Time and Place

I just came back from the last concert at the La Musica Festival here in Sarasota. I really like chamber music and don't get a chance to hear it live that often. I only had a chance to hear the last of the five concerts at the festival.

On the program were the "Seven Romances on Poems of Alexandr Blok" by Dimitri Shostakovich. I think I've mentioned here before how much I love Shostakovich and am surprised with each new piece that I discover, how much he moves me. This was no exception (especially in this extraordinary performance by soprano Dina Kuznetsova.

Listening to the piece, a lot of things go through my mind. It's odd to hear a piece juxtaposed with the other pieces (by Mozart and Schubert) on the program. I got to wondering about what kind of composer Shostakovich would have been, had he bee born in another time and/or place. Silly, I know, but would the unrelenting (and emotionally draining) bleakness in his music have taken a much different form had he not had to deal with the Soviet state and the unrelenting persecution.

Which just reinforced to me, the benefit of understanding the environment in which a composer functioned. Some would have it that it is immaterial to understanding the composers absolute music. But its clear to me that to really know Shostakovich's music, you need to understand the circumstances of his life and work. I think that is true for any composer. At this remove, I don't care about a composer's predlictions, decisions, prejudices, orientation, since I don't know them and don't have to function in their environment. But I do think it helps me understand their work.