An actor friend was appearing in a cabaret called Crooked Jimmy (this was in Moscow during the New Economic Policy). He came out on stage and wanted to begin, but he couldn't. A fat man was standing in front of the first row, berating someone in the audience. Time
•Ivan lvanovich Sollertinsky (1902-1944), musicologist, Shostakovich's closest friend from 1 927. He had an enormous influence on the formation of Shostakovich's tastes, and not only musically. A man of jovial and eccentric nature, Solleninsky made brilliant appearances, and his pre-concert commentaries were often as appreciated as the music that followed. During the antiformalist campaign of 1936, he was put under great pressure, but continued to defend Shostakovich. His only concession was the prorriise "to begin studying Georgian." Sollertinsky knew dozens of languages and dialects, including Sanskrit and Ancient Persian.
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passed and finally my friend lost his patience and said, "Allow me to start, comrade . . . " only to hear the obnoxious and too familiar reply:
"A goose is no comrade to a pig!"
My friend flapped his arms like wings and said, "In that case, I'm flying away . . . . " And tiptoed off the stage like a dying swan from Swan La.ke.
That's a quick wit. The audience laughed so loud that the boor shot out of there like a bullet.
Once, in my presence, Sollertinsky cut a haughty and obnoxious woman down to size. She herself was nothing, but her husband was a Leningrad big shot. At a banquet for an opera premiere at the Maly Theater, Sollertinsky came up to this woman. And wanting to compliment her, he said in his usual excited, spluttering manner, "How wonderful you look, you are absolutely ravishing today!"
He was just getting ready to enlarge on his dithyramb when the lady interrupted, "Unfortunately, I can't say the same for you." (She had Sollertinsky's face in mind, as well as his rather extravagant manner of dressing.) But Sollertinsky kept his wits about him and replied, "Why don't you do what I did? Lie."
Being rude is, in essence, easy; being sharp is significantly harder. I hope that the differences between these two manifestations of temperament are clear. The hardest, though, is telling the truth without being either rude or sharp. The ability to express yourself in this way comes only with years of experience.
But there is another danger here-that you begin expressing yourself obliquely. You begin lying.
In the last few years people have completely stopped being rude to me. It's good and it's bad. It should be obvious why it's good, and it's bad for two reasons.
First of all, people seem to be "protecting" me. They must be afraid that I'll shatter from a rude remark and they won't be able to glue me back together, not even in the best Kremlin hospital. They're sorry for me.
But the important part is this: the absence of rudeness today certainly doesn't mean that they won't be rude tomorrow or the next day with added gusto. Because boorishness as such is alive and flourishing and 26
almost anything at all can happen at any time.
And you're no longer what you were, you grow soft. You're used to being treated well, you've lost your immunity. Arid then they'll trample you, poor naked devil, trample you to dust.
But at the present I sense a desire for restraint in their treatment of me, an avoidance of rudeness. And this inspires in me, a man brought up in the spirit of St. Petersburg, the desire to soften my opinions. And I immediately think of Glazunov.
Here's a man who listened to much more music than he needed to. I can't say anything as kind about myself. Glazunov always had a review ready, and not an overly severe one at that. Why should I do any less?
Plutarch was a great man, his parallel biographies are a marvelous thing. And now my own life seems better and more attractive through various kinds of parallels. In these pleasant surroundings I swim like a sardine in oil. Much honor, but little use.
Did Glazunov restrain himself consciously ? Or was it just difficult to pr�voke him? I know of only a few times when Glazunov grew so angry that everyone noticed. Once I was involved, another time Prokofiev.
The incident of Prokofiev happened when I was still very young.
But it was talked about later too, and the story became imbued with portent and considered almost symbolic, though as far as I'm concerned nothing particularly symbolic happened. Glazunov simply got up and left the hall during a performance of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite.
It was well known that Glazunov hated Prokofiev's music. But I'm ready to argue that in this case there was no demonstration intended.
For Glazunov had listened, without leaving his seat or letting any expression cross his impassive face, to hundreds upon hundreds of works that were alien to him. What was the explanation, then?
A very simple one-The Scythian Suite was too loud for Glazunov and he feared for his hearing apparatus. The orchestra was trying too hard. After the premiere, the percussionist presented Prokofiev with the broken skin of the kettledrums.
And there's one other aspect, a very important one. Glazunov would never have left a concert hall during a performance-even if his life 27
were in danger-unless he was sure that this would not upset the composer in the least. And Glazunov, undoubtedly, was right.
Prokofiev, as you know, got over his lack of success with Glazunov easily. He even put the occasion on his list of successes, so to speak. In this sense our reactions to the opinions of our Conservatory mentors differed radically.
Once, Prokofiev was showing his assignments in orchestration to Rimsky-Korsakov. This was always done in front of the entire class.
Rimsky-Korsakov found a number of mistakes in Prokofiev's work and grew angry. Prokofiev turned to the class triumphantly-there, the old man is mad. He thought that it somehow increased his esteem.
But as he later told it, his friends' faces remained serious; he didn't find support in this instance. And by the way, he never did learn how to orchestrate properly.
Prokofiev set himself at odds with the Conservatory almost from the very beginning. He was thirteen when he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory. I was also thirteen, but I entered the Petrograd Conservatory, which was no longer the same place. In general, it's a question of discipline and character and a fix on the past and the future.
This . may in part explain why Glazunov lost his temper a second time. It had to do with me, but he wasn't attacking me, he was def ending me.
I hope I will be understood. I'm not bragging; on the contrary, this story shows me in a rather comic light and Glazunov as a highly decent man, while in the story with Prokofiev, it's Prokofiev who comes off well and Glazunov who looks a little silly.
But that seems to be my fate. Compared to me, Prokofiev always made more of a splash and seemed more interesting. Prokofiev always struck the more effective pose, so to speak, and took care with the background, wanting his almost classical profile to look as attractive as possible against it.
So the story that had to do with me took place five years later than the "Prokofiev" one. My teacher, Steinberg,• told me about it. Stein-