'Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage'. This famous line written by Richard Lovelace in 1642 befits the life of a Russian composer who was able to reach beyond the confines of his restricted, controlled political environment and communicate by his music with the outside world. Dmitri Shostakovich's whole creative life was lived during a terrifying period in Russian history, one which unleashed unbelievable, untold brutality, terror, fear, misery, cruelty and horror upon its own people over a period of some fifty years.

Shostakovich was born in 1906 in St. Petersburg, one year after the shooting down of the peaceful demonstrators by the Tsar's guards in Palace Square, St Petersburg, an event which marked the beginnings of the Russian revolution and the overthrow of imperial autocracy. It was meant to modernize Russian society and improve the living standards of millions of peasants whose lives were spent in abject poverty.

His father worked in the Bureau of Weights and Measures alongside the famous Dmitri Mendeleev, the creator of the Periodic Table of Elements. The family socialized with the intelligentsia of the town which included many Jewish families. Young Shostakovich grew up knowing that his family was sympathetic towards the Jews. At a later stage in his life he would describe the Jews as 'the most persecuted and defenseless people of Europe' and judge a fellow man by his attitude towards Jews, as he himself had no place in his heart for anti-Semitism.

Shostakovich's musical career began in the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he studied composition and piano. When he was twenty one years old he participated in the Chopin International Competition for Pianists in Warsaw, receiving an honorable mention. However, he did not pursue a career as a virtuoso but confined his piano playing to the performance of his own works in public.

In 1918 civil war broke out in Russia. An attempt on the life of Lenin provoked the Red Terror. Lenin died in 1924, and the city was renamed Leningrad. By 1927 Stalin reigned supreme, ending all legal opposition to the communist party. Then followed the time of the Great Terror with its mass arrests, shootings and deportations. 1941 brought the German invasion of Russia and the siege of Leningrad. WW11 ended in1945 and by 1946 the Iron Curtain was in place, marking the beginning of the Cold War. In 1949 anti-Semitism became official in the USSR followed by years of deportations, executions, show trials, purging of unwanted 'parasites', virulent propaganda campaigns against 'rootless cosmopolitans' and similar horrors. Stalin died in 1953; the new authorities continued the same policies with the formation of the KGB in 1954 and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. It is against this background that the music of Shostakovich must be assessed. The new social order required that all artists contribute wholeheartedly with works which would inspire the people in their endeavor to establish a new social order. It is totally beyond the comprehension of the average Westerner to understand and appreciate the fear and terror under which the Russians lived during the communist regime. Shostakovich's works are a supreme example of a man's courage and determination to express his innermost thoughts and feelings in the face of unimaginable terror and its consequences.

Shostakovich's early works reflect the postwar cultural trend in Europe and America; they were avant-garde, satirical and humorous. His orchestration of Vincent Youman's 'Tea for Two' is jazz at its most lighthearted and lyrical. Reflecting the daring high spirits of youth, it was played in dance halls in Russia and Europe alike.  From 1928 avant-garde music and jazz were officially banned in Russia as being the residue of a bourgeois culture and decadence. He followed such works with two extremely modern operas: 'The Nose' in 1927 and 'Lady Macbeth of Mtensk District' in 1932. Sadly, despite their success on stage, their radical style offended the Soviet authorities, incurring their extreme displeasure and condemnation. 'Pravda', the official voice of the party, attacked them in an article which he understood to be a threat against his life; 'This playing with nonsensical things could end very badly ………. chaos instead of music'. Shostakovich took this warning very seriously. His next major work in 1937 was the 5th Symphony which he described as being, 'a Soviet's artist's reply to just criticism'. However, his memoirs as recorded by Solomon Volkov in 'Testimony' and published after his death have this comment, 'I think it is very clear what happens in the 5th Symphony. The rejoicing is forced, created under a threat, as in Boris Gudonov. It was as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, 'Your business is rejoicing, and you rise, shakily and go off marching, muttering 'our business is rejoicing…….'

Shostakovich's career continued with teaching posts in various places and numerous compositions for orchestra, instruments, patriotic cantatas and films, all conforming to the restraints set by the Party guide lines known as social realism…..in effect, music which is simple and direct, easily accessible to the Proletariat and inspiring of the communists’ ambitions. Several times during his life he had frightening clashes with the authorities, resulting in the loss of his teaching position at Moscow University, a ban on his works and also being demoted in the eyes of his colleagues. His 4th Symphony had unleashed such violence and destructive power that it was put aside and not played until1961. Shostakovich used the private medium of the string quartet to interpret his deepest innermost feelings; these compositions were likewise placed in a drawer until it was safe to play them in public. His famous 7th and 8th symphonies, written during the siege of Leningrad, have dual interpretations, the reaction to war with the Germans and the portrayal of terror and fear under the Stalin regime.  Shostakovich visited Dresden after it had been almost completely destroyed by massive bombing raids in February 1945. He was horrified by what he saw and wrote the 8th String Quartet as 'A Memorial to all Victims of War'.  It has long flowing contrapuntal movements, wandering in nature with barbaric scherzos. It is brilliantly written, demanding a forceful virtuoso style of playing.

Finally Shostakovich was accepted, joined the party and became acknowledged as a great Russian composer. The official obituary called him a faithful son of the Communist Party who had devoted his life to 'the ideals of socialist humanism and internationalism'. However, there is much literature written and pondered over which reveals Shostakovich to have been a dissident composer, in that his private music reveals themes which were alien to the Soviet people and unfit for public performance. Embedded in several of his works are motifs with his initials D-S-C-H. Shostakovich has left it for the listener to form his own interpretation of their meaning. 'There is no point in talking to the deaf – and I am only addressing those who can hear and it is only with them that I plan to converse, for those people for whom music is more important than words.'

According to 'Testimony' Shostakovich became aware of anti-Jewish behavior when he was writing the 1st Violin Concerto. 'All I heard people saying was, 'The kikes went to Tashkent to fight'…And if they saw a Jew with military decorations, they called after him. 'Kike, where did you buy the medals?' That's when I wrote the Violin Concerto, the Jewish Cycle and the 4th Quartet.' Shostakovich's deep sympathy for the Jews came with the revelation of the Nazi death camps. As a composer he felt that he could identify with their persecution 'The Jews became a symbol for me. All of man's defenselessness was concentrated in them'. Soviet music encouraged the use of the folk songs of its minorities in compositions. Shostakovich chose to use Jewish themes, and wrote “From Jewish Folk Poetry”, its harmonic and melodic style being simple and highly accessible in accordance with the aesthetics handed down by the Central Committee and ratified at the Composers' Congress. Unfortunately, the timing coincided with the mass arrests of Jewish intellectuals and so the premiere, was shelved for seventeen years until 1955, two years after Stalin's death.

Perhaps one of the most heartrending pieces of music ever written following the Nazi atrocities of WW11 is Shostakovich's music for male choir and orchestra to accompany   Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem 'Babi Yar'. This poem was written in 1961 to expose the inhumanity of the   Babi Yar slaughter  and the subsequent injustice of the government's refusal to erect a monument to the thousands of Jews executed there from 1941-43 by the Nazis. It produced a tremendous effect in Russia and for a while overt anti-Semitism decreased. The poem, written in Russian only reached the Russian intelligentsia but the music went out to the world. The poem commences with the chilling words;

'Over Babi Yar there are no monuments.

The steep precipice is like a crude gravestone

I am terrified. I am as old today. As all Jewish people.

Now I imagine that I'm a Jew.

Here I wander through ancient Egypt.

And here, on the cross, I am crucified, I perish.

And I still have on me the marks of the nails.

I imagine myself to be Dreyfus.

The Philistine - my informer and judge.

I am behind bars. I am surrounded.

Persecuted, spat on, slandered………….'

Shostakovich was extremely sensitive and responsive to the world around him. The music for the poem is slow, mournful, dissonant and intense. It evokes fear, pity and shame. One can hear the Nazis marching and imagine the horror and the terror of the victims. Sadness and declamation pervade the composition. Shostakovich's courage in choosing such a theme demands admiration beyond words. He was an exceptional, outstanding man, fearless, brave and moral. It is no wonder that Shostakovich said, 'Let me be judged by my music'