you know, but although I didnât sink I couldnât swim. I couldnât even move! So I suppose learning to swim will just have to remain a dream. But for the moment I just canât wait till I get to Petrograd and see you and our apartment, and the dog. . . . Oh yes! In your last letter you said the kitten has been given away. Thatâs a real pityâhe was so splendid. Well, good-bye. All the best. It wonât be long now till we see each other.
D. Shostakovich.
1. In the spring of 1923 Shostakovich was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the lymph glands. After an operation the doctors insistently recommended spending his convalescence in the Crimea. Sofia Vasilevna sold certain items, even a grand piano, leaving her children without an instrument, in order to send Dmitrii and Mariia there for the summer. This was Shostakovichâs first reasonably prolonged separation from his family.
2. Piter is a nickname for St. Petersburg/ Petrograd/Leningrad. Trans.
3. Maksimilian Oseevich Shteinberg (1883-1946), composer, professor at the Petrograd Conservatory. Shostakovich studied composition in Shteinbergâs class from 1919 to 1925.
4. Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolaev (1878â 1942), pianist, professor at the Petrograd Conservatory. Shostakovich completed Nikolaevâs piano class in 1923.
Koreiz, 3 August 1923
Dearest Mother,
I have just read your seventh letter. My health, thank goodness, is now good. The lump is almost completely gone. Well, itâs very tiny. Iâve had my thirtieth injection of arsenic and (donât tell Anna Vladimirovna) it doesnât hurt at all. There is a nurse in the sanatorium, Liubov Sergeevna, and she makes a fine art of administering injections. Whatâs more, the day before yesterday Elena Nikolaevna, the doctor here, prescribed sunbathing for me. Yesterday I sunbathed for twenty minutes. Before I was only exposing my lump to the sun but now I can expose my whole body. I really didnât expect it to disappear so quickly. I have written to Viktor Grigorevich,1 Maks. Oseev., and Leon. Vlad.2âall on the twenty-ninth. Moreover, I also wrote to you and Zoya and Val. Mikh.3 on that day. You write that I should be careful and not throw myself into the whirlpool.4 I would like to philosophize a little about this. Sheer bestial love (as when a man experiences desire for loveâyou canât even call it loveâand he goes to a brothel and pays for a woman, etc.) is so disgusting that itâs not even worth talking about. I presume you donât think I am like that. That kind of man is no different from an animal. Now, if, let us suppose, a married woman falls out of love with her husband and gives herself to another man whom she loves, and without regard for social prejudices they begin to live openly together, there is nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, it is even good when Love is truly free. Promises made at the altar are the worst thing about religion. Love canât last forever. Of course the best thing imaginable would be a total abolition of marriage, of all fetters and duties in the face of love. But that is utopian, of course. Without marriage there can be no family, and that really does spell disaster. But at any rate that love should be freeâthat much is indisputable. And Mother dear, I want to warn you that if I ever fall in love, maybe I wonât want to marry. But if I did get married and if my wife ever fell in love with another man, I wouldnât say a word; and if she wanted a divorce I would give her one and I would blame only myself. (If that didnât seem right, for example, if the man she loved was married and his wife had prejudices, then I would handle the situation differently; and if she was afraid of social prejudice she would have to keep living at my address.) But at the same time there exists the sacred calling of a mother and father. So you see, when I really start thinking about it my head starts spinning. Anyhow, love is free!
Forgive me, Mother, for writing to you in this way. I am talking to you about all this not as your son, but as if we were two philosophers. I have wanted to talk to you about it for a long time but I was held back by some kind of false shame. Dearest Mother, I am completely pure and I expect I will remain so for a long time yet. If I fall in love I will do so in a way that I consider pure. There is no such thing as impure love, but there is filthy debauchery. I would like it very much if you would write a few words to me about it all. Debauchery is when a man buys a woman for money. But apart from that there is free love and depraved violation.
A big hug,
Your loving son, Mitia.
1. Viktor Grigorevich Valter (1865â1935), violinist, prominent figure in music. From 1918 he was secretary for the State Opera Council and other musical and concert organizations.
2. Maksimilian Shteinberg and Leonid Nikolaev, see notes 3 and 4 in preceding letter.
3. Valerian Mikhailovich Bogdanov-Berezovsk...