Shostakovich

Shostakovich on the other hand, was somewhat less ambitious than Bartók when it came to collecting folk music, yet at the same time, certain folk music captivated him. Although he was an atheist and non-Jew, Shostakovich was fascinated by Jewish folk music. Shostakovich's interest in Jewish or Klezmer music probably stems from his close Jewish friend Ivan Sollertinsky. Sollertinsky was artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic, and when he died, Shostakovich, who conversed with Sollertinsky on all things musical, was inspired to incorporate a Jewish melody into his piano trio no. 2 in e minor. Shostakovich also felt a special connection to the plight of the Jewish people, for as he was persecuted and censored by Stalin's regime, the Jews were persecuted and censored by Hitler and Nazism. And finally, Shostakovich was apparently fascinated with Jewish music itself, apart from its social implications. According to the somewhat disputed but mostly accurate Testimony, or memoirs of Shostakovich, as related by Solomon Volkov, Shostakovich said that "Jewish music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it, it's multifaceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It's almost always laughter through tears." The ambiguity in Jewish music, of the combination of pain and suffering with happiness and exultation, is something that is very prominent in Shostakovich's work. Shostakovich himself was a very mysterious man. Shostakovich loathed Stalin and all that was communist, for it was under Stalin's orders that much of Shostakovich's music and that of his contemporaries was brandished as bourgeoisie, or formalist, and therefore considered unacceptable for the public. He was also forced to speak in Soviet code during Stalin's reign. Interestingly, nearly everything that Shostakovich said had a hint of irony in it, and he is one of the few composers able to express sarcasm in music. Though Stalin believed in and used the Leningrad Symphony for Soviet Propaganda (the Allies used it as a symbol of freedom), Shostakovich later explained that the Leningrad was really meant to satire, in a grotesque way, the dark and tragic aspects of war, totalitarianism, and racism that sprung from the soviet regime, and on close listening, one can hear what Shostakovich meant by this.