Fundamentals of Censorship Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, reviewed by ROBERT ANDERSON CSO-Resound    CSOR 901 814

The extraordinary story of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony involves the fundamentals of censorship. Soviet Communism was a young religion with clear-cut standards. In the West, with faltering faith, a pop star could appropriate with impunity, despite papal protests, a sacred title of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In other lands, where it is sacrilegious to represent the prophet Mohamed in any guise, let alone with a bomb for turban, the reaction was more vociferous, and the immediate result has been withdrawal of Danish products from Middle Eastern supermarkets. Such concerns are essentially matters of sensitivity.

Shostakovich had aroused Soviet suspicions with his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The notorious Pravda article of condemnation appeared in January 1936 while he was at work on the symphony. He completed the work in May, and the première was scheduled for December in St Petersburg. But a commissar turned up at a rehearsal, and the symphony was withdrawn. It remained silent until 1961, when Stalin was long dead, and the early Krushchev years provided some relaxation in state discipline.

And what of the symphony itself? It is a vast, sprawling work, perhaps too much under the shadow of Mahler. It has passages of thunderous impact, but also etiolated wisps of sound that hardly disturb the air. The first movement presents its data as a cogent beginning.

There follows half an hour of tormented development that must sorely have strained Soviet nerves. The Moderato con moto is more benign, but it too can shake an angry fist.

The finale begins with a glum march that knows existence will probably not be a bed of roses.

Together with the succeeding Allegro, it also exceeds thirty minutes. Powerful as the performance is, I can yet imagine a more compelling version, with no loose ends and a more insistent drive.

On the broader canvas, censorship must always be a personal matter, maybe guided on occasion by the stalwart commonsense of a Mary Whitehouse. I have seen Lady Macbeth once; and that is enough. How often I shall hear the symphony has still to be seen; but in any case I remain my own censor.

Record Box is Music & Vision's regular series of shorter CD reviews