[These are some excerpts from the autobiography of Dmitri Shostakovich (Testimony, Faber and Faber, London 1987). In it he writes mostly about other Russian musicians and little about himself. What he writes about Glazunov, composer and Director of the St Petersburg Conservatoire, is particularly inspiring.]

When Glazunov’s First Symphony was performed, it was a great success, and they called for the composer. The audience was stunned when the composer came out in a Gymnasium uniform. Glazunov was seventeen. That’s a record in Russian music. I didn’t beat it, even though I began early enough. (125)

Revolution Prime Minister Stolypin sent an enquiry to the Conservatoire: how many Jewish students were there? Glazunov replied with quiet satisfaction, “We don’t keep count.” And these were the years of pogroms against the Jews who were not permitted into institutions of higher learning. (127)

An anniversary concert in Glazunov’s honour was held in Moscow in 1922. He went, and after the gala, Lunacharsky, the People’s Commissar of Education, gave a speech. He announced that the government had decided to give Glazunov living conditions that would facilitate his creativity and be commensurate with his achievements. What would any other man have done in the guest of honour’s place? He would have thanked him. The times were hard and lean. Glazunov, who had once been a substantial and handsome man, had lost a catastrophic amount of weight. His old clothes sagged on him as though he were a clothes hanger. His face was haggard and drawn. We knew that he didn’t even have music paper on which to write down his ideas. But Glazunov manifested an absolutely amazing sense of his own dignity. And honour. He said that he needed absolutely nothing and asked not to be put in circumstances that differed from those of other citizens. But if the government had turned its attention to musical life, Glazunov said, well then, let it rest on the Conservatoire, which was freezing. There was no firewood, nothing with which to heat the place. It caused a minor scandal, but at least the Conservatoire received firewood. (127)

Glazunov was always tormented by the awareness of the injustice of his personal well-being as against the poverty of most of the people around him. He was visited by many people who had been treated unfairly by life and he tried to help them: in response even more came to him. But he couldn’t help them all. He wasn’t a miracle worker after all, none of us is, and that is a source of constant torment.

Glazunov was also pestered by an enormous number of composers who sent their work to him from all over Russia. When they just send you music, it’s not so bad, I know that from my own experience. You can glance through a score rather quickly, particularly if you see straight away that it’s hopeless. Of course, if you want to experience the music fully, you must sightread it in the amount of time that it would take to perform, that’s the only way to derive real satisfaction from reading it. But that’s a method to be used only with good music. It’s torture to ‘listen’ with your eyes to bad music. You just glance through it. But what do you do when a talentless composer comes and plays his music from beginning to end? I feel that Glazunov chose the right behaviour for these situations. He praised such works moderately and quietly, looking at the music with thought. Sometimes he used his gold pencil on the second or fifteenth page to add a sharp or flat or make some other tiny change. ‘In general, this is all right, it’s good; but here, perhaps, the shift from triple to quadruple time isn’t very good…’. So that the composer wouldn’t think that Glazunov didn’t pay enough attention to the work. (130)

Once Glazunov listened to a friend and myself sightreading Brahms’ Second Symphony on the piano at four hands. We were playing badly, because we didn’t know the music. Glazunov asked whether we knew it, and I answered honestly, ‘No, we don’t.’ And he sighed and said, ‘You’re so lucky, young men, you’re so lucky. There are so many beautiful things for you to discover. And I already know it all. Unfortunately.’ (14)

Glazunov amazed us with his musical memory. Taneyev had come to Petersburg from Moscow to show his new symphony, and the host hid the young Glazunov in the next room behind a closed door. Taneyev played his symphony. When he finished, the host brought Glazunov from the next room. He sat at the piano, and played the whole symphony from beginning to end. Not even Stravinsky could have done that. (51)

Glazunov asked Sofronitsky to come and see him urgently. He came to his house and found him napping in his armchair, his head lolling on his fat stomach. Glazunov opened one eye and stared at Sofronitsky for a long time, and then, his tongue moving slowly, asked: ‘Tell me, please, do you like the Hammerklavier?’ [That is Beethoven’s 29th piano sonata.] Sofronitsky replied readily that of course, he liked it very much. Glazunov was silent for a long time. Sofronitsky stood and waited until Glazunov muttered softly, ‘You know, I can’t stand that sonata.’ And went back to sleep. (43) [I love this story, as I also had to learn Beethoven’s thirty-two sonatas at the piano in my youth, and I hated the Hammer-Klavier! But I could not say it then!]

Once Glazunov was in England, conducting his own works there. The British orchestra members were laughing at him. They thought he was a barbarian, and probably an ignoramus. And they began sabotaging him. The French horn player stood up at a rehearsal and said that he couldn’t play a certain note because it was impossible. The other orchestra players heartily supported him. Glazunov silently walked over to the horn player and took his instrument. The stunned musician didn’t object. Glazunov took aim for a while and then played the required note, the one that the British musician insisted was impossible. The orchestra applauded, the insurrection was quelled, and they continued the rehearsal. (56)

Once in my presence Sollertinsky [another of Shostakovich’s musical friends] cut a haughty and obnoxious woman down to size. She herself was nothing, but her husband was a Leningrad official. At a banquet for an opera première at the Maly Theatre, 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!’ And he was just getting ready to enlarge on his dithyramb when the lady interrupted. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for you.’ But Sollertinsky kept his wits about him and replied, ‘Why don’t you do what I did? Lie.’ Being rude is easy; being sharp is significantly harder. (18)

Once Stalin called the Radio Committee to ask for a record of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, which had been heard on the radio the day before. ‘Played by Yudina’, he added. [Yudina was a very popular classical pianist in Russia though hardly known in the West.] They told Stalin that of course they would send it. Actually, there was no record, the concert had been broadcast live. But they were afraid to say no to Stalin, no one ever knew what the consequences might be. A human life meant nothing to him. Stalin demanded that the record would be sent to him in his dacha. The committee panicked. They called in Yudina and an orchestra and recorded that night. Everyone was shaking with fright, except for Yudina, naturally. She was a great pianist, a great woman, and a great Christian. Yudina told me that they had to send the conductor home, he was so scared he couldn’t think. They called another conductor, who trembled and got everything mixed up, confusing the orchestra. Only a third conductor was in any shape to finish the recording. Anyway, the record was ready by morning. They made one single copy in a hurry and sent it to Stalin. Soon after, Yudina received an envelope with twenty thousand roubles. She was told it came on the express orders of Stalin. Then she wrote him a letter in which she said: “I thank you, Josif Vissarionovich, for your aid. I will pray for you day and night and ask the Lord to forgive your great sins before the people and the country. The Lord is merciful and He’ll forgive you. I gave the money to the church that I attend.” The letter was suicidal, and the order to arrest Yudina was prepared, but nothing happened. Her recording of the Mozart Concerto was on the record player when Stalin was found dead in his dacha. Yudina herself told me all this, and Yudina never lied. (148)

Once I was in Khrennikov’s office in the Composers’ Union when Stalin called him on the phone. He was so upset that he forgot to see me out of his office and I heard the entire conversation which was checking on accusations, scolding, raving, condemning for a long time. I knew how to keep a straight face when such things happened. I kept all the time looking intently at Tchaikovsky’s picture on the wall. I never mentioned anything about that phone call to anyone, but ever since that day I can reproduce Pyotr Ilyich’s beard faultlessly hair by hair. [Pyotr Ilych is, of course, Tchaikovsky.] (114)

Stalin was very fussy about portraits of himself. There’s a marvellous Oriental parable about a khan who called for an artist to do his portrait. That seemed to be a simple enough order, but the problem was that the khan was lame and squinted in one eye. The artist depicted him that way and was immediately executed. The khan said, ‘I don’t need slanderers.’ They brought a second artist. He decided to be smart and depicted the khan in perfect shape: eagle eyes and matching feet. He was immediately executed too. The khan said, ‘I don’t need flatterers.’ The wisest, as it should be in a parable, was the third artist. He painted the khan hunting. In the painting the khan was shooting a deer with a bow and arrow. His squinty eye was shut, and the lame foot rested on a rock. This artist was awarded a prize.

I have a suspicion that the parable doesn’t come from the East, but was written somewhere closer home, because this khan sounds just like Stalin. Stalin had several painters shot. They were called to the Kremlin to capture the leader and teacher for eternity, and, apparently they didn’t please him. Stalin wanted to be tall, with powerful hands, and he wanted the hands to be the same, though he had unequal hands and was short. Nalbandian fooled them all. In his portrait Stalin is walking straight at the viewer, his hands folded over his stomach so that one is hidden by the other. The view is from below, an angle that would make a Lilliputian look like a giant. Nalbandian followed Mayakovsky’s advice: the artist must look at his model like a duck at a balcony. And Nalbandian painted Stalin from the duck’s point of view. Stalin was very pleased, and reproductions of the painting hung in every office, even in barber shops and Turkish baths. All of you have seen that picture. (198)