Prokofiev and Shostakovich

Author(s): David Glines

Source: Chicago Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Fall, 1976), pp. 22-23
Published by: Chicago Review
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25303522
Accessed: 16-02-2020 00:56 UTC

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 PROKOFIEV AND SHOSTAKOVICH

Shostakovich came to see Prokofiev. They peered uncertainly

at one another through their thick lenses before recognizing them
selves.
"For a moment I thought you were Khachaturian," Prokofiev
said.
"And I you Kabalevsky," Shostakovich said, groping for
verification with his nail-bitten digits, seeking the trademark
bulge on Prokofiev's forehead.
Satisfied, Shostakovich scratched his chin, foamed slightly at
the mouth.
This dreadful exchange concluded, they discussed their work.
Their work disgusted them. They both characterized their vast
outputs as uneconomical, uncomradely, overweight and unre
laxed. Also, it was suggested by one of them (they forgot who
because they both were talking at the same time) that most of their
work, if not themselves, be voluntarily sent to Siberia after severe
censure?figuratively and proceeding there with several detours
and side trips. Shostakovich emphasized the latter point with a
walloping crunch-crackle of his knuckles. Prokofiev merely
smiled, looked pleasant, attempting in Shostakovich's absorption
with his famed limber knuckles to hide an oratorio (censure
eligible) in a desk drawer.
Shostakovich dimly deciphered the ploy through his befog
ged lenses (State Issue). "Am I seeing something, Sergei?" "A
song, Dmitri. A diminutive song using but four notes." Prokofiev
smiled sardonically, slamming the drawer on Shostakovich's
slithering fingers.
"Shall we take a walk?" Prokofiev suggested.
At first, per agreement, to practice a 'new' economy and 'new'
collective efficiency in all matters they walked very slowly. This
did not hold. They began to stride. Soon enough they were at a full
run. Sweating and exhausted they stopped at a local cooperative
gin mill and hash house.
"W-Water," Shostakovich ordered.
"Yes! Water," Prokofiev agreed.
"Well, perhaps soda water."
"Yes, soda water."
"No. A beer."
"Beer!"
"Two beers!"
"Three . . ."
"Four ..."
22

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 "With vodka in each!"
"DOUBLE vodka . . ."
"Eh? Double vodka, BORSCHT and bread ..."
"... and chicken and a whole loaf of bread and ..."
Prokofiev glared at Shostakovich. Shostakovich, without a
word, wrote out an apology that ran to thirteen pages. Prokofiev
blue pencilled all thirteen pages.
"Why, Dmitri, do we do this to ourselves?"
"It is Russia! If this is Russia?I can't tell. It is too flat, too
open, no hills, no valleys. If we started running we would end up
in Poland. Not such a bad idea, eh? Heh, heh," Shostakovich said
with various voluntary and involuntary twitches, winks, ticks and
muscle spasms.
"My first wife ..." one of them began.
"Ah, my first wife ..." one of them interrupted.
"My first piano concerto ..."
"Mine!"
"Symphony Number One!"
"Mine was the Classical Symphony!" This identified
Prokofiev as the speaker.
"But ..." Shostakovich gleamed, "I was censured before
you!"
"I had left the country," Prokofiev reasoned calmly. "You had
a head start. Ah! More! I divorced my first wife and married some
one who was a personal friend of Stalin . . . THEN I got cen
sured!"
They played four hand piano. Prokofiev reached out with his
left hand and played Shostakovich's right when he scratched his
scalp but Shostakovich sneaked his left hand all the way around
the piano, under the bench and up through to each and every
string, hammer and damper of the piano and scratched them!
Their playing went on for hours (they forgot dinner!). At one
point Shostakovich shouted over a passage: "Beautiful!" Prokofiev
shouted back: "You are playing my next sonata!"
Faster and faster they played, pounding frenetically. Their
hands moved so swiftly that the hands merged into one gigantic
hand of pancake batter and this pancake batter hand took on a life
of its own, playing Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand Alone.
After that, it played Rachmaninov. "No!" They both disclaimed
the hand then. Imagine! Rachmaninov! A Czarist! He, a rogue, a
charlatan, the Scourge of Petrograd, St. Petersburg and Leningrad!
The Beast of Berlin and Beast of other places they had visited.
Breathless, they ran home. Shostakovich would let his nails
grow overnight, Prokofiev would work on his oratorio with a
flashlight under the covers, listening for his wife's footsteps.
23

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