# So... What's The Current Status Of Volkov's 'Testimony'?



## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

Has any consensus developed as to whether or not it's a fake?

I finally got round to reading it last week.

And it reads sorta like Carlos Castaneda (for those old enough.) It's got all these 'sayings' that sound super cool but then when you step back, there's actually very little -specifics-. I mean where 'Dmitri' talks about his OWN life with dates. ie. it's mainly him gassing on about other people in a general sort of way. And that kinda seems a bit fishy. IOW: if yer doing a fake, you'd avoid specific anecdotes like "Dad and me went fishing at so and so a place on such and such a date..."

I read it because I've always hated D.S. music but his fans LOOOOVE his story so much and always encourage me to keep trying. I wonder how much the 'story' and the notes are entangled. IOW: I wonder if I don't hate it because I never bothered with his life. I just hear the notes and they don't do anything for me.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Not real sure why you're reading _Testimony _if you don't like DSCH's music! In any event, a summary of opinion can be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony_(book)


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

For a relevant update on Testimony You should read Ho/Feofanov's "Shostakovich Reconsiddered" (Toccata Press 1998)

I feel its relevant, and a very interesting account of the composers life no matter its origins, and as the composer will not be able to confirm his involvement and to be honest it is not a dissertation so what does it matter who wrote what. Anyway my good friend and mentor, the late Per Skans vouched for its authenticity, him being one of the who actually was allowed to see Volkov's original manuscript, and when Per said something is OK then I'm fine with it! (That's how naive I am!)

As far as liking or warming to any composer, that is personal, I don't hate any composer, but there are hundreds whose music I feel is pointless, but as I once overheard in a pub-discussion in Dublin; There has to be millions of tonnes pointless ***** for the occasional diamond to be valuable...

/ptr


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## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

1. Several people I dearly respect -really- like his stuff. When people you know aren't idiots feel strongly, it's my belief that one should make the effort to try and see what they see.

2. I read that article but it seemed to try to present a 'balanced' view of both sides. I was hoping that there one side had taken the day since it was written.

I've read a number of 'analyses' of his music which seem to stake the 'worth' of his music on the veracity of Testimony. IOW: if one can hear the music as portrayed in the book (ironic, anti-soviet), it affects the intrinsic worth of that music.



KenOC said:


> Not real sure why you're reading _Testimony _if you don't like DSCH's music! In any event, a summary of opinion can be found here.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony_(book)


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Not real sure why you're reading _Testimony _if you don't like DSCH's music!


I've read it too. Maybe in part because I'm sick of being told I don't understand Shostakovich's life every time I present a criticism of his work...?


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## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

I think he's a unique figure in music history... I certainly feel a curiosity about the guy from a 'history' standpoint.

But when I went to school I was brainwashed on the 'music is powerless to express anything' approach. I almost never knew/cared about any composer's 'backstory'. Either I liked the notes or I didn't.

What interests me about D.S. is that my friends (his defenders) seem to -strongly- feel that the reason I don't enjoy his stuff is because I don't 'know what he's trying to say'. I've never run into that before in concert music. They're almost like groupies. It never dawned on me to like/dislike, say Hindemith or -whoever- based on their life circumstances. That approach seems more like pop music where the backstory is critical to marketing the singer (eg. he's an authentic 'gangsta'!).



Mahlerian said:


> I've read it too. Maybe in part because I'm sick of being told I don't understand Shostakovich's life every time I present a criticism of his work...?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I should have blogged this when I first wrote it because it comes up with some regularity. As I wrote in another thread:

There is overwhelming evidence that the book is a systematic fraud. See Laurel Fay's "Shostakovich versus Volkov: Whose Testimony?" Russian Review 39, no. 4 (1980), 484-93. Volkov's best proof of authenticity is the fact that Shostakovich's signature appears on the typescript of the first pages of all of Testimony's chapters except one. Unfortunately, as Fay shows, those first pages exactly reproduce the opening pages of articles published under Shostakovich's name in the USSR (except for a few time-sensitive references). After the first page, however, each chapter departs from these sources abruptly and, once or twice, almost incoherently. Fay suggests that what Volkov showed Shostakovich was just a collection of very safe and already published articles which he, as an editor of Sovetskaya Muzika, was collecting for publication. Then, afterward, he removed all of the previously published material except for the first pages, the ones with the signatures, and created most of the the rest himself by paraphrasing others at second or third hand, repeating rumors already circulating, or just making stuff up. The "testimony" of friends and acquaintances supports the view that Testimony is mostly rumor, second hand quotations and fabrication. Much of this evidence is collected in _A Shostakovich Casebook_ (edited by Malcolm Hamrick Brown).

Bottom line: Testimony is totally unreliable. Nothing in it can be trusted unless it appears in another (reliable) source.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

There´s no final verdict about the book, but these sources name many prominent witnesses saying OK for the book´s general content:
http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/deb/dchron1.html
http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/deb/dchron2.html

Of course, Shostakovich´s Rayok Cantata should be remembered too, and its obvious, hidden frustration with the Stalinist system and censorship.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

suntower said:


> I've read a number of 'analyses' of his music which seem to stake the 'worth' of his music on the veracity of Testimony. IOW: if one can hear the music as portrayed in the book (ironic, anti-soviet), it affects the intrinsic worth of that music.


Not my view at all. The music is the music. If it needs a backstory to be appreciated, then it probably isn't very good. People who tie the "intrinsic worth" of DSCH's music to historical situations aren't doing anybody any favors.


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## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

OK, here's what I'm trying to get at...

Some people seem consumed with the debate as to whether the guy was a tool of the system or (at least in his heart) a dissident. I'm not so concerned with that.

What I care about is: is the -music- -explicitly- meant to be anti-soviet? IOW: was he intentionally mocking Stalin or anti-semitism IN THE NOTES? It seems to me that many people who like his music do so on the basis of the 'irony' aspect. IOW: When I hear a lot of the famous symphonic stuff I just hear repetitious snare drums and (sorry) rather silly brass fan fares. But people who enjoy it hear those note choices as "a brilliant and brutal critique of Stalinism." IOW: you have to 'get the joke' in order to appreciate the music.

So the veracity of the book =does= matter for a certain type of listener.

It would be like looking at an Abstract Expressionist painting and then the painter tells you, "It's upside down".



joen_cph said:


> There´s no final verdict about the book, but these sources name many prominent witnesses saying OK for the book´s general content:
> http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/deb/dchron1.html
> http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/deb/dchron2.html
> 
> Of course, Shostakovich´s Rayok Cantata should be remembered too, and its obvious, hidden frustration with the Stalinist system and censorship.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

The mentioned Rayok is an undeniable example of Stalin critique, both in the music and the sung text. Everyone interested in Shostakovich should know the work.

http://www.talkclassical.com/37770-shostakovich-one-greats-one-12.html


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Not my view at all. The music is the music. If it needs a backstory to be appreciated, then it probably isn't very good. People who tie the "intrinsic worth" of DSCH's music to historical situations aren't doing anybody any favors.


Agreed. However, I don't think you need to know anything about Shostakovich's life or the story behind his music to appreciate and enjoy his music. It seems like a lot of people like to argue that "the only reason people like Shostakovich's music is because of his story" - well, that is blatantly false. I, probably like many others, first discovered Shostakovich not knowing anything about his life, and I was immediately impressed and intrigued by his style and all the little idiosyncrasies of his music. While the story makes for good discussion, it shouldn't change the quality of his music, in either way.


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## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

The only DSCH I can seem to appreciate are the 24 Preludes/Fugues, which I'm starting to enjoy more. The thing is that those pieces seem -so- very different from the rest of his catalogue... perhaps because they are more 'absolute'.

There is one lengthy passage in Testimony that I think is key for my dilemma. He talks about people who criticise his music as 'vulgar' and then he goes into this whole riff on 'should music be pretty?'. Obviously, he disagrees; he wants to be offensive or vulgar or -whatever- the music needs to get the point across. OK, fine. But the passage is so pointed that it makes me question the veracity of the document. IOW: it seems like a polemic written by a professional DSCH defender who has a really well-prepared argument ready to go. So either he was one glib so and so OR the thing is -heavily- edited OR Volkov is having him say what he -wished- he had said to the critics. That passage addresses pretty much -everything- I dislike about his music. It often sounds like someone literally -trying- to be annoying... almost like punk rock. Are you irritated? Not yet? OK, how about THIS! 



KenOC said:


> Not my view at all. The music is the music. If it needs a backstory to be appreciated, then it probably isn't very good. People who tie the "intrinsic worth" of DSCH's music to historical situations aren't doing anybody any favors.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> There´s no final verdict about the book, but these sources name many prominent witnesses saying OK for the book´s general content:
> http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/deb/dchron1.html
> http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/deb/dchron2.html
> 
> Of course, Shostakovich´s Rayok Cantata should be remembered too, and its obvious, hidden frustration with the Stalinist system and censorship.


The question of authenticity and reliability has nothing to do with whether the views expressed in Testimony agree to some (or even a large) extent with those of Shostakovich. Volkov claimed that every word in the book came out of the composer's mouth. The evidence that this is false is perfectly clear, was stated in print within a year of its publication, and has never been adequately answered by the author of Testimony or his supporters. There is therefore no reason to trust that any specific statement Volkov "quoted" was actually uttered by the composer. It is thus wholly unreliable.

It is likely that many of the views expressed in Testimony were in fact held by Shostakovich. Of course he hated Stalin! This is a no-brainer given that the "great leader" murdered a number of his friends and acquaintances, not to mention his personal derailment of Shostakovich's career. I also believe in the likelihood of hidden programs and the encoding of anti-establishment content in his works. But there is no reason to believe Testimony is a useful guide to any of this.


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## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> I also believe in the likelihood of hidden programs and the encoding of anti-establishment content in his works. But there is no reason to believe Testimony is a useful guide to any of this.


You've hit the core of what I'm after. What I really would like to know is whether or not the passages are accurate where 'DSCH' talks about the 'program' and 'meaning' of -specific- works.

Whether or not the works are -sincere- (ie. they aren't ironic or mocking)... that would affect how I hear the notes.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

suntower said:


> You've hit the core of what I'm after. What I really would like to know is whether or not the passages are accurate where 'DSCH' talks about the 'program' and 'meaning' of -specific- works.
> 
> Whether or not the works are -sincere- (ie. they aren't ironic or mocking)... that would affect how I hear the notes.


Among the oft-cited claims for hidden content is the one about the Tenth Symphony (paraphrasing): that it is about Stalin and the Stalin years. The scherzo is a musical portrait of Stalin roughly speaking - and so on. This interpretation has some indirect support in the memoir of Galina Vishnevskaya (_Galina_, pp. 222-23), who wrote that the Tenth was Shostakovich's indictment of Stalin, which he signed with his signature motive. (I am paraphrasing from memory once again.) She and her husband Rostropovich were friends of Shostakovich and might have had access to inside information. One might also note that the horn call in the symphony's third movement quotes the opening of Mahler's _Das Lied von der Erde_, whose first movement text contains the image of an ape dancing on a grave. This movement also happens to contain the first instance of the DSCH motive, in a skipping little dance, which makes me wonder if Shostakovich was casting himself as the gloating ape. (It was composed just after Stalin's death.) Anyway, I have a comprehensive programmatic interpretation of the work in these terms but, more importantly, think the work stands on its own feet without any subtext or program.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It would have been difficult for Volkov to invent the unusual and well-detailed character we meet in Testimony, and we have plenty of statements from friends and relatives that the views presented are, at least in broad outline, those Shostakovich actually held.

I suspect that the real questions of prevarication lie not so much with Volkov as with Shostakovich himself. He may well have been inventing his own revisionist history (and he had reason to do so).


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> It would have been difficult for Volkov to invent the unusual and well-detailed character we meet in Testimony, and we have plenty of statements from friends and relatives that the views presented are, at least in broad outline, those Shostakovich actually held.
> 
> I suspect that the real questions of prevarication lie not so much with Volkov as with Shostakovich himself. He may well have been inventing his own revisionist history (and he had reason to do so).


No one, including those who have proved the fraud and his friends who think _Testimony_ is a fraud, believe that Volkov invented the character. The consensus is that much of it was constructed from the accounts of friends, acquaintances and students repeating things they (claim to have?) heard Shostakovich say, well known anecdotes in circulation and rumors of more dubious origin. I haven't read _A Shostakovich Casebook_ in a while, but if memory serves, likely sources for much of the information have been suggested. Lev Lebedinsky, who asserted against direct evidence that _Testimony_ is true and authentic word for word, is one of the most likely culprits. It is people like Lebedinsky who seemed most conspicuously concerned with constructing a revisionist view of Shostakovich. _A Shostakovich Casebook_ is indispensable reading for anyone interested in these issues. Some of the most convincing counter-evidence for me is from those who knew the composer and his speech patterns, some of whom have claimed about particular passages that Shostakovich just didn't talk that way, that the voice is wrong.

Bottom line: the consensus is that _Testimony_ probably relies extensively on second and third hand sources. Of course it is possible the book reflects Shostakovich's words and beliefs to some or even to a great extent. The problem is it is impossible to know if any particular alleged "utterance" is authentic. Hence the source is wholly unreliable.

Edit: Ken, this discussion has ignored some pretty important evidence, such as claims from family members that Volkov didn't interview Shostakovich for more than a couple of hours and that therefore it is impossible that a book of that length came from his mouth. Basic stuff like that …


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I mean, I'd be glad to have the claim that Glazunov was buying illegal alcohol from Shostakovich's father as a fraud rumor. There's some REALLY juicy gossip in the book that would be hilarious if it were true, especially about Rimsky-Korsakov.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

Dang! What a great thread - Bravo:tiphat::clap::cheers::guitar: to the originator. Lots of great Pro and Contra. If I may add my 0.03/100th cents worth: How would each of us feel(had we lived under the duress that DSCH did) if we expected the midnight knock on the door by the "Cheka" and our subsequent disappearance from existence. Maybe we should remember what Rachmaninov said about music: "Music should reflect the sum total of the composer's experiences - Love, Triumph, Tragedy, Sadness, History, Literature..." Again, an excellent thread...


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## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

Interesting stuff.

That said, I'm no expert, but there sure a LOT of 'quotes' in S's music. I have a low tolerance for that sort of thing... and for programmatic stuff in general. I hope more of his own (verified) thoughts come to like.

Thanks for taking the time.



EdwardBast said:


> Among the oft-cited claims for hidden content is the one about the Tenth Symphony (paraphrasing): that it is about Stalin and the Stalin years. The scherzo is a musical portrait of Stalin roughly speaking - and so on. This interpretation has some indirect support in the memoir of Galina Vishnevskaya (_Galina_, pp. 222-23), who wrote that the Tenth was Shostakovich's indictment of Stalin, which he signed with his signature motive. (I am paraphrasing from memory once again.) She and her husband Rostropovich were friends of Shostakovich and might have had access to inside information. One might also note that the horn call in the symphony's third movement quotes the opening of Mahler's _Das Lied von der Erde_, whose first movement text contains the image of an ape dancing on a grave. This movement also happens to contain the first instance of the DSCH motive, in a skipping little dance, which makes me wonder if Shostakovich was casting himself as the gloating ape. (It was composed just after Stalin's death.) Anyway, I have a comprehensive programmatic interpretation of the work in these terms but, more importantly, think the work stands on its own feet without any subtext or program.


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