For those interested, here's a follow-up to my Berlin 1953 youtube video:
The music is, again, from Shostakovich's brilliantly cinematic 11th Symphony.
That symphony, composed late in 1956, was entitled "The Year 1905" - and was supposed to commemorate the abortive Russian revolution of that year.
But the composer is said to have remarked that what he really had in mind in this work was the tendency of events in Russian history to repeat themselves...
...which, in light of its time of composition, has given rise to persistent rumors that what it's really all about is the even more horrific & tragic Hungarian revolution of 1956.
So the visuals here, mostly taken from news-reels of the day, are particularly appropriate.
Comments (1)
As with the 11th so possibly also with the magnificent 7th, the Leningrad. There has been speculation that Shostakovich composed it with an anti-stalinist sentiment, that the movement supposedly depicting the Nazi advance on the city was a cry rather against Soviet oppression.
I believe that Stalin himself viewed the work negatively and had performances canceled.
Whatever the case it would seem that Shostakovich didn't deserve the criticism directed at him by armchair American "intellectuals".
The Hungarian revolt itself; as a teenager it struck me as so sad, so depressing, that these people seemed to come within a hair's breath of freedom only to have it crushed by Mongolian armored cavalry units, the Russian troops not being up to this foul and bloody task.
Posted by johnt | March 6, 2009 3:18 PM