Judge Dennis Davis
Dmitri Shostakovich

Judge Dennis Davis | Dmitri Shostakovich | 06.03.21

Visual and music are displayed throughout the presentation.

- Firstly, let me thank Shawna because, if the lecture is going to be a success, it’s going to be due to her because of all the various clips I’m going to show. Let me start by saying, in a way, it’s very appropriate to have Shostakovich coupled at the tote tonight with Vasily Grossman on the lecture that we had earlier, because there’s a great deal of synergy here, it seems, to me, between the great novelist and the great composer. As is my want, I do not intend to, as it were, deal with all of Shostakovich in one lecturer. That would be ridiculous. I had thought that I’d be able to do Shostakovich five and the Shostakovich seven. That’s the famous fifth and then the Leningrad. Whether we get there or not, I don’t know, but I’m not going to rush because, it seems, to me, that you can get a lot more out of somebody by actually drilling down into the essence of their work.

Now, there are a couple of the preliminary remarks I’d like to make, if I may, which stem from earlier lectures, certainly that I have participated in. When I did a series of lectures on Mahler. I raised with you a point that had been made by Leonard Bernstein in that extraordinary set of lectures that he gave at Harvard, the Norton lectures. With regard to music, probably the best set of lectures, certainly, I’ve ever had, on the meaning of music. And he raised the question as to whether, in fact, music was intrinsic, whether it was intrinsic to itself, the meaning, or whether one could extrapolate a series of extrinsic meanings outside of the music itself, to glean the meaning of the piece itself. Now, that’s a debate which we can have.

One thing is for certain, with regard to Shostakovich, and of that I’m absolutely certain, is that one cannot understand Shostakovich without understanding the context in which he operated. And more will be said about that, in a moment. Whether, in fact, the music itself has to be read from the outside inward, or the other way round, is another matter. And I’ll leave that for you to judge as I point out some of the critical questions that we have to look at in regard to Shostakovich’s composition. My second observation is one that I had raised with you, some of you. It seems such a long time ago that we started lockdown. And I can’t really remember when I did what, but I did a lecture on the Nuremberg film, “Judgement Nuremberg.” Not the ones with David, but a full length one, in which I’d raised with you, the whole question of the idea of law.

And why I mention this was because I’d referred, in that lecturer, to a famous book, for those of you who are interested in law, by Lon Fuller, the famous Harvard law professor who had written a book called “The Morality of Law.” And, in that book, he raises a really interesting point about what happens in autocratic systems when the king decides to change the law every day. So, one day you get rewarded for an act and the next day your head’s chopped off. How does one, actually, define law, and indeed a society, when the parameters within that society change almost on a daily basis? I, myself, and many who are listening to this call from South Africa, who had lived in South Africa in the 1980s, particularly, those of us who were politically involved, will know this well, that in the 1980s, when we had a series of states of emergency, the rules changed from day to day.

So, you, kind of, knew, given state of emergency A, what it was that you could or couldn’t do. And then suddenly P W Botha, you may remember him, the resident psychopath from the wilderness, who was the president at a particular point in time, he would then change the rules. And then how would one comport one’s behaviour? Now, why am I telling you this? Because the background to the fifth symphony, which is the major work that we’re going to look at, this evening, unquestionably fits within that framework, as we shall see. When, for example, Stalin decided to change the rules to use a soccer term, Shostakovich was caught off side, not because he was not cautious, which he was, but because the rules had changed. And this particular lecture that I’m going to give illustrates, precisely, the problem of authoritarian societies who change rules, and people then, just as a whim, and people then are endangered in a fashion that they could never have predicted because they wouldn’t have known what the rule was before.

Let me explain that by looking at the background to Shostakovich. And we could put his photograph up, Shawna, that’d be terrific. This photograph tells, for me, a million words. If you look, this is a man of great anxiety, of somebody who rarely, in a sense, felt the pressure of the Stalinist terror. Indeed, his great friend, Rostropovich, said of Shostakovich that he would’ve been an even greater composer had it not been for the fact that he had Stalin breathing down his neck. And the level of anxiety depicted in this photograph seems, to me, to say more than 1,000 words could in all sorts of ways. But think of the distinction that we’re talking about in terms of a composer for the 20th century. Six concerti, 15 symphonies, 36 film scores, 15 string quartets, just to name some, some work on jazz. A remarkable output of work, which he produced over his period from 1906 when he was born to 1975. And he lived, as we all know, until 53 under the Stalinist era, which, of course, is exactly the point that Rostropovich has made, which seems, to me, to reflect the anxiety which was written all his face in the photograph being shown to you, now.

So, he was born in 1906 in St. Petersburg and he entered the Petrograd Conservatory at the age of 13, as an extremely talented pianist. But it was in composition that he marked himself up in a most remarkable way. So, by the time he was 19, he had composed his first symphony, but as a student. And, what was remarkable, it was an incredible success. It was a work which was performed in Leningrad in 1926, only two years after Stalin had succeeded Lenin. And the success of it was embraced because we see the Soviet Union were looking for a new musical hero. Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff had gone off to the United States some years earlier, and the Soviet regime then embraced Stalin, as the new musical hero. And that was helped by the fact that this first symphony, composed when he was 19-years-old, was then played in Berlin by Bruno Volta, soon, thereafter, by Toscanini, I might add, a composer, sorry, a conductor who Shostakovich, apparently, disliked intensely, and also by Klemperer. And so, he was turbocharged into fame, and into reputation, very early.

And, immediately after the first symphony, he continued to write film and theatre music. In fact, certainly by the ‘30s, he had written scores for 30 films. He’d written an opera, a ballet, and further symphonic works, a second symphony, which marked the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917. And then there was a third. Both of those, I might add, you could say were very supportative. You could say that they were propagandist in nature. But then what happened was he then produced this opera, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.” It was an instant success. Within a year, it had been performed in the United States and, indeed, in places like Argentina. It had had 200 performances before the fatal day, which I shall come to in a moment. But let me say something about this particular work. It’s one that, if I had more time, we could listen to a little bit. But I’m going to just tell you about it. “Lady Macbeth,” not derived from Shakespeare, but it’s derived from a novel by Nikolai Leskov, written in 1865, and it was about Katerina Lvovna… Izmailova. Sorry, please forgive my pronunciations. Russian is not a language I know particularly well, if at all.

And she was imprisoned in a life of total, kind of, barren conditions with her merchant husband until the assistant, Sergei arrives on the scene and they fall, instantly, in love. And, of course, she then kills her odious father-in-law and now, unfettered by these constraints, she kills her husband, as well. The lovers hide the corpse in a cellar, it’s found by tramp, the tramp informs the authorities. Although Katerina and Sergei marry, the police interrupt the ceremony, and the very last act is in the Siberian labour camp where Katerina and Sergei are amongst the convicts. Sergei has now found another lover whom Katerina drags into a frozen lake and both women are drowned. The work bursts with lust and defiance and crime. And, indeed, the way Shostakovich conceived of it, the politics of freedom.

The musicologist, Richard Taruskin, wrote about this saying, “Shostakovich’s strategy was to exonerate his heroin by indicting her surroundings, turning her from a sinner into a martyr. He, in fact, sought,” says Taruskin, “Shostakovich sought to develop a moral equivalence between Katerina’s deeds and the class-based murder of the Stalinist regime at the time.” Now, you can well understand that this wasn’t going to go down particularly well with Uncle Joe. And one wonders what Shostakovich’s mood would’ve been like on that fatal day, in 1936, after 200 performances of this, where Stalin arrived to listen to a performance and the opera started with several members of the politburo and Stalin, up there in the great box watching.

Unfortunately for Shostakovich, at the end of the third act, Stalin then walked out. And you can imagine Shostakovich’s anxiety, just two days later, when he was bought a newspaper, he bought “Pravda” at the railway station, on the 28th of January, 1936, and this is what he saw. If we can get the next clip, Shawna. This is just a short part of the article that appeared in “Pravda” and was widely attributed either to have been written by Stalin, or written on his instructions. He said, of the piece, “Singing is replaced by shrieking. The music quacks, hoots, growls, and grasps to express the love scenes as naturally as possible.”

The opera’s success aboard was held up as “tickling the perverted taste of the bourgeoisie with its fidgety, screaming, neurotic music.” It is also seen as being an open threat of the danger to Russia’s artistic community, “The ability of good music to enthral the masses has been sacrificed on the altar of petit bourgeois formulas. This is playing an obtuseness and such games can only finish badly.” 1936. Now, you can imagine, by the way, 10 days later, a second article appeared, also in “Pravda” calling Shostakovich a musical charlatan.

Now, just think of the context in which this was occurring, and it’s really interesting that we need to understand the way in which Shostakovich would’ve received this, given the context of Russia by 1936 and 1937. In the earlier period, there had been an encouragement for development of art, which is, of course, why Shostakovich would’ve written “Lady Macbeth” in the way he did. And it’s also true that he had composed a fourth symphony, which, upon reflection, now, that we know, probably would’ve heralded Shostakovich as a definitive post Mahlerian conductor, a composer, sorry, composer.

The trouble ever was that given the nature of the fourth symphony and its susceptibility to the same kind of critique to which “Lady Macbeth” had been attacked, the prudent view, and Mravinsky, Shostakovich’s great friend and conductor who was going to, actually, perform the premier of the fourth symphony, and other friends of Shostakovich, all advised Shostakovich to, actually, withdraw the symphony, which indeed he duly did, because he knew he was in trouble and in big trouble. Now, those of you, many of you may know this, because you may well have read Julian Barnes’s magnificent “Noise of Time,” which, in fact, documents the life of Shostakovich and speaks in clarion detail about this particular time.

Now, it’s very interesting that by the one article in “Pravda” followed up by the second, the man who had been regarded as the, sort of, centre of Russian music, given Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev having gone to the States, had fallen from the great hero to somebody who was really an enemy of the state. And, certainly, in early '37, Shostakovich was ordered to appear at the offices of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB. And it was, presumably, he thought that it was because of what had occurred with regard to the critique of “Lady Macbeth.” An investigator called Zaniewski, sorry for the pronunciation, quizzed Shostakovich about his friendship with the military leader, marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and he was pressed on whether they discussed politics. “No,” said Shostakovich, “we only spoke about music,” because the general had actually been a keen amateur musician.

Shostakovich was told by Zaniewski to return two days later. The story is told that during those two days he, basically, lived on the steps of his apartment, is absolutely sure that he was going to go the way of so many of his compatriots. Peculiarly, when he turned up again for the second time, his interrogator, Zaniewski himself, had been arrested and imprisoned, and although Zaniewski was found guilty of treason and shot, Shostakovich was off the hook, but he was only partly off the hook. And that is the context. That is the context in which this fifth symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich was born. And, I think, one has to understand something about this. Think of the context in which this all occurred. The official figures, and these are the official figures, are that in 1937 and 1938 alone, 681,692 people were killed by Stalin in purges.

Robert Conquest in his splendid book “The Great Terror,” which has gone through a number of editions, and is still, probably, the definitive work on point, points out that on one day on the 12th of December, 1937, Stalin had 3,167 people killed. So, think of Shostakovich’s mindset at that particular point in time. Absolutely crucial to understand this, that he must have thought, and many of his own friends had disappeared, this was a period of terrible, terrible terror. And given the figures I’ve just given to you, you can well understand the anxiety of somebody who had been attacked so vigorously, whether by Stalin or by his acolytes in “Pravda” on two separate occasions, hauled off to the security police and just luckily escaped. And that’s the context in which the fifth symphony, the fourth symphony having been withdrawn, the fifth Symphony comes about. It’s a symphony which attempts, in many ways, to try to respond to these particular difficulties in which he encountered.

And, I suppose, what I’m trying to suggest, by way of significant context, is how do you do that? How do you respond in a situation whereby the rules have changed so radically? You simply don’t know, but what you do know is you’re in serious trouble. When you are told that your music is muddled instead of music and it quacks and grunts and growls. And you’ve been told that by none other than Stalin himself, that is cause for more than passing concern. And so Shostakovich now wrote the fifth symphony. And it is interesting, here we are. Let us transport ourselves to the Leningrad Symphony Hall in November, 1937, when the symphony made its premier, conducted, again, by his friend Mravinsky. What did the audiences say? What did Shostakovich think? He was, literally, writing for his life.

He was writing a symphony, which, to a large degree, the success or failure of which was going to determine his future, whether to live or not, as the case may be. How do you conceive of a symphony which is now going to respond to this kind of criticism, which you see on the board? And he came up with a brilliant idea. The way he sought to deal with it was to say, which composer is there amongst the, sort of, as it were, great composers of the centuries, who is still acceptable in Stalinist Russia, who still fits in with the rules as I’ve suggested? And that particular composer was Beethoven. I think Patrick has spoken about Beethoven in the curious context of authoritarian regimes, including Nazi Germany.

Well, curiously, in 1937, for whatever reason, Beethoven was still regarded as perfectly okay. He was more than okay. And what Shostakovich does is, effectively, to use the Beethoven sonata form, particularly for the first movement. The idea of having a situation of a theme, of having a development, and having a recapitulation, that the three central features of the sonata form of a symphony. But he did more than that. He actually borrowed, to some considerable extent, from Beethoven’s own work, particularly the ninth symphony. What I’m going to do for you now is just play you the opening two minutes of the ninth symphony. I want to then talk a little bit about the first movement of Shostakovich’s fifth, and then you’ll see why I’ve done that. If we could get the clip, Shawna?

♪ Music plays ♪

Right, now, please bear… don’t worry about the first few opening bars, which I’ve spoken about previously when I did Beethoven nine, but just that, sort of, beginning, the real beginning of the first movement of the ninth. And I’ll come back to that. What I’d like you to, when I play, as I will, the first five minutes of the first movement, and it is always my want, to allow the music to speak for itself. So, I hope you’ll listen. You don’t mind me giving reasonable extracts of the music, so you get some sense. You will see what I mean, by the way in which Shostakovich has borrowed this, this da-dum, but a much quieter version. And what we’ll also find is, unlike Beethoven’s sonata form, the development, the exposition, the development, ans the recapitulation, here it’s done with great hesitancy.

There’s a nervousness, there’s a tension. There is unquestionably something in the background of a threatening kind, which comes with this music. The celli and the bass accompanying the first violins, sort of, opens up, and what is particularly interesting about this, please observe, that within the first three bars, the music appears almost to come to a dead end. And we then get these three notes, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, which come right through the entire symphony, almost in the way Beethoven’s fifth had had the four notes. There are three notes which come again and again, but they almost bring the music to an abrupt halt before it continues. And you shall see exactly what I’m talking about, this way in, which as a result of the manner in which he uses the strings here, the music conveys an overwhelming sense, it seems to me, of despair, of lack of hope.

But at sometimes the music rises and then falls, rises and falls, continuously coming into a cul-de-sac. This is music of the greatest tension. He’s trying, as it were, I think, to convey the desperation of the condition in which he’s located. And you can feel this if you listen to the first few minutes, even the first few minutes, just the first few bars, give you that indication. And then, as it were, you also find, at one point, the extraordinary way in which the pizzicato and one lonely, I think this will be in the clip, one lonely woodwind, as it were, just presents another variation of this desperate, desolate picture, which Shostakovich is outlining in the first part of the fifth symphony.

So, listen out for the beginning, which is, as I say, certainly borrowed, to some extent, from Beethoven. And then the way in which the strings convey the desperation, the lonely woodwind, and the way in which the music constantly, with those three notes seems to come to a halt and then continue. It is a sonata form of the greatest threat and lack of stability when you compare it, for example, to, say, Beethoven. So, Shawna, if we could get the clip now of the first few minutes, conducted by that wonderful young conductor, Dudamel. I think this is with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. It seemed to be on the clip I shared. I’m not entirely sure, but nonetheless, let’s hear the first few minutes.

♪ Music plays ♪

I could continue. I mean, it’s such a pity that we can’t all sit and listen to the whole movement, to the whole work. But it then, you know, that marching part that develops into a much more grotesque march in the second part of the first movement. It’s almost as if people are marching into the Gulag, that sense of desperation, sadness. This is not an opening movement that you’d expect to, as it were, be the artist’s legitimate response to criticism of the subtype. But the point about it, is that it does show the desolation, the despair, the isolation in which Shostakovich must have felt.

You can see, in a way, however, that he was now adopting the more traditional sonata form. So, he was not going to be stand accused of the more free-floating measure of the opera “Lady Macbeth” or the fourth symphony, which he was too scared, quite understandably, to, actually, have premiered at that point. Now, the second movement, and I’ve got to sort of prune my clips here for you. The second movement is also remarkable because here there’s a direct borrowing from his great hero, Mahler. And, although I’m not going to play you the second movement, 'cause I simply don’t have time, when you listen to it, you’ll recognise the Mahlerian themes which emerge.

Now, what is particularly interesting about the second movement is that it’s, basically, a movement of dance, but it’s not the kind of movement as a traditional, as it were, Vietnamese dances. It’s almost in the way in which Mahler combined both charm and venom in his music, in a sense, the irony, the reflection on what are we dancing for? And in this particular movement, there’s no doubt about that. There’s dancing right through the movement, but it’s, kind of, there’s a venom and a streak to it, almost as if to say, what is there which we can dance to in the conditions which Stalin has, basically, put us into? There’s no way in which there’s any joy here. This is dancing under serious pressure. This is dancing to the tune of the authoritarian leader.

It’s a remarkable variation of the Mahlerian technique to give a particular idea, to convey an idea of, not just despair, but of critique in a traditional music format. It’s quite remarkable. And now we get to the third movement. Now, the third movement is quite beautiful in its own way. It is a movement of great sadness, again. You could say it’s a requiem for all of those people who’ve died. And remember, Shostakovich would have known many of the people who died, Shostakovich would’ve known about, perhaps not all those 600,000, but he would’ve known about his own sister who was taken away, about other artists who were taken away. And the third movement is widely recognised as being a requiem for their death, for their despair of the death, which they all were encountering right around them at the time.

And, indeed, what is remarkable about this movement is it makes reference right through to Russian Orthodox church music. Now, you and I may not have recognised that, but, as sure as goodness, the audience that night in Leningrad, listening to that symphony, would unquestionably recognise all of those particular references. I want to play for you the first few opening minutes of this extraordinary requiem. And you’ll notice it starts with the third violins. And you might say, “What do you mean, the third violins?”

This is one of these unique pieces. Strauss’s Elektra also did that in which Strauss divided out the violins into three, as opposed to two, sections. And the third violins, the third section, almost like having various kind of choirs dotted around the stage, the third violins open the movement and the celli, the basses, and the violas, in a sense, give the harmonic accompaniment to the opening of this movement, which you’ll see, just from the first few minutes, really is in the form of that reflective requiem to which I’ve made reference. It ends in the most beautiful, silent way, but I don’t have time to play that. So, I’m just going to play for you the first few minutes of the third movement.

♪ Music plays ♪

Thank you, again, we could continue, but I think you get the point I’m trying to make. I would tell you that it is said that when that movement ended, there wasn’t a dry eye in that concert hall. The audience knew well. They knew what Shostakovich was talking about. They understood that this was a requiem for all those who had died, all those who had disappeared. It’s a remarkably brave piece of music. And, if you think that he had said that the entire symphony was a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism, it seems, to me, that if he had stopped at the end of the third movement, I’m not entirely sure that Stalin would’ve been particularly happy.

But then came the fourth movement and it’s the most intriguing of all. It starts thunderously and it continues with a fairly triumphant tone, almost to the end. And yet, at the end, at the end it leaves you in an extraordinarily set of doubt. It builds up agonisingly towards the key of D major, as if, and this would’ve been the triumphal, final statement of Shostakovich’s total commitment to the Stalinist regime. But then, enigmatically, there’s a, sort of, B flat right towards the end. I’m going to play it for you now, which essentially almost sends the movement back into the minor key, into the key which certainly would not be a transect.

And then, there’s the ominous few bars right at the end and you’re left in doubt. What did Shostakovich really mean by this? Now, I’m going to play you just the last three minutes, and, well, you can judge for yourself. It’s not for me. I have a view, but I’m sure you do too, about what this means as we come to the last couple of minutes. Well, I think we’ve probably got the whole thing here rather than the last couple of minutes.

♪ Music plays ♪

Hello? Shawna?

• [Shawna] Yes, hi.

• Did we not? I think we’re played the whole thing. Have we got the last minute or two?

• [Shawna] Let me just go to scrub it over.

• Yeah, sorry about that. I did want the first bit, but then I did want the last bit because otherwise we’ll be here all night. Just the last two minutes of the clip. Ah, yes, there we are. Can you go back a bit, just go back a bit. Just go back a bit. Right.

♪ Music plays ♪

Now, I wanted to play that for you because that’s the controversial Bernstein performance, which is a lot quicker than Mravinsky and others have done it. Even then, and Bernstein, I think, trying to point out that it, actually, was more positive than it was. But even with Bernstein’s version, if you look at the beginning, as we’ve played, a thunderous stop. But it doesn’t end quite as triumphantly as, let’s say, the Mahler three, which you would’ve, if you’ve heard, which, of course, are some of the other early Mahler’s, the Mahler five. This is not the case.

And then the final drumbeats, what do they mean? And, certainly, because of the switch of key, there’s that real sense of what did Shostakovich mean at the end? It wasn’t an entire triumph. Now, in Volkov'a rather controversial book testimony, which is controversial because the question is whether, in fact, it really, authentically, reflected Shostakovich or not. He is quoted as saying, and I’ll share this with you. “It is as if,” says, Shostakovich, “someone were beating you with a stick and saying, 'Your business is rejoicing, your businesses rejoicing.’ You rise, shakily, and go off muttering, ‘Our businesses is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’”

In short, although the last movement does hint at some triumph, even with Bernstein’s quicker version than anybody else’s take, it does seem, to me, that Shostakovich, at best, leaves open the idea that really this was not a symphony of praise. And, at worst, it certainly leaves it in doubt. It is a remarkably enigmatic work as it’s so reflective of Shostakovich. But it saved his life, because at the end of that symphony, the crowd was on their feet. Mravinsky held up the score in dramatic fashion to say this is all our Dmitri. The crowd screamed his name and Shostakovich, for a while, was free from the terrors of Stalin. It came back later, but the fifth symphony, unquestionably, saved his life and is also one of the most remarkable pieces of music of the 20th century.

Thank you very much for listening. I’m happy to answer the few… There are some questions. I’ll quickly answer them if you bear with me.

Q&A and Comments

Oh, Dennis Globe, gee. I remember you when I was a child and you were the best 21 quiz person I’d ever thought.

Q: Any thoughts about Solomon Volkov’s controversial biography? A: Well, I’ve indicated that, Dennis. I think, by my reading of the fifth, and it’s just mine, is that I think that that biography is closer to the truth than some of the other people have suggested. But there is controversy as to whether Shostakovich was portrayed as anti the regime as, indeed, is suggested there. It is certainly well worth a read, yes.

Q: Sonya, “Do you think that Mahler’s fifth symphony was also inspired by Beethoven’s fifth with the four initial beat?” A: Oh yes, I’ve spoken about that before, Sonya, when I lectured on Mahler’s five, I made that point.

I know somebody else says it isn’t the Israeli Philharmonic. Irma says it was, and I think it is, because it’s certainly on the clip I’ve got says it’s the Israeli Philharmonic.

Abigail, “As a novice to music, it seems, to me, the ninth,” I assume you mean Beethoven, “the growth from insignificant being to a powerful authority in power and this is seen in the fifth as well. All is peaceful, no shrieking, just acceptable, pleasant sounds getting stronger.” Well, and thank you very much for what you said. I have spoken about the ninth symphony in a previous lecture. I’m not going to say much more.

Q: “Is Shostakovich being somewhat subversive?” Says Carol. A: Oh yes, I have no doubt, but that’s my own interpretation.

Thank you very much Maya, for telling me it’s the IPO. I think it’s a wonderful recording, by the way. And I think Dudemel’s fantastic.

Thank you very much, Marcel, that’s very kind of you. And thank you very much as well.

I didn’t get to the Leningrad. I’m happy to do it, as well as the Babi Yar symphony, but I felt I wanted to give you as much of an opportunity to listen to the fifth, it’s so fantastic. And my estimate was correct that it’s almost 9:30 now.

Judith, “ Not a question, I’m afraid, just to thank you for fascinating…” Thank you very much.

“When Bernstein conducted the fifth, Shostakovich rushed on the stage to congratulate him on playing faster than it ever been played.” Yes, indeed, that’s right. That’s the point I made. And I find that really interesting. It does seem as if Bernstein, and that was why I wanted to play it, does seem to take the view of the ninth as a somewhat more emphatic endorsement of the regime by playing it faster. Shostakovich certainly didn’t object. He did, in fact, praise Bernstein for that. I think that the recordings which are slightly slowed down, and, if I had more time, I would’ve given you two or three of them. The Mravinsky one, for example, and I’ve got a wonderful one from Haitink. I think that they seem to reflect, for me, more the enigmatic nature of the symphony than otherwise is the case.

Thank you very much, Margaret.

Judith, I think he may well be slapping Stalin in the face in the last thing.

I haven’t read Elizabeth Wilson’s biography, Susan, I’m sorry. I have read Volkov’s…

Thank you Barry, I didn’t realise that you used to drive me to school.

Q: Gabriel, “Could you comment on the playing by the withering symphony speakers to the…” A: Yes, that’s the Leningrad, Gabriel, and I will talk about that.

I thank you very much, Joan, that’s so kind. And Erica, I will do the seventh. It’s well worth listening to.

Thank you very much to everybody. Please stay safe. And, again, thank you so much, Shawna, for your help.

• [Shawna] You’re welcome. From everyone at Lockdown University, everyone have a good day and a good evening.

• Yeah.

• Take care.

• Take care, bye.