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Robert Craft on Shostakovich: Was he correct?

13K views 138 replies 37 participants last post by  elegia65 
#1 ·
I'm not that deep into Shostakovich, so I'm curious about this statement by Robert Craft in the 1970s. Back when I was in school, this was the prevailing viewpoint. Was Craft correct, or was he blowing smoke from some sort of Cold War prejudice?

“Was Shostakovich a great composer? Not by any criteria of innovation in the language and style of music or by extraordinary powers of invention . . . The music that Shostakovich wrote does not exhibit a wide range of emotions. It depends on simple contrasts of the lyrical and the dramatic, the elegaic and the grotesque, the solemn and the 'impudent' . . . The ideas are worked to death, the forms, with their cliches of crescendo and climax, tend to sprawl, and the substance is thin, maddeningly so.”
 
#2 · (Edited)
It's neither correct nor incorrect, but rather just an opinion. You might agree or disagree with Craft's opinion.

For myself, I partially agree, but I think Craft is missing some dramatic elements that Shostakovich was truly great at it, not to mention what Shostakovich achieved within restrictions, given how he was forced by his government, on threat of imprisonment or death, to restrict his imagination in terms of 20th-c innovations and novelties.
 
#3 ·
I am somewhat inclined to agree with Craft, but one must remember Shostakovich's main critic, namely:Stalin (a certified psychopath and mass murderer). I'm sure if Robert Craft had had to answer to Stalin he wouldn't have shot his mouth off with quite the same abandon—or he'd be dead. He would have turned into quite a different writer and conductor. I do think Stalin greatly affected the kind of composer Shostakovich became, but I would be reluctant to write him off quite like Craft.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Without knowing what works by Shostakovich Craft knew or the depth to which he knew them it's impossible for me to be sure he was just, as I suspect, emitting smoke from an alternative orifice. But it is certain that Craft was taking the group-think academic line of his time. All music history books of that era downplayed the significance of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Weinberg, Rachmaninoff, et alia. Those opinions aren't wearing well.
 
#5 ·
When answering we must remember we only have the works written to judge him on, not what might have been. Of course his most radical work, Lady Macbeth, upset the mass-murderer Stalin with its immorality. Always interesting that a psychopath could murder millions without thought yet think a bed on stage was immoral! This nearly cost the composer his life so he intended to write to please after that. Of course, Craft tends to be typical of those who, being without an abundance of talent himself, tries to belittle those of vastly greater talent.
 
#6 ·
Shostakovich may have held back certain compositions until it was more conducive for them to see the light of day but even when Stalin was alive and the cultural commissars were on his back the composer was still clever enough to mask his true thoughts behind song texts and musical ciphers. At least it proved that in this regard he was way ahead of the arbiters of taste who were responsible for picking ideological holes in his work. Even if Robert Craft was right Shostakovich should still be given special credit for having the kind of streetwise smarts that were beyond the arguably more gifted Prokofiev.
 
#7 ·
I think it is at least interesting to have such comments because Shostakovich has been all but sainted in the last 25 years. I don't remember any negative press on him when I started listening to classical in the late 1980s but for a relative his music clearly was rather niche. I guess he was not modern enough for the more progressive half of musicians/audiences and denigrated as a Soviet state composer by the conservatives.
I don't remember exactly, maybe I had the 8th symphony on Naxos before but the first disc I remember buying was Haitink with 5 and 9 after I had seen the 9th at a concert (local provincial, not Haitink) in the early 1990s. Except for some not too well distributed russian recordings, Haitink was about the only easily buyable recording of the symphonies.
 
#8 ·
No, he was wrong.

"Was Shostakovich a great composer? Not by any criteria of innovation in the language and style of music or by extraordinary powers of invention
1. Shostakovich was a great composer.

2. To measure greatness by innovation is stupid. It is the easiest thing to create new nonsense.

The music that Shostakovich wrote does not exhibit a wide range of emotions.
Not sure. Often he composed some dissonant emotional wastelands, that aren't that different to other works. Many parts of his symphonies are emotionally similar. But they are nonetheless interessting. Overall I think rhythm is a bigger part of the attraction of Shostakovich. But he also wrote great lyrical passages.

I don't know a composer before Shostakovich who wrote like Shostakovich, so I think it is fair to call it innovative.

But I think Shostakovich was at his best when he wrote conservative in the romantic sense. I'm not sure whether 19th century composers can keep up.
 
#10 ·
Just another low-class musician opening his big mouth and dumping on a fellow musician. It strikes me that professional athletes exhibit much more respect for one another than musicians.
Apart from most boxers...
 
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#37 ·
"Was Shostakovich a great composer? Not by any criteria of innovation in the language and style of music or by extraordinary powers of invention . . . "



Really? Bach wrote the first true keyboard concerto, was the first to systematically adopt the well tempered system (composing the WTC just to force the matter) and brought counterpoint to a degree of sophistication and brilliance never matched before or after. As for extraordinary powers of invention-that's what he was famous for... I admit, you trolled me, but just sayin'...
 
#16 ·
I kept reading this thread thinking someone must eventually say what you did. Thanks! You're right. Craft was undeniably a fine musician - but not a great composer. So, as happens too often in music, he rode to fame and glory on the coattails of a giant and steered the master into doing some stupid things. Craft was so beholden to modernism, serialism and other musical dead ends that Shostakovich, who was really pretty traditional, was a natural enemy and target. Craft was utterly wrong - Shostakovich was a great composer. Was he as great as Beethoven, Brahms, or Prokofieff? Maybe not. He sure wrote his share of duds and a good amount of dreck - mostly to stay alive and make people happy. But the composer of Lady Macbeth, Symphonies 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 14, many of the string quartets, the 24 preludes and fugues for piano...those are pretty convincing proof of his stature.
 
#17 ·
True, mbhaub, 'bout Robt. Craft, in many ways. Well, at the TIME, there was a neo-classical period that even Stravinsky embraced, so I wouldn't condemn him, too strongly. BTW, there's a truly EXCELLENT recording, by Craft, with the great Chicago Symphony of the time (late '60s?) in an orchestration (by Schoenberg!) of Brahms' Piano Quartet, Op. 25. Maybe we shouldn't "write him off"/Craft, too soon - eh? ... Also, thanks for mentioning your favorites of the Shostakovich Symphonies ... and yes, 8, 9, 10 and others are truly FINE. I might suggest two of his earlier works - hardly, ever played or recorded, anymore - the 2nd and the 3rd ... and the 4th "ain't bad", either. Thanks!
 
#18 · (Edited)
I don't really like to analyze what makes a composer great or what makes Shostakovich Shostakovich. I'm more interested in just listening to different perspectives on it, so I would classify the OP perspective as 'interesting.'

Not surprised by any classical fan disliking Shostakovich. Classical fans dislike Bach and Beethoven. Classical fans include all kinds of less known composers in their top. It's all subjective and not right or wrong.
 
#20 ·
I don't really like to analyze what makes a composer great or what makes Shostakovich Shostakovich. I'm more interested in just listening to different perspectives on it, so I would classify the OP perspective as 'interesting.'

Not surprised by any classical fan disliking Shostakovich. Classical fans dislike Bach and Beethoven. Classical fans include all kinds of less known composers in their top. It's all subjective and not right or wrong.
Pardon? Don't see them queuing up?
 
#22 ·
I think it is pretty clear that the last decades have seen a rise in the popularity of "confessional" music from the late romanticism on. The point is not if this is really the best way to perceive Mahler or Shostakovich but it seems that the fact these two (and others) can be listened to in that way has contributed to them leaving a niche and becoming hugely popular. Whereas emotionally more "distant" music like Stravinsky or some Prokofiev or R. Strauss seems not as highly appreciated as it was.

Among conductors one can often see the tradition they come from, like in the case of Craft. Most of the "modernists" like Boulez, Abbado, Gielen,... mostly ignored DSCH (among others). The more "traditional" ones did so as well or were very selective (Karajan made two recordings of the 10th but nothing else). It seems that, with the exception of Haitink (who admitted that he recorded a few of the symphonies for completeness only) until the 1990s it was mostly Russians (clearly dominating the discography until then) or Americans (Ormandy, Bernstein, Previn) who cared most for DSCH.
Even for the string quartets the Brodsky recordings ca. 1990 were only the second complete non-Russian recording (and the older Fitzwilliam was probably oop by then). The famous western quartet ensembles of the 1950-80s (Amadeus, Juilliard, LaSalle, Guarneri, Italiano, Tokyo, Alban Berg...) mostly ignored what many today would see as the most important 20th century quartet series after Bartok. (They might have played a few in recital, I don't know but made no or very few recordings of them.)

No matter if one thinks the DSCH was severly underrated in the West until the 1990s or is somewhat overrated today, Craft's position might not have been an unusual one (although others might have phrased it less negatively) and the "rise" of DSCH is undeniable and quite remarkable.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Perspectives on Shostakovich and his music changed a lot after his death and publication of Volkov's book about him. He worked behind the Iron Curtain and his music like the 5th symphony was thought to be agitprop pro-communist blather by a dedicated follower. Once Testimony was published and his friends started supporting its assumptions ideas began to change.

Craft was correct that Shostakovich was not an agent of change or innovation. He used traditional forms in traditional ways. There is speculation that he wanted to dabble in 12 tone music but didn't believe the communist authorities would allow/support it. Other than that what Craft says is his opinion, not fact.

Today Shostakovich is considered the last of the greatest composers, along with Benjamin Britten, whose output may be considered in league with the other great composers of history ... thus making Craft's statement at a minimum short sighted.

Craft was an acolyte of Stravinsky, of course, and that is where this loyalties lay. Let us not forget Boulez's proclamation in his heyday that any composer not writing 12 tone or atonal or non-lyrical music was not really a classical music composer.

It's a sad reality that classical music is and always has been full of petty jealousies.
 
#24 ·
There is speculation that he wanted to dabble in 12 tone music but didn't believe the communist authorities would allow/support it. Other than that what Craft says is his opinion, not fact.
Speculation he wanted to? He actually wrote some. Do you know the late quartets?
 
#26 ·
The 9th symphony is actually one of the best, a brilliantly ironic piece. The problematic "socialist-realist movie scores" are rather pieces like 7 or 11, 12.

I think the dead end metaphor is quite misleading (or maybe a dead end...). What is the "natural" half-life of a style? Was Beethoven's music a "dead end" because his late music was considered difficult for many decades and people didn't continue that style?
If a certain style produced great masterworks, does it really matter if it is abolished or transformed beyond recognition after a few decades? Or should it matter if it "lives" for 2 decades or a century? I don't think so. There can be short and fruitful periods and long ones that are boring or less creative.
 
#31 · (Edited)
I don't agree with Craft, but he certainly had a right to his own opinion as everyone else does. What I don't think is necessary is to write extensively about why you dislike a composer's music or find them unimportant. The reality is whether you think they're important or not doesn't mean anything as what we have seen time and time again is that Shostakovich has earned his place in the concert repertoire, especially for his outstanding contributions to symphonies, concerti, opera, choral, chamber and solo piano music. To dump on a composer who still to this day has considerable success internationally, I think shows a certain vindictiveness, but also a lack of understanding for the composer's music. If I recall, there was a certain opinion expressed by English composer Robin Holloway where he basically described his music "battle ship grey" or something to this extent while Boulez called him a "third-pressing of Mahler."

The bottomline is this: any composer who has achieved international success and has many masterpieces within the concert repertoire that are regularly performed today is going to bring a certain amount of envy, but also disdain. For this listener, he has had a huge impact on my own listening and has affected me in ways that many other composers never have and this is all that matters to me.
 
#35 · (Edited)
Robert Craft (1923-2015) was a conductor and a dear friend of Igor Stravinsky. More than just a friend, he was almost like a family member, and often worked directly as Stravinsky's amanuensis, assisting him in numerous important ways including editing, translations, and the like. There's no doubt that there was a great love between Robert Craft and the Stravinskys.

Craft was also a very fine conductor. He never reached the top rank in terms of his own career, but he has left us many, many great recordings, especially of Stravinsky, but also Schoenberg. Importantly, he championed both, bridging the supposed rift that followers of the two great composers had more-or-less enforced.

Craft also championed many less well-known but totally worthy Stravinsky works that most conductors of the 1950s-1980s basically totally ignored, especially the late masterworks.

Unfortunately, haters of 12-tone music, or 20th-c. modern music in general, blame Craft for supposedly turning Stravinsky into a serial composer. Paraphrasing Craft, "as if anyone could lead that particular horse to water and make him drink..." It's beyond laughable to think anyone could compel Stravinsky do anything he wasn't inclined to.

So, of course it's nonsense. The explanation is simple: Stravinsky was interested in his friend Robert Craft's career, and since Craft made a number of first-ever LP recordings of Schoenberg's music, especially from his 12-tone era, Stravinsky was understandably curious to hear it. He subsequently found he liked it and was intrigued by it. People forget that it was pretty difficult to get hold of recordings of Schoenberg back then. And the fact is he discovered Schoenberg's 12-tone system actually overlay rather well the direction his own musical thinking had already been headed for some time, in terms of organizing the accumulation of the chromatic aggregate (a deeper explanation of this is a topic for another time and place.)

As for Craft's disaffection for Shostakovich, it's hardly surprising, especially from a statement made in the 1970s. There is some genuine, warranted criticism there: a lot of Shostakovich's music is quite limited in texture and form, and can come across as one-dimensional. Again, as I wrote above, focusing on that only can cause one to miss the dramatic and expressive directness of Shostakovich's best music, and the depth of achievement he found working within severe, life-threatening, externally-imposed limitations. And there's little doubt Shostakovich, but for the threat of Stalin, would have been a much more adventurous composer.

Everyone has their blind spots. Having them doesn't make someone a bad person.

In the end, how can anyone be surprised that a dear friend and deeply committed devotee of Stravinsky would lack an affinity for Shostakovich?! I mean, really. (I'm shocked, SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on in here!!)

It's pretty forgivable, if you ask me.

In no way was Craft "the worst thing to happen to Stravinsky's music," as someone with appalling ignorance wrote up thread, and he was certainly not in any way "low class musician." He had a quite respectable career, in fact, I suspect one far, far beyond anyone on Talk Classical, certainly including me.

Craft left a truly great recorded legacy (admittedly in a small repertoire.) And there's no doubt he was a genuine friend to Stravinsky.
 
#40 · (Edited)
And there's little doubt Shostakovich, but for the threat of Stalin, would have been a much more adventurous composer....
We can get a hint of what might have developed with Shostakovich if we listen to his works up to and including Lady Macbeth and Symphony #4....his big ballet scores, and film music are very colorful, pretty wild, actually, but flamboyant, upbeat, very energetic...after Lady/Sym #4, Shostakovich's works take on a much darker hue, still brilliantly orchestrated, but with a much more somber, even gloomy affect. of course, this was the time of the Stalinist terror - the massive purges, people simply disappearing, never to be heard from again...then came the horror of the German invasion, and the ensuing desperate ordeal of the Russian people.

DS supposedly really enjoyed jazz, and wanted to explore it - but the regime dictates were that jazz was representative of the "decadent west", frittering away their time and efforts in frivolous, unproductive dilly-dallying, not worthy of imitation, and most certainly not adherent to the wholesome values of the proletarian revolution and the honest labor of the blah, blah, yakety-yak, so on and so forth...
 
#36 ·
I don't think Craft ruined Stravinsky by encouraging him to embrace serialism. No, Stravinsky's late works are among his best, IMO. Stravinsky never wrote a work in which his unique style came shining through, and this is abundantly true for his late serial works. In his treatment of rhythm, and his method of using the tone row to create melodies and harmonies not unlike his previous works, I can easily tell his work from any other serial music.

Craft was a fine conductor and I am grateful for his championing the work of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and modernism in general.

But he was wrong about Shostakovich.
 
#38 · (Edited)
...encouraging him to embrace serialism.
As I explain above, this is not what happened. Stravinsky embraced it on his own volition.

No, Stravinsky's late works are among his best, IMO. Stravinsky never wrote a work in which his unique style came shining through, and this is abundantly true for his late serial works. In his treatment of rhythm, and his method of using the tone row to create melodies and harmonies not unlike his previous works, I can easily tell his work from any other serial music.
Totally agree.

Craft was a fine conductor and I am grateful for his championing the work of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and modernism in general.
Totally agree.

But he was wrong about Shostakovich.
How is it wrong to state an opinion? In the quoted statement, what is factual is all true, and the rest, which is most of the quote, is simply opinion.
 
#39 · (Edited)
I agree with Knorf, especially in his point about some members here talking trash about Robert Craft. Make no mistake, folks, it was Craft who inspired Stravinsky who felt he had nothing else to say compositionally to take up serialism. But the way Stravinsky used it, was completely original and not a complete break from what he had already done previously. If anyone here doesn't find something to enjoy in Stravinsky's late period, then chances are you're not really a fan of his music. A masterpiece like Agon couldn't have been conceived had this newfound interest in the Second Viennese School actually happened. I swear that some listeners are so closed-off to the idea of serialism that they think it all sounds like harsh, out-of-whack, unadulterated noise that a work like Agon wouldn't even get a proper listen from them because of some preconceived notion that the music isn't up to Stravinsky's "best" works --- whatever the hell this actually means.

The reality is simple: Craft was an immense influence on Stravinsky, but also a dear friend who admired him just as he admired Schoenberg (another important composer in his life). But make no mistake, it was Stravinsky's own choice to start using serialist techniques even with all of Craft's urging, but the way he used them was totally singular and like everything he wrote --- it still had his own unmistakable voice within it.

Let the naysayers continue to trash Stravinsky's late period and Craft, but, for me, this short period was fruitful and has given us yet another branch to an already substantial and influential legacy.

Here is an excellent, highly informative video from composer Samuel Andreyev talking about Stravinsky's late period works:



I highly suggest all the naysayers watch this video and actually watch it without distractions. You could learn something.
 
#43 · (Edited)
I think this thread belongs to the section "Politics and religion" and is full of minefields (as far as the self-imposed limitations of this forum are concerned). The political context of the Craft's unfair quip cannot be understood without getting it into the contemporaneous context of the Cold War. I do not mean the general Cold War as most people remember it from the 80ies (and younger people know from mostly mendacious movies), but the specific period of the Cold War. The period when the Congress for Cultural Freedom thrived. Shostakovich was not simply one of the targets but the main boogie-man. Craft's criticism was a carefully crafted attack within the general party line of that time, coached (ostensibly) in purely musical terms. Given the seemingly total ignorance of the posters of the context, I suggest we drop the subject.
 
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