Artículo Shostakovich Preludios y Fugas

Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues: Fashioning Identities, Representing Relationhips
Author(s): Mark Mazullo, Chloe Kiritz and Adam Nelson

Source: College Music Symposium, Vol. 46 (2006), pp. 77-104
Published by: College Music Society
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Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues:
Fashioning Identities, Representing
Relationhips
Mark Mazullo
With Chloe Kiritz and Adam Nelson1
The "Loyal Son"
thirty years after Stalin's Minister of Culture Andrey Zhdanov ushered

era of Socialist Realism in the Soviet arts by pronouncing, at the Writer's Con
of 1934, that "the present state of bourgeois literature is such that it is unable to
great works of art,"2 Aleksandr Dolzhanskii concluded his monograph on D
Shostakovich's cycle of twenty-four Preludes and Fugues for piano with a
familiar echo:
The compositional peculiarities of Shostakovich's fugues emerged as the res

of the innovative application of some of the most progressive contempor
ideas. For many years, the theme of peace and war was the predominant them
in Shostakovich's music. In representing it, the remarkable master of socia
realism appears as a passionate champion of peace and social justice, as th
angry denouncer of evil and violence, the daring fighter "for the best ideals i
the history of mankind." And therefore in creating the Collection of preludes
and fugues, Shostakovich achieved what not a single composer from the bo
geois countries had been able to achieve for two-hundred years since the death
of Bach.3
With such comments, Dolzhanskii's analysis faces off squarely against contem
commentators on the cycle who, in the continuing and regrettably distracting wa
Solomon Volkov's infamous pseudo-memoir Testimony, have stressed the com
supposed personal desire, especially after his denunciation at the First Ail-Un
gress of Soviet Composers in April 1948, to imbue his works with secret subt
mask a deeper, dissident content.4
'The present study represents the product of a student-faculty collaborative research grant fund
summer 2005 by the Keck Foundation and administered by Macalester College. Much in the spirit of
teachers and scholars who took part in the "Forum on the Symbiosis of Teaching and Research" tha
in this journal in fall 2004, the authors wish to acknowledge the joys inherent in the collaborative p
characterizes all research.
2Quoted in Scott, Problems of Soviet Literature, 19. See also Fairclough, "Perestroyka," 268.
3Dolzhanskii, 24 Preliudii i Fugi, 243. We wish to express our gratitude to Gitta Hammarberg, of Macalester
College, and Hilde Hoogenboom, of the University at Albany, SUNY, for their invaluable assistance in translat-
ing Dolzhanskii's text.
4See, for instance, Ursova, "Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues" and Braun, "Double Meaning." See
also Volkov, Testimony.
78 COLLEGE MUSIC SYMPOSIUM
Insofar as it emanates from and reinforces th

Soviet aesthetic ideology, Dolzhanskii's work is
interpretive commentary on this cycle. The Prelu
est and most ambitious work for his own instrumen
most serious work of the immediate post- 1948 peri
standing the full complexity of these works som
carries the ring of truth. Consider, for instance, an
in which he describes the expressive peculiarities of
ery reminiscent of the discourse surrounding Beeth
In many fugues the slow tempo of the composi

ments, creates the impression of significant diffic
has to overcome. Furthermore, there is a stubborn
these obstacles, an image of steadfast determin
The composer discovered and was a virtuoso a
for broad melodiousness, for the primordial slown
peasant singing. The fugues of Shostakovich ar
those of Bach in the slowness of the individual ele
a whole.
However, Shostakovich does not limit himself to a one-sided depiction of
the national character, but he evokes it in a multifaceted and full way.
The music of the Preludes and Fugues contains Russian national features
of different "ages" - the most ancient, historically distant, even ossified fea-
tures, as well as the newest features, born from the heroic and daring creation
of a new life that lays down the way to the future.5
Here, Dolzhanskii singles out oft-cited key features of Shostakovich's cycle - the song-
like nature of the majority of the fugue themes, the extreme length of many of the
fugues, the "historical" character of the music - as evidence of the composer's aspira-
tion to conjure up a complex view of Soviet life, and to build powerful connections that
could speak meaningfully to a broad base of the citizenry.
Recent trends in Shostakovich scholarship invite us to place such ideas in a more
constructive light than may at first glance seem desirable. In what might be understood
as a corrective to the multitude of "secret subtext" readings spawned by Volkov's work,
several prominent English-language Shostakovich scholars have been producing inter-
pretations of key works that aim to deconstruct elements of the polarizing discourse
surrounding the composer. Amidst this contentious landscape, one comment by Richard
Taruskin has stood out as the most provocative, and therefore the most prone to attacks
by opposing ideological camps. In his confrontational analysis of Shostakovich's opera
Lady Macbeth ofMtsensk, Taruskin characterizes Shostakovich in the 1920s and early
1930s with the phrase "Soviet Russia's most loyal musical son."6 In brief, Taruskin's
5Dolzhanskii, 24 Preliudii i Fugi, 232.

6Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, 508. For an especially strident attack against this statement, see Ho
and Feofanov, Shostakovich Reconsidered. See also Gasparov, Five Operas, 163-64.
SHOSTAKOVICH'S PRELUDES AND FUGUES 79
argument is that all of the characters in the opera except for

Izmailova are portrayed as soulless caricatures, and in condon
by giving her the only truly lyric writing in the opera, Shostak
been guilty of perpetuating totalitarian patterns of degrading hu
challenge for Shostakovich devotees is to face at least two ess
not one wants to regard one of the composer's most widely belov
critical perspective and, even more uncomfortably, whether or n
the fact that Shostakovich may have been just human enough
formed, at least in part, to the dominant ideologies and modes o
unique time and place.
Along similar lines, Leon Botstein has recently argued
Shostakovich's music after the Pravda denunciation of Lady
honest civic attempt to generate a more powerful Soviet ar
Shostakovich and Karl Amadeus Hartmann, whose politically
posed under the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s was consigned t
unperformed, thus removed from the public life that makes int
ful communication possible. By contrast, Shostakovich's outp
case of "inner migration": almost without exception, his music w
tion on at least some social level. It therefore became necessa
attacks of 1936 and 1948 - for his music to exploit "the inherent
that music possesses in regard to censors, dictators, and polit
Laurel Fay, too, reminds us of the extreme conflicts of me
works as the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry, compose
Fugues, in the period immediately following the 1948 denunciati
Soviet anti-Semitism. While by all accounts Shostakovich was
ance, we must remember that his interest in Jewish folklore
rooted in aesthetics as it was in politics, perhaps even more
modes of Jewish music went hand in hand with his own nat
modes with flattened scale degrees. Shostakovich was attract
Jewish music, its ability to project radically different emotions
suggests, contrary to the tendency to treat this cycle as a work
"was in all likelihood approaching the project in a constructiv
'public' promises he had just made" at the Composers' Congre
tuneful, accessible music for the Soviet people.10
Finally, perhaps the most intriguing of such interpretations c
Fourth Symphony, whose premiere was cancelled under still
perhaps ultimately unexplainable) circumstances shortly afte
1936. In her recent explorations of the symphony's genesis, P
the suggestion that this work - in important respects, one of Sh
ernist scores - represents another of Shostakovich's sincere effor
7Botstein, "Listening to Shostakovich," 374.

8Ibid., 359.
9Fay, Shostakovich, 169.
10Ibid.
for ideologically acceptable Soviet art. As Fairclou

est friend and champion Ivan Sollertinsky discussed
els set by Beethoven and Mahler, most significan
proach to musical material and an underpinning hum
because the exact nature of the socialist realist sy
the practice of an established canon in the early-mid
a vision of socialist realism in music that accommod
Fourth Symphony's passages. They thus "had gro
Symphony] could find acceptance."12
Each of these scholars would likely agree that
degree, managed to fulfill the requirements of the
artistic intentions. Their work thus challenges what
discourse, a view of Shostakovich's aesthetic and
obscured one of the 20th century's most pow
Shostakovich's music represents simultaneously a ho
a liberating example of the potentialities of human
next generation of Shostakovich scholars - not just
morally - to attempt to capture this art in its full co
the most difficult questions, such as to what degree
to a vague and oppressive aesthetic-political ideol
One point central to the study of the Preludes an
Shostakovich still genuinely believed in the 1930s
artistic identity with the demands of the state, i
after 1948. Laurel Fay writes that "the Twenty-f
a fundamentally different direction in the compose
tic' line of Song of the Forests, his recent film s
Ten Poems on Texts by Revolutionary Poets."13 A
Fugues must address the degree of difference that t
of optimism still prevail, or did his vision of the po
begin to take on an ironic or even despairing tone a
question in the terms of a recent dispute between
over the meaning of the Eighth String Quartet, do
disavowal of the very notion of free subjectivity or, r
Insofar as the Eighth Quartet, composed in 196
the development of Shostakovich's attitudes towa
after 1948, it is worth noting here that Shostakovic
string quartets after 1948, and at the same time sla
nies. As Taruskin elsewhere suggests: "To a certa
compositions obviously invited autobiographical r
1 'Fairclough, "Perestroyka," 264. See also Fairclough, A Sovi

12Fairclough, "Perestroyka," 260. On the impact of sociali
Petersburg.
l3Fay, Shostakovich, 178.
l4Fanning, String Quartet No. 8, 135. See also Kramer, Musical Meaning, 216-41.
nals that their latent content was private rather than public. The
the 1950s, from symphony to quartet as the center of gravity f
was such a hint. It was manifestly an anti-Soviet move of a sort
chamber music was not just un-Soviet activity, it was u

gests that Shostakovich was finding it increasingly difficu
maintaining a secure and artful sense of self and satis
possibility of authentically being in the world seems to hav
We wish here to begin to sketch a view of Shostakovi
as symbolized in the Preludes and Fugues. Our fundame
extent to which op. 87 represents an assertion of subjec
even esoteric setting, and if such symbolic representati
contemplate what manner of subjectivity is being char
the terms David Fanning employs to convey the power of
relevant here: "[The Eighth Quartet] is a reminder of what
a society founded on the notion of subordinating the self t
when forces of dehumanization were by no means confi
Self and Authority: Dialectics in C Major
Consider the oft-used locution characterizing Shostak

diary of a nation."17 What do diaries accomplish, in genera
role in the Soviet era? At the most basic level, one woul
diary to express personal thoughts and relate personal
effect, writing themselves into being - drawing upon expe
create and maintain a cogent story of their place in th
these self-explorations is a sense of what we would call per
a pioneer in the study of such "peripheral" literary genres
and diary - explains: "Personality is an ideal conceptio
individual himself in consequence of his self-conception
everyday life by everyone on the basis of observations of
around them."18
Insofar as she is concerned primarily with representatio
ture, and in particular what has been termed "the semi
social life, Ginzburg steers her conception of personali
aesthetic dimension of social life:
Human social life is shot through with the process of se

conscious or automatized). Out of chaos and flux soc
l5Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, 490-91.

16Fanning, String Quartet No. 8, 139.
l7See, for instance, Taruskin, Review of The New Shostakovich and "Double Trouble." Francis Maes
borrows the phrase for the title of his chapter on Shostakovich in his A History of Russian Music.
l8Ginzburg, On Psychological Prose, 10.
19See Gasparov, "Introduction."
combines those elements that are most valuable and suitable for the situations in
which he finds himself - social, professional, domestic, emotional, and so on.

He passes, so to speak, through a series of images that are oriented toward
shared norms and ideals, images that not only have a social function but that
also possess aesthetic coloration. . . . The aesthetic stands out most vividly in
those periods or circumstances where behavior has a ritual or ceremonial char-
acter or a particularly organized form.20
Clearly, the Soviet Union constitutes a case in which the ritual aspects of behavior are
heightened, and in which modes of organization enacted upon individuals and groups
take extreme form. Thus, with the observation that "people of remarkable gifts carry
within themselves a rich fund of the universal, of the social and historically characteris-
tic," one comes close to understanding how it became possible for Shostakovich's music
to speak as broadly and as deeply as it did, and how the "secret diary of a nation"
locution could serve so well to explain this phenomenon.
But the question of diary keeping in the Soviet Union contains deeper complexities
than the mere act of fashioning a sense of self. For one thing, there is the fact, pointed
out by Svetlana Boym, that the Russian self in general has traditionally been conceived
as historical, mythic, and communal; indeed, "until recently, many words used in West-
ern public and private spheres lacked Russian equivalents: among them are the words
for 'privacy,' 'self,' 'mentality,' and 'identity,'"21 Boym thus cautions investigators of
Russian subjectivity to tread carefully when distinguishing between the concept of indi-
vidual identity and the historical notion of the "spiritual community" - which she de-
scribes as "the mythical alternative to private life, advocated by 19th-century Slavophile
philosophers and contemporary nationalists."22 To an important degree, in other words,
what it means to be a Russian self has been a question complicated by various external
forces, both historical and ideological, that have aimed to subordinate the private to the
public.
Moreover, one must also always acknowledge the historical development of the
relationship between individuality and authority. As one recent writer has put it, histori-
ans must "treat these transformations as ongoing and open-ended, a persistent realm of
debate rather than a trajectory toward a particular end."23 Just as the work of Anthony
Giddens has examined the manner in which external elements such as society, state, and
authority are internalized in modern, reflexive subjectivity in general, so must any study
of subjectivity in the Soviet Union treat delicately the negotiation of power between self
and state.24 One must be especially careful in the case of Russia and the Soviet Union,
in other words, to stress that change, rather than continuity, characterizes such relation-
ships, and that the conditions of subjectivity in the Soviet Union had more in common
20Ginzburg, On Psychological Prose, 1 1 .

2lBoym, Common Places, 3.
22Ibid.
23Kotsonis, "Introduction: A Modern Paradox," 1.
24See Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity and Modernity and Self-Identity.
with the same conditions elsewhere than totalitarian theories of

us believe.25
For as Jochen Hellbeck has recently argued, to see Soviet
than a site of reciprocity and reflexivity is to fall victim onesel
tions of subjectivity, in which the "true individual" is imaginab
against the regime and its ideologies of historical-material progr
doctrine, according to Richard Taruskin, to which Shostak
scribed when composing Lady Macbeth in the early 1930s. H
internalization of the state into the self, realized in the diaries
of this same time who were "creatively writing themselves into
also be useful in our understanding of Shostakovich's attempts t
identity towards the task of contributing to historical represen
identity after 1948.27 Hellbeck concludes his study of Soviet
the observation that the reflexivity of this relationship, the "fu
identity," ran so deep that an individual's "only enduring ide
fleeting class or ethnic identities) can be said to be his identity
ished piece of work on himself."28 As a result, true individu
system constitutes "a potential loss of world and self."29
As Taruskin's work makes clear, it is mainly in Shostako
chamber works that the idea of his music as a "secret diary o
cable. One might even go so far as to argue that in his solo p
his own instrument and because the performance of this mu
person, the "national" must be emphatically excluded from
Dolzhanskii suggests, there is undoubtedly in the cycle of Prelud
of representation of heroic, epic, and historic qualities, of rheto
nicate beyond the solipsistic level and require that one listen wi
Thus, while on one level Shostakovich's idea of creating an
the abstract genre of the prelude and fugue may suggest a "for
1948 decree, the lyric immediacy, the clear folk element, and th
language of op. 87 at least leave open the possibility that Sh
this work to bridge the gap between real politics and abstra
tween, in other words, the public and the private. These are not
instance, that a mere homage to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavie
they seem to be couched in terms more closely aligned with
them: tuneful and expressive of emotional characters and
technical, formal qualities of the intervallic, motivic, and rh
subjects. The fact, for instance, that every one of the twent
least one distinct counter-subject - a feature not at all charac
- suggests that the fugues might be heard, at least on one level,
25See Giddens, Modernity and Self -Identity, especially pp. 28-32.

26Hellbeck, "Self-Realization," 221.
27Ibid., 237.
28Ibid., 228, 230. In making such an assertion, Hellbeck notes "the uncann
to the ethos of modernity." (240)
29Ibid., 235.
exercises in formal counterpoint. (The double fu

especially to dramatize this effect.)
Moreover, as many commentators have noted, th
on Russian folk sources. Shostakovich's own ple
ings of the composers' union in February 1949 - "I
musical embodiment of images of the heroic Rus
to be entirely dismissible. Insofar as such a pled
"Russian people," carried overtones of the danger
Russian nationalism and Soviet brotherhood (a di
meaning that a misstep could land a Russian pers
view Shostakovich's uncanny ability to walk the tig
heels of World War II, which served for a time to b
"Soviet," his pledge therefore managed simultane
the former and (intended or not) the state element
Along these lines, it becomes instructive to turn
particular to the imagery of war and peace that
and Fugues. As it turns out, such imagery seem
especially when one considers that the first fugue
opening melody of Shostakovich's patriotic oratorio
accompanies the first line of text by the officially
"The war came to an end with victory."31 (Figure 1
to which the first audiences of the Preludes and Fu
did, what impressions the connection might have
Of course, Shostakovich was a flagrant quoter,
others, and perhaps the coincidence of themes h
over, the basic tonal material of this melody - the
degrees - is hardly exceptional in its originality
measures of three of Beethoven's most beloved works - the Sonata for Piano and Cello
in A major, op. 69; the Seventh Symphony in A major, op. 92; and, for a minor-mode
variant, the String Quartet in C-sharp minor, op. 131 - to recognize a certain universality
inherent in this particular combination of pitches.32 Indeed, Dolzhanskii, who refers to
the C major fugue subject as "a symbol of truth," has another model in mind - the
Promenade theme from Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition - which leads him into
a discussion of the admixture, throughout op. 87, of high and low intonations, a simulta-
neity of the simple and the complex that brings Shostakovich's achievement in line with
that of Pushkin.33 It seems reasonable to argue that the material shared by Song of the
Forests and op. 87 represents a topos, a part of Shostakovich's language - and the
languages of folk music and common practice tonal music - that sprung forth naturally,
effortlessly, and sincerely without any overt or covert extra-musical intentions whatso-
ever.
30Quoted in Fay, Shostakovich, 160.

3 'Various reviewers of the cycle's recording history have casually noted the allusion. Se
Roseberry and Ottaway. See also the brief discussion in Fanning, "Present-Day Master," 137
32For a discussion of this motive's roots in folk music, see Mazel, "O fuge do mazhor."
"Dolzhanskii, 24 Preliudii i Fugi, 8-9.
Figure 1 .
Song of the Forests (beginning)
T^'J H" J ir f r J i" !
C major fugue (beginning)
Modfi.v*
^f>j i ir j ir r r if ' ii r if > if r I" II
Pictures at an Inhibition (beginning)
f»' 'i j j p lJ r ii'tcj r r f j j ii
And yet, one feels compelled at least to consider Dolzhanskii's proposition that the
Preludes and Fugues constitute a statement about war and peace that proceeds from
the historical facts laid out in the opening of the oratorio's text: the war ended, the
Soviets emerged victorious. Consider, for instance, that several of the Preludes and at
least nine of the fugue subjects in op. 87 are built upon the same scale degrees and
contours of the first fugue's subject. (Figure 2) This suggests not only a degree of
overall coherence for a cycle that is otherwise quite remarkably varied in its expressive
material, but also a certain obsession over this melodic structure on the composer's part
that, again, may invite interpretation. For as the two-and-a-half hour cycle progresses,
the regular recurrence of the motive, especially as a fugue subject, keeps it directly on
the musical surface for an almost inordinate amount of time. Taken as a nod to Musorgsky,
the 1- 5- flat-6 contour functions as an element of cohesion - akin to the recurring Pic-
tures Promenade theme - amidst an otherwise frenetically changing array of styles and
characters, a focal point for the cycle that reminds the listener of an underlying, if
unnamable, essence. Taken as an allusion to the beginning of Song of the Forests,
however, it might serve any number of purposes. Was Shostakovich wishfully throwing
a bone to the committee, as if to make clear that while he was moving in a new direc-
tion, he was not straying far from the path?
Or was he perhaps employing the material as a cautionary (and potentially danger-
ous) reminder, especially given that it appears in both major and minor modes, that one
should not place too much faith in a strict division between "war" and "peace," or
between victory and catastrophe? If Song of the Forests proceeds from a statement of
facts toward an unabashedly optimistic vision of a better life in the peace that follows
Figure 2.
C major fugue (beginning)
M.xlfi.uc
>*"> r ir i \\ r r ir mi r if ' h ri" II
K minor prelude (beginning)
~ - ^ ♦* "
h minor fugue (beginning)
>M'r r r u m i1 i i i
K minor fugue (mm. 47-48)
Piii immo
/>/> ^...
SJ j -IL__IT.
D major fugue (beginning)
• f,
h major prelude (beginning)
('-sharp minor fugue (beginning)
-£'"=>?» r r if J if [jir J if r J- h -i
h flat minor fugue (beginning)
i't> k« ■■■?:< :. ._«?
B-flat minor prelude (beginning)
^ " ' ^ J J Ij I I I 1 **' Ifl J 1
^■v.^l " lf>:l"lp lf: If' I
H Ii.il minor Itieuc lm.4i
/'/' le.3T-.-iv ■?>.-:• >Jfl:
A IIjI major fugue (tvtMiminc)
/> .;.lr
I minor prelude (hcL'inniny)
(i minor ftiguc (tvi!innini»i
war, perhaps op. 87 provides a less straightforward vision, one m

the conclusions of the Fourth and Eighth Symphonies - two com
both play on the distinction between C major and minor, and th
ity between light and dark, victory and defeat, war and peace.34
Another act of self-borrowing emerges early in the cycle
the second fugue, in A minor, takes its subject from the Fourth S
rhythmic cell that appears near the middle of the third moveme
Shostakovich's parodistic vein than the 1- 5- flat-6 motive, th
vides the first taste of the range of expression characteristic of
in general this second fugue, with its sharp angles, pianistic
quirky harmonic turns, plays the foil to the sincerity of the firs
the Fourth Symphony - which few if any of those who heard th
their first appearances in the years 1951-53 would have kn
Shostakovich had something deeper on his mind, or at least
drawing upon existing materials so drastically opposed in thei
the subjects of these first two fugues (which we know he co
proceeding to the rest of the cycle), he appears to be thinki
identity in its past, present, and future manifestations.35 Wh
music on the one hand, this music seems also, clearly, to be b
something about one man's fragile artistic identity.
On the subject of this rather obsessive self-quoting on Shostak
offers the following: "The transfer of musical ideas ... or of
from one work to another, suggesting that different works are c
narrative, also puts us in mind of biography, the most overarchi
all. The obsessive quotations and self-quotations all but force t
biographical gesture."36 Given Shostakovich's public promises
ments to the heroic Russian people, one must note a fair degree
intentions - which undoubtedly inspire many of his works on se
Eleventh Symphony - and the more deeply personal motivati
referential works from the post-denunciation period, such as th
the Eighth String Quartet.
As if to explain such conditions, Levon Hakobian has explai
reflexive identity takes on, in the Soviet case, an especially horr
productive aura. Despairing of the tendency to view the spectrum
of a binary opposition between oppressor and oppressed, Ha
complex vision of Soviet social psychology, attributing the p
music especially - to the conditions created by the regime, the "
chological background for every kind of reflection on the ult
34For an extended discussion on the expressive import of C major in Shostak

Fanning, "Present-Day Master."
35One should also note here another presumably significant relationship invo
and an existing work - this time between the Prelude No. 1 2 and the fourth mov
(1943), both passacaglias in G-sharp minor with brooding ground basses sharin
leaps and repeated notes.
36Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, 490-91.
Figure 3.
A minor fugue ( beginning >
^e - i - i - i* uft\
S>mphony No. 4. op. 43 (mm. 191-192)
metaphysical questions."37 He suggests that Shostakovich's own

side world mirrored those of all Soviet citizens, constituting a rea
difficult choices between good and evil were unavoidable facts
No wonder that, under the conditions of a repressive state,

should be centered especially on the paramount subjects of
losophy: the tragic splitting of the human soul between good a
sibility of reaching complete mutual understanding with one's
the search for self-identity in an alien and absurd world.
presence in the everyday life of every Soviet citizen of tempti
served as the most efficient means for training the instinct for
The irony is that precisely because of these powerful means of id

by the Soviet regime, more powerful representations in abs
Hakobian maintains, therefore, that "if there were one single cre
party provided the favorable conditions for artistic creativity pr
ganda, that realm was music. For this reason, the musical cult
provides unique testimony about one of the most somber and
history viewed from the inside and at the same time somewhat 'a
the mediating nature inherent par excellence in music."39
37Hakobian, "A Perspective on Soviet Musical Culture," 226. Hakobian's essay

introduction to the chapter "The Rise of Shostakovich" in his Music of the Sov
Melos Music Literature Kantat HB, 1998).
38Hakobian, "A Perspective on Soviet Musical Culture," 218.
39Ibid., 220.
The uneasy relationship between the C major fugue of op.

Song of the Forests seems to put into play this very dialectic: ev
with David Fanning, to read the fugue as "a refuge: a return
other words, we would still have to acknowledge, with a fair
some element of authority still lurks within this retreat.40 We t
view Shostakovich's achievements as simultaneously personal
historical, private and public. The shopworn binary oppositions -
self, authority/identity - melt before our eyes, replaced by the re
was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, and has thus p
down. And, of course, the same goes for the music itself: the op
of the Forests and the C major fugue creating not a strict
Shostakoviches, but rather a natural (and therefore complex) exp
play whose values and practices determine the constitution of mo
Especially because it is a piano work that Shostakovich him
occasions, both privately and publicly, op. 87 might be understoo
of self-fashioning modeled particularly on a multidimensional, d
life. And to treat the Preludes and Fugues as a performativ
means to acknowledge that whatever visions of subjectivity
veals are destined to become implicated in subsequent generat
structions of what it meant, and how it felt, to be a Soviet perso
Representing Relationships
On every level, from the large-scale to the local, Shostakov

and Fugues places before the listener the idea of identities and
was composed at least in part as a result of the direct inspiration
and thus we have the first relationship, established between
J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, a relationship whose term
musical style and influence. As a work taken on its own term
arranged according to the circle of fifths, a dramatic mode of or
ties to the 19th century (Chopin's 24 Preludes, op. 28, for examp
ence from Bach's chromatic model of organization is that it
possibility, and perhaps even the expectation, of experiencin
pairs: one expects, at least to a degree, that pairs of preludes and
major key and its relative minor will bear some relationship
experience of hearing the work.
Moving ever toward the local musical event, we shall soon
tween given preludes and their fugues in Shostakovich's op. 87, a
ent in the textures of given individual pieces in the cycle. The cy
only Shostakovich's return to the personal mode of solo piano wr
a comprehensive cycle of miniatures organized around the dr
40See Fanning, "Present-Day Master," 137.
system (as in his own 24 Preludes, op. 34), but al

individual in the world - socially, historically, an
preludes featuring textures that polarize keyboard s
of folk songs - all of these are features of a mode o
here in order to say something about both his own
ethical, moral, and aesthetic dimensions of life in g
No part of Shostakovich's cycle seems to have c
initial hearings of the work, performed by the com
May 1951, than the Fugue No. 15 in D-flat majo
members, and alternately described as "ugly" and a
particular fugue - with its cacophonous, chromatical
flow of marcatissimo quarter notes in mixed met
sequitur within the opus as a whole. No contrast
fugue is more sharply drawn: the playful and relati
finds its antithesis in this dissonant fugue. Conso
nality and its abandonment in wild, unfocused chro
tioning here primarily as signs, with the result tha
reviewers commented unmistakably pervades the
And yet, such surface contrast only masks a m
the Prelude and the Fugue. The return of the Pre
rhythm about three-fifths of the way through the
stance, serves as a disruption in the Fugue texture t
mine the authority of the Fugue subject, but eve
passage revealing that the Fugue and its Prelude
sides of the same character. In the Prelude's final
D-flat major on the downbeat of m. 199 is follo
which chromatic alterations to the pitch collection -
tonic scale degrees - upset repeated attempts at
ment of the melodic-harmonic palate is a part of
cially in its contrasting middle section, featuring a
niscent of the trio melody in the Fifth Sympho
equally stark, wide-leaping accompaniment figur
In the Fugue, however, such tonal slippage is u
ment - time gives way to madcap mixed meters,
become a spiraling anti-theme. When the Prelude
astating: what we had thought was a safe zone,
revealed as an equal partner in the chaos. The final s
the Prelude's concluding texture, unites the Prelude
dominant-tonic chords invaded by sliding chromatic
If a sense of overall coherence in the Prelude an
by a pointed surface contrast, Shostakovich elsew
instances of more overtly symbiotic relationship
and Fugues in C minor, D minor, E minor, F-sharp
4lSee Wilson, Shostakovich, 248-51.
major all, for instance, feature explicitly organic connections betw

some, fugue subjects are introduced within the preludes themse
ginnings of both are built upon the same motives, and/or similar
Another such case, the Prelude and Fugue in G-sharp minor, howe
a simultaneity of coherence and contrast similar to that found in
in D-flat major.
The G-sharp minor Prelude takes the form of a stately Passa
12-measure ground bass melody in sentence structure (a-a'-b - or,
which the concluding contour of each sub-phrase features a de
Over the course of successive statements of this ground, treble vo
in turn, rise to a climax, and give way to a rhapsodic solo that spa
statements of the bass melody. In the next rotation, the seventh,
ground itself, leaving the bass open for its own octave-doubled sol
Immediately before the ninth statement of the ground, which itse
voiced canon, a briefly stated dactyl rhythm in the uppermos
more extended, new contrapuntal line that takes over throughout
ment. This melody, characterized above all by the dactyl rhyth
scending leap, transforms the similarly contoured but steady-rhyt
a more energetic form of itself. Emerging first as a contrapun
statements of the ground, the motive is uttered one final time
measures of the Prelude, as the bass holds its final note, befor
formed and independent, as the Fugue subject.
Once set free, the fugue subject is revealed as a variation on the
two short sub-phrases are followed by a more extended concluding
three is marked by a concluding descending leap. Unlike the purely
the Passacaglia, however - with its notable dearth of accidenta
only five non-diatonic pitches in the entire piece stand out all the
Fugue is marked from the outset by a succession of chromatic
subject's final sub-phrase. This contrasting diatonic-chromatic rela
Prelude and Fugue is reinforced by changes in tempo (Andante to A
(tenuto to marcatissimo), and meter (3/4 to 5/4) - all of which
antagonistic effect: as the ground bass lies peacefully still at the e
Fugue subject violently takes up and transforms its phrase structu
pulling on a docile animal's tail.
This antagonistic relationship between prelude and fugue is c
fugue itself on another level: the marcatissimo subject finds i
counter-subject that is consistently phrased as a legato statem
neatly into two halves (the first eight-note sub-phrase concluding
tied to an eighth, and the second sub-phrase mirroring the first,
lending a sense of repose), this counter-subject provides a sense
to the jagged, three-part subject. Throughout the fugue, a sen
tween these two elements persists: following nearly every sta
fugue subject comes the calming effect of the smooth counter-
In the recapitulation of this devilish and dram

quelled: accents are removed, the dynamics hush
leap of the final sub-phrase is removed, suggestin
play throughout the fugue {marcatissimo subject
latter that has emerged victorious. The mysteriou
whose dynamic never rises above mezzo-forte bu
to cease, culminates in a brief Andante in the final
tempo of the passacaglia, and reminding us once mo
had established at its outset.
Here, the Fugue subject's chromatic inflection of the ground bass is worked out in a
sequential treatment of a melodic fragment that leads to a final rising chromatic line in
one of the inner voices and closes with a serene picardy third, set off expressively by a
rare breath mark, and marked triple-piano. This ending, one of the cycle's most remark-
able, recalls a similar strategy in Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C major, op. 32, no. 1, in
which the rising chromatic line that drives the dramatic opening phrase upward, and
culminates in a frenzied final burst of energy in the penultimate section, is reversed -
deflated, as it were - in the masterfully scored chords in the final measures. (Figure 4)
Here, as in Shostakovich's G-sharp minor Fugue, a change of direction serves to subdue
a force of energy that had heretofore appeared to be relentless. In the G-sharp minor
Fugue, unlike the Prelude and Fugue in D-flat major, a certain sense of peaceful equilib-
rium is achieved: the uneasy, indeed at times grotesque, refashioning of the Prelude's
material has not completely undermined its source.
Both the D-flat major and G-sharp minor Preludes and Fugues might be said to
represent visions of dialectical relationships that reveal points of encounter between
identity and authority. One must, of course, be careful not to treat the abstract musical
statements so literally as to assign particular roles to the various characters. At the same
time, however, the stark contrast between song-like simplicity in the D-flat major Pre-
lude and chaotic dissonance in its corresponding Fugue certainly made a most definite
impression on its initial, ideologically inspired audience at the Union of Composers. More-
over, it would be equally plausible to imagine that the melodic, and perhaps "historic" or
"heroic" passacaglia in G-sharp minor may have met with more favor to the same
listeners than its craggy, difficult Fugue.
Beyond such details, however, one would not be making too much of a stretch in
arguing that governing all of the relationships we have witnessed in this cycle thus far is
the idea that real threats never lie too far from the surface, that the line between empa-
thy and antagonism is rarely as finely drawn as it would seem, or as we may hope.
A Quest for Wholeness
Perhaps no single Prelude and Fugue in op. 87 wears a sense of ambiguous duality
on its sleeve more conspicuously than the one in E major, no. 9. On a number of levels -
melodic, harmonic, textural, expressive - it puts the idea of a quest for wholeness front
and center, as a problem to be confronted. To begin, as is clear from the most cursory
Figure 4.
Prelude in C major, Op. 32 No. 1 (beginning)
Allegro vivace
ft
f*
rrrm 1 '
=i» > H-1 I ri 3 J
Prelude in C major, Op. 32 N
pOCO OMSK) OOSSO QL
|VJ if J if.j "
analysis, the melodic material of the Prelude's open

Fugue's subject: both outline the ubiquitous inter
falling figure, and the particular interval involved
tain ambiguity between the tonic key and its relati
throughout. Like many of the Preludes and Fugu
functions in part as a variation on the Prelude's ma
from the Prelude offers an alternative riff on the
possibilities for realizing this melodic material. Mor
some degree of a reversal of fortune - a retreat int
flight from the psychological and emotional anx
Prelude and Fugue in particular, we are reminded o
found in the conditions of Soviet life: the more fea
forces of control, the deeper and more compelling
the medium of abstract music.
The texture of the Prelude represents one of its more obvious manifestations of the
idea of duality, of separate worlds. The opening consists of two parts, each part (low and
high) comprising two voices, doubling the same pitch-class two octaves apart. The ef-
fect, perhaps, is that of an ominous shadow, creating an almost visceral reaction: any
slight out-of-tuneness on the piano will yield a high degree of discordance between the
two lines.42 The resulting vibrations create a charged field of tension, a problematic
context in which the ethereal upper-register material speaks touchingly. Such poignancy
is enhanced by the contrast in expressive markings: the low-register line is marked
piano, phrased legato, and conspicuously shaped with hairpin crescendo and decre-
scendo markings, while the upper-register statement is marked pianissimo, with slurred
staccato and no markings to delineate a particular shape.
While on the one hand such textural and melodic starkness seems absolutely typical
for Shostakovich (one thinks of the openings of the Fifth and Eighth Symphonies and the
haunting fugato opening of the Piano Trio No. 2), it seems in this context to verge on
parody, as if the composer were demonstrating the number of ways in which he could
represent the idea of duality in a concentrated musical space (two planes, each compris-
ing two voices, doubling at the octave). When considered alongside the fact that the
Prelude is followed by the only two- voiced fugue in the entire set, and the only one to
use strict inversion of the subject, one begins to suspect that Shostakovich is making a
point here. Perhaps all of these musical dualities, all of these twos on the surface, are to
be associated with ideologies of Soviet identity: the radical incongruity between the
private self and the state, the idea that modernity risks fragmenting identity, the existen-
tial fear that one experiences when constantly being shadowed. In any event, the Pre-
lude undoubtedly presents a unique soundscape that evokes the idea of two separate
worlds with a chasm in between.
42As anyone who has studied in Russia and/or the Soviet Union knows, out-of-tune pianos are ubiquitous
there. One gets the distinct impression here that Shostakovich was aware of the potential for a wolfish sound in
this piece, much in the way that he seemed to have exploited, for expressive purposes, the inferior quality of
Soviet reeds in the many woodwind solos in his symphonies. One might compare such an aesthetic to Mahler's
purposefully inelegant treatment of the double bass in its solo at the beginning of the third movement of his First
Symphony.
Lending credence to such views is the fact that the following

relative minor of C-sharp, also highlights elements of dualit
mirror relationship between the two hands, a textural device cle
Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major from Book I of the Well-Temp
representing not only a surface instance of doubleness but al
cases in the cycle of Shostakovich's acknowledgement of his
past master, and his own position within the history of musical
sharp minor Prelude also presents a duality between the horizont
notes) and the vertical (chords), two textures kept separate until
group, when their collision (mm. 42ff.) creates a moment of sur
sity. Finally, there is the fact that, in the final two measures of
16th-note figures cease their motion, becoming stuck or fixated
cycle's unifying 5- flat-6- 5- 1 motive) that becomes the hea
Insofar as the Preludes in E major and C-sharp minor const
impossible to ignore the surface instances of doubleness that
As the musical narrative of the Prelude in E major progres
ingly suggestive that the lower-register material provides the co
framework for the upper-register voice. The treble melody come
a repeated pitch three times, giving the impression of a tentativ
its role in this context, unconfident, perhaps, in asserting its own
a sense of lyric wholeness through any satisfyingly regular p
these sudden cessations of melody is followed by a measure
melodic subject taking time to pause and peer around the cor
relative safety of the situation before proceeding.
If it seems slightly overstated to read such a literal sense of s
melody, consider several other conspicuous features of this P
page appears to draw upon the Baroque harmonic strategy ide
"bifocal tonality." As LaRue explains, such harmonic structure
diate stage in the development toward unified tonality," and are
lation between major and relative minor" in which "the tw
approximately equal importance."43 Such ambiguity is exploited r
out the Prelude: the first phrase, beginning with a rising, partia
an inconclusive melodic pause on C-sharp, suggesting, if ever
C-sharp minor. Shortly thereafter, the melodic contours alter
tonal-modal zones, including G-sharp minor (m. 13), B mixoly
tone, sounding quite emphatically unlike a typical dominant to E
minor (both A-natural and A-flat being present).
While it is possible to hear the repeated Bs in mm. 23-24 as
both in pitch collection and contour, the Prelude's opening sectio
a less secure image of E major than most of the other prelud
after all, is at least on one level "about" the tonal cycle of key re
own respective keys. In some sense, the Prelude seems to be a
the promise of E major unfulfilled, or at least troubled. In this s
43LaRue, Guidelines, 52-53.
represents an example of the so-called "alternatin

characteristic of Russian music in general, in which
to the relative minor are made possible by a lack
less active scale degrees, and ambiguous melodic
such a harmonic strategy, "with its potential for di
could be seen as an alternative path into modernity.
both forward and back, its harmonic ambiguities pl
of the tradition of common-practice tonality (pre-t
strategies, as we shall see, mark it clearly as a piece
articulating an untroubled tonic.
In mm. 33-37, the key of E major is firmly asserte
it is worth noting that the contextualizing bass d
placed by a solid, root position E major chord in the
ter - marking the first time the melody has had a c
by the lurking shadow figure, supported instead
This momentary, fragile realization of the tonic,
series of troubling slippages: the first phrase to em
the pitch-class D-natural, which signifies the loss
soon a clear focal point of E-flat mixolydian is estab
leading tone. The mixolydian moment, however, s
intense passage, marked espressivo and occupying
a musical battleground for the piece as a whole), bri
home key's dominant. The opening melody of th
quasi-recapitulation, if only momentarily, on E m
intense middle-register passage, the lower-regist
only time in the piece, in the upper register. Thus,
modal ambiguity that lend the prelude its expre
opposition of themes. Whatever specific narrativ
this event, it is crucial to note that the appearance
upper register occurs directly after the prelude'
directly into a clear recapitulation in E major - sugg
degree of tension to force this material into the up
some degree of calm in the restatement of E major
The ending of the Prelude, however, categori
solace. While the upper voices, in a series of poignan
minor and E major (mm. 65-68), the bass line - i
menace - lags behind, falling from an F-sharp not b
down a fourth to its omnipresent double from t
while, the upper voices revert from triads back
idea, seemingly trying to urge on the bass to reach
69), and both the upper and lower registers are h
ambiguity upsets the sense of closure: just as the
word in the first articulation of E major in m. 13 (t
44Gasparov, Five Operas, 7.
on the third of the chord instead of the root), so too does the end
of the tonic chord, with an octave G-sharp ringing out in the mid
attention away from the disparity between the low and the high
between. Read either as a sign of reconciliation or the slightest h
(the middle-register G-sharp being, after all, a shared note
minor), the point here is that Shostakovich seems to be fashionin
relationship in the final measures of the Prelude.
As might be expected, the Fugue also takes advantage of th
the major and its relative minor. In this context, however, the m
functions merely as part of the technical exercise: as do all good
to the expected related keys in its development (C-sharp mino
nor), all while maintaining an overall carefree mood. While all re
the Prelude remain fragile, in other words, in the Fugue the
grounded as to be able to move unproblematically through any n
without losing a clear sense of identity. If in the Prelude E majo
E major with any real conviction, in the Fugue E major final
degree of self-realization.
The Fugue asserts a secure sense of self through its reconceivi
modulation and harmonic ambiguity. It also seems to define a sel
through refined artistic craft. Consider, for instance, that this Fu
two- voiced fugue in the cycle, but that it also is the only fugue
of the inverted subject. Not only is inversion present as a con
words, but the inverted subject is used in the place of the subjec
of entrances in the dominant key (mm. 21 ff.). By virtue of its
cycle, inversion seems to serve here as yet another sign for t
pressed so thoroughly and overtly in the Prelude and in the fact
fugue. As noted above, while the majority of the other fugu
understood as lyric duets, in this fugue, the subject is joined not
subject but also by its own inverted double. The effect is that Sh
more than in any of the other fugues, to be disguising himself i
offering an especially Baroque sounding, carefree Fugue as the fo
Prelude.
The Fugue's playful stretto section plays up the idea of relationships as well -
another sign for the "two-ness" of it all. The absence of a third voice is almost palpable
- one hungers for another entrance. And for this reason the ending of the Fugue -
which moves away from the Baroque model of Fortspinnung, the continuous churning
out of motivic-melodic material, and towards Classical models of punctuation and ar-
ticulation of phrase and cadence - again seems to signal an overt relationship between
the present and its various pasts. A repeated motoric rhythm in the bass in m. 60 recalls
similar moments in many of the cycle's fugues (e.g. A-flat major, A major, A minor, G
major, B major), when forward-moving counterpoint gives way to static repetition, sig-
naling the approaching conclusion of the piece. And in the final four measures, the
counterpoint gives way to octave doubling, recalling the opening of the Prelude, with its
own dualities, but here at the closer and more natural-sounding level of one octave
instead of two.45 The only other fugue in the cyc

instead of the move conventional winding down of fr
final one, in D minor, in which the alternative tonic a
the head of the Fugue subject are sounded triumphant
Fugue, the effect is similarly exultant, serving both a
bling opening and an emphatic reversal of the auth
dilemma - a jaunty and jovial finale to a story with it
The Self-Seeking Substance
We have been attempting to demonstrate that Sh

Preludes and Fugues to represent issues of identity
at the beginning of the discussion that such a desir
situated in the context of Soviet artistic life after
show that the tendency in Shostakovich scholarship of
to read his work always through the lens of So
Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, Boris Gasparov
such readings has come to an end: "I believe that in or
which Shostakovich's image is entangled, one has to
his music, the seeming immediacy with which it c
understanding."46
Gasparov suggests that we cannot help ourselves in
ing to the music. And thus, when it is so manifest
connected to the values of high Stalinism, we despair.
out of this bind is to realize that we are dealing here w
Gasparov puts it, "[I]t is the aesthetic nature of Sh
narrative rather than its emotional modality that
occupies in the world it reflects." His own aim in read
to study Shostakovich's music "as an aesthetic and inte
right that emerged in a particular epoch, rather than
extraneous ideological pressures and totalitarian co
These are admirable aims, especially given the un
discourse surrounding Shostakovich and his work.
the phrase "the world it reflects" should give one
music merely reflects its world is not, of course, a si
to which Shostakovich's music also helped to create
reflect. As Botstein, Taruskin, and Fay have suggested
and Gasparov's own analyses of the tantalizingly
ambiguous Fourth Symphony demonstrate, Shostakovi
45It is perhaps worth noting that Bach's own two-voice fugue i

10 in E minor) also utilizes the idea of octave doubling at structu
46Gasparov, Five Operas, 164.
47Ibid.
not merely to reflect the conditions of his society in abstract

shaping these conditions by representing them, and perhaps rein
cally.
Such a perspective may take us some of the way towards explaining the marked
difference in the expressive characters of the Prelude and Fugue in E major. The in-
tensely personal Prelude, with its epic wide spaces and affecting, emotional melodic
statements, meets its most extreme contrast in the impersonal and abstract Fugue.
Indeed, the Fugue appears almost a non sequitur to the prelude, unable to match the
depth of its expression. It is as if Shostakovich is disavowing in the Fugue all of the
urgent questions posed by the Prelude, untangling the brooding subject from its shackles
and setting it free in the playful, perhaps apolitical, realm of pure craft. It is surely not
too much of a stretch to place Shostakovich's work in such a context. As Botstein
points out, Shostakovich drew upon the symphonic model of Gustav Mahler in the real-
ization of "strategies that could function, sympathetically, to convey coherently affirma-
tion along with despair and doubt
sion of various if not contradictory emotional states."48 In the

posing op. 87, Shostakovich had at his disposal any number
moves. The juxtaposition of two extremely opposing charact
and Fugue in E major, however, serves as an especially conce
tendency towards representing dialectical relationships.
In making the interpretive leap towards arguing that all of t
a statement of Soviet subjectivity, however, two points must be
must keep in mind the advice of such scholars as Jochen Hel
who remind us of the dangers in overstressing the differe
experience and modern Western experience in general.49 Any qu
Stalin's Soviet Union would be fraught with perils at times
commentators. But the case of Mahler, as only one example,
cerns have also motivated artists in other times and places an
vating art. As Stephen Greenblatt's recent biography of Sha
vided self, threatened by official ideology and hiding under the
ubiquitous presence since the dawn of modernity.50 In represen
ness, Shostakovich revealed the depth of his kinship with artist
Second, as strongly as we feel about the acuity of our int
always remember that our conclusions, no matter how relev
fects of the music under investigation, can never come close to
meaning that lie hidden beneath the sonic surfaces. We mus
what music "means" to be limited by our own analyses. Our a
are always bound up with our own psychological and social m
any concordance between the artist's time and place and our
the conditions of the music we are seeking to understand.
48Botstein, "Listening to Shostakovich," 367.

49See Hellbeck, "Self-Realization," and Kotsonis, "Introduction."
50Greenblatt, Will in the World.
Indeed, the doors must remain open for exactly thi

to draw upon this art in order to make sense of ou
senses. The question of the relative stability of E m
Fugue No. 9 stands as a proxy for the most import
about ourselves and the security of our own iden
Kramer writes that "musical affect, expression, an
self-apprehension; music is known by, and valued for
meanings ascribed to it; identity seeks to become su
sic, being more event than substance, continually elud
it."51 However close we may have come in the pr
importance of the idea of dialectical or reflexive relat
issues of the extent to which this cycle represents a p
ism" will persist, not only because of a lack of auth
part, but because the nature of music itself deems it
affirmative and oppositional readings of this music m
nating, and ultimately indispensable to our continu
power of Shostakovich's artistic achievement.
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by Laurel E. Fay, 355-84. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
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bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Braun, Joachim. "The Double Meaning of Jewish Elements in Dmitri Shostakovich's
Music." Musical Quarterly 71 (1985), 68-80.
Clark, Katerina. Petersburg: Crucible of Cultural Revolution. Cambridge, MA:
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Fairclough, Pauline. A Soviet Credo: Dmitri Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony.
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Letters 83/2 (2002), 259-73.

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Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues: Fashioning Identities, Representing Relationhips

Author(s): Mark Mazullo, Chloe Kiritz and Adam Nelson

With Chloe Kiritz and Adam Nelson1

The "Loyal Son"

thirty years after Stalin's Minister of Culture Andrey Zhdanov ushered

The compositional peculiarities of Shostakovich's fugues emerged as the res

Insofar as it emanates from and reinforces th

In many fugues the slow tempo of the composi

5Dolzhanskii, 24 Preliudii i Fugi, 232.

argument is that all of the characters in the opera except for

7Botstein, "Listening to Shostakovich," 374.

for ideologically acceptable Soviet art. As Fairclou

1 'Fairclough, "Perestroyka," 264. See also Fairclough, A Sovi

chamber music was not just un-Soviet activity, it was u

Self and Authority: Dialectics in C Major

Consider the oft-used locution characterizing Shostak

Human social life is shot through with the process of se

l5Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, 490-91.

which he finds himself - social, professional, domestic, emotional, and so on.

20Ginzburg, On Psychological Prose, 1 1 .

with the same conditions elsewhere than totalitarian theories of

25See Giddens, Modernity and Self -Identity, especially pp. 28-32.

exercises in formal counterpoint. (The double fu

30Quoted in Fay, Shostakovich, 160.

Song of the Forests (beginning)

T^'J H" J ir f r J i" !

C major fugue (beginning)

^f>j i ir j ir r r if ' ii r if > if r I" II

Pictures at an Inhibition (beginning)

f»' 'i j j p lJ r ii'tcj r r f j j ii

C major fugue (beginning)

>*"> r ir i \\ r r ir mi r if ' h ri" II

K minor prelude (beginning)

h minor fugue (beginning)

K minor fugue (mm. 47-48)

D major fugue (beginning)

h major prelude (beginning)

('-sharp minor fugue (beginning)

i't> k« ■■■?:< :. ._«?

B-flat minor prelude (beginning)

^ " ' ^ J J Ij I I I 1 **' Ifl J 1

^■v.^l " lf>:l"lp lf: If' I

H Ii.il minor Itieuc lm.4i

/'/' le.3T-.-iv ■?>.-:• >Jfl:

A IIjI major fugue (tvtMiminc)

I minor prelude (hcL'inniny)

(i minor ftiguc (tvi!innini»i

war, perhaps op. 87 provides a less straightforward vision, one m

34For an extended discussion on the expressive import of C major in Shostak

A minor fugue ( beginning >

S>mphony No. 4. op. 43 (mm. 191-192)

metaphysical questions."37 He suggests that Shostakovich's own

No wonder that, under the conditions of a repressive state,

The irony is that precisely because of these powerful means of id

37Hakobian, "A Perspective on Soviet Musical Culture," 226. Hakobian's essay

The uneasy relationship between the C major fugue of op.

On every level, from the large-scale to the local, Shostakov

40See Fanning, "Present-Day Master," 137.

system (as in his own 24 Preludes, op. 34), but al

major all, for instance, feature explicitly organic connections betw

In the recapitulation of this devilish and dram

A Quest for Wholeness

Prelude in C major, Op. 32 No. 1 (beginning)