When two "celebrities" are seated next to each other and they don't know what to talk about. The traditional method is to say to each other with a smile, "What do we talk about, when we have nothing to say?" Flash. The other method, which I myself. invented, is to say,
"Eighty-eight, eighty-eight." You don't even have to smile, because the words stretch your lips into a smile and you give the impression of having a lively conversation. The photographers are happy and leave quickly.
No, I can't go on describing my unhappy life, and I'm sure that no one can doubt now that it is unhappy. There were no particularly happy moments in my life, no great joys. It was gray and dull and it makes me sad to think about it. It saddens me to admit it, but it's the truth, the unhappy truth.
Man feels joy when he's healthy and happy. I was often sick. I'm sick now, and my illness deprives me of the opportunity to take pleasure in ordinary things. It's hard for me to walk. I'm teaching myself to write with my left hand in case my right one gives out completely. I am completely in the hands of the doctors, and I obey their orders with extreme submissiveness. I take all the medicine they prescribe, even if it nauseates me. But there is no diagnosis, they won't make one. Some American doctors came and said, We're amazed by your courage. And nothing else. They can't do a thing. Before, they bragged that they would cure me without question, they had made such great progress in the field, etc. And now all they talk about is courage.
But I don't feel like a superman yet, supercourageous. I'm a weak man. Or are things so bad with me?
They've come up with a tentative diagnosis: something like chronic poliomyelitis. Not infantile polio, of course. There are a few other people in the Soviet Union with the same mysterious illness. One film director walks around, they say, dragging his leg. And no regimen, no treatment seems to help. When I'm in Moscow, I feel worst of all. I keep thinking that I'll fall and break a leg. At home I can even play the piano. But I'm afraid to go out. I'm terrified to be seen, I feel fragile, breakable.
No, every new day of my life brings me no joy. I thought I would find distraction reminiscing about my friends and acquaintances.
275
Many of them were famous and talented people, who told me interesting things, instructive stories. I thought that telling about my outstanding contemporaries would also be interesting and instructive. Some of these people played an important role in my life and I felt it was my duty to tell what I still remembered about them.
But even this undertaking has turned out to be a sad one.
I have thought that my life was replete with sorrow and, that it would be hard to find a more miserable man. But when I started going over the life stories of my friends and acquaintances, I was horrified.
Not one of them had an easy or a happy life. Some came to a terrible end, some died in terrible suffering, and the lives of many of them could easily be called more miserable than mine.
And that made me even sadder. I was remembering my friends and all I saw was corpses, mountains of corpses. I'm not exaggerating, I mean mountains. And the picture filled me with a horrible depression.
I'm sad, I'm grieving all the time. I tried to drop this unhappy undertaking several times and stop remembering things from my past, since I saw nothing good in it. I didn't want to remember at all.
But for many reasons I went on. I forced myself and went on remembering, even though some of the memories were difficult for me. I decided that if this exercise helped me to see anew certain events and the destinies of certain people, then perhaps it wasn't completely futile and perhaps others would find something instructive in these simple tales.
And besides, I reasoned this way: I've described many unpleasant and even tragic events, as well as several sinister and repulsive figures.
My relations with them brought me much sorrow and suffering. And I thought perhaps my experience in this regard could also be of some use to peo�le younger than I. Perhaps they wouldn't have the horrible disillusionment that I had to face, and would go through life better prepared, more hardened, than I was. And perhaps their lives would be free of the bitterness that has colored my life gray . .
276
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
1 906- 1 975
MAJOR COMPOSITIONS, TITLES,
AND AWARDS
1 924-25
First Symphony, opus 1 0
1 926
Piano Sonata no. 1 , opus 1 2
1 927
Ten Aphorisms for Piano, opus 1 3
Second Symphony ("Dedication to October"), for orchestra and chorus, to poem by Alexander Bezymensky, opus 1 4
1 927-28
The Nose, a n opera based on Gogol, opus 1 5
1 928
Orchestral transcription of "Tea for Two" by Vincent Youmans, opus 1 6
1 928-29
Score for film New Babylon (directors, Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg), opus 1 8
1 928-32
Six Romances for Tenor and Orchestra, to poems by Japanese poets, opus 21
1 929
Music for Vladimir Mayakovsky's comedy The Bedbug (directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold), opus 1 9
Third Symphony ("May First"), for orchestra and chorus, to poem by Semyon Kirsanov, opus 20
1 929-30
The Golden Age (ballet), opus 22
1 930-31
Bolt (ballet), opus 27
1 930-32
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, an opera based on Nikolai Leskov, opus 29
1931-32
Music for Hamlet (directed by Nikolai Akimov), opus 32
1 932-33
Twenty-Four Preludes for Piano, opus 34
1 933
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, opus 35
1 934
Sonata for Cello and Piano, opus 40
277
1 934-35
Bright Stream (ballet), opus 39
1 934-38
Scores for films Maxim 's Youth, Maxim 's Return, and The Vyborg Side (directors, G. Kozintsev and L. Trauberg), opuses 41 , 45, 50; film trilogy received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 941
1 935
Five Fragments for Orchestra, opus 42
1 935-36
Fourth Symphony, opus 43
1 936
Four Romances for Voice and Piano, to poems by Alexander Pushkin, opus 46
1 937
Fifth Symphony, opus 47
1 938
First String Quartet, opus 49
1 938-39
Score for film The Great Citizen , two parts (director, Fridrikh Ermler), opuses 52, 55; film received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1941
1 939
Sixth Symphony, opus 54
1 940
Piano Quintet, opus 5 7; Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 941
Orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, opus 58
Music for King Lear (director, G. Kozintsev), opus 58a Order of the Red Banner of Labor
1 941
Seventh Symphony, opus 60; Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 942
1 942
Piano Sonata no. 2, opus 61
Six Romances for Bass and Piano, to poems by Walter Raleigh, Robert Burns, and William Shakespeare, translated by Samuel Marshak and Boris Pasternak, opus 62 (version for bass and chamber orchestra, 1 970, opus 1 40)
Honored Artist of the R.S.F.S.R.
1 943
Eighth Symphony, opus 65
Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
1 944
Score for film Zoya (director, Leo Arnshtam), opus 64; film received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 946
Piano Trio, opus 67; Stalin Prize Second Grade, 1 946