6A — Friday, September 16, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By DAYTON HARE
Daily Classical Music Columnist
T
his is a true story.
It was late night in
June of 1937, and the
young
composer
sat
alone
in
his
Moscow
apartment,
bent over his work. The room
was
quiet
except
for
the
metronomic ticking of the clock
on the mantle and the furious
scribbling of the composer’s
pen. In the opposite corner his
piano stood untouched — he
didn’t need it.
Peering at the tiny notes on
his manuscript through the
smoky haze around him, the
composer pushed his round
spectacles back up the bridge of
his sweat-covered nose before
nervously
lighting
another
cigarette,
his
thin
fingers
fumbling for a moment with
the lighter. It was probably his
20th cigarette of the evening —
he always smoked when he was
anxious. He jumped at a sudden
noise outside in the hallway;
for a while now he has been
expecting Stalin’s Narodnyu
Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del
to pay him a midnight visit.
After a moment, he returned
to his music. He was writing
a
very
important
work,
a
symphony, perhaps the most
important work of his life —
more important probably than
his previous four symphonies,
or his opera “Lady Macbeth,”
and with luck Stalin wouldn’t
hate this one. If all went well
this piece would redeem his
reputation, remove him from
the blacklist of “formalist”
composers
and
reinvigorate
his career. If he isn’t caught,
that is. That’s a very important
detail. It’s crucial that Stalin
can’t know that his symphony
of “rejoicing” is really a work
of satire and mockery. That
would be the end of him. They
had already killed plenty of
his acquaintances, and the
composer
could
never
be
convinced
that
Mayakovsky
had actually shot himself.
The composer didn’t really
know why he was taking the
risk of writing a satire. Perhaps
he simply couldn’t stomach
the idea of writing a joyful
work among the horror around
him. Besides, it’s not as if
people would really be able to
understand what he was saying
— only the clever ones would get
it, the ones who would notice
the
soul-crushing
sadness
of the third movement and
sarcastic bombast of the finale.
And honestly, most people are
rather stupid if you think about
it, so the risk was very low.
This is what the composer told
himself. He told himself this
very often. So he was writing a
symphony of false rejoicing, for
better or for worse.
•••
The above is a tableau from
the life of the Soviet composer
Dmitri Shostakovich, in which
he composes one of the most
enduringly popular symphonies
of the 20th-century, his fifth.
Additionally,
it’s
almost
certainly a lie — or, if not quite
that, it’s hyperbolic in the
extreme.
But it is a very compelling
lie. A very large and influential
part of me wants to buy into
the above image, wants to
see Shostakovich as a quiet
dissident, as a frightened artist
silently struggling against the
brutal Soviet machine — and
that’s not only because I wrote
it. The words are mine, but
the story is the same one I’ve
always heard in classical music
circles. It has been part of my
perception of the composer for
as long as I can remember.
And I’m certainly not alone;
if you opened a Shostakovich
program note or asked any
random classical musician or
regular American concertgoer
about the subject, you almost
surely will receive the same
description you just read, i.e.
that
Shostakovich
subtlety
slipped little anti-Sovietisms
into his music and quietly
fought against Stalin’s tyranny
through his art.
But the story’s prevalence
doesn’t make it any more true.
This particular version of the
composer came almost entirely
from one source, inculcated
by
a
1979
book
called
“Testimony,”
by
Solomon
Volkov. The book claims to be
the memoirs of Shostakovich,
merely arranged and edited
by Volkov — however, there’s
a litany of reasons to doubt
its authenticity (which I won’t
bother going into here), and
its veracity has been a point
of heated scholarly debate for
the better part of 30 years. I’m
sure you have already deduced
which side of the argument I
fall on, but for the time being
I ask you to forget about that.
Right now, I’m not really
concerned with whether or not
the image is a lie. Right now,
what I care about is whether it
really matters that it’s a lie.
Before you roll your eyes,
dismiss me as just another
relativist and abandon the rest
of this article, let me clear up
a few things. I realize that I’m
starting to sound dangerously
similar to that one student in
your mind-numbingly tedious
freshman English class (“You
can’t really say that, because
everything is relative”), so let
me quickly allay some fears. Of
course objective truth matters.
Shostakovich
either
worked
anti-Soviet messages into his
music or he didn’t — that’s not
going away, and musicologists
certainly
shouldn’t
drop
the subject. But at the same
time, we’re talking about the
ever-elusive
(capital-A)
Art,
where human perception is a
necessary conduit for meaning.
So as frustrating as it is to
hear, in such a nebulous and
perception-oriented
realm
as this, everything really is
relative. That’s not going away
either.
As it pertains to Shostakov-
ich, this question of truth is a
very interesting one. He’s unde-
niably one of the most popular
composers of the 20th-century,
and I personally think that
this has a great deal to do with
the image you read above.
Shostakovich-as-dissident
is
a very emotionally satisfy-
ing identity, particularly in
the United States, where the
residual ethos of the Cold War
linger still: The idea of the-
artist-as-hero is a striking one
— powerful in the Romantic
sense — which easily fuses
with the American passion
for individualism, all of which
I think enhances Shostakov-
ich’s fame in the United States.
This version of Shostakovich
has seeped into everything.
For example, just this year the
Grammy for Best Orchestral
Performance went to Andris
Nelsons and the Boston Sym-
phony
for
“Under
Stalin’s
Shadow,” a recording of Shosta-
kovich’s Symphony No. 10.
None of which is to say
that I think Shostakovich’s
popularity is unwarranted —
he was my favorite composer
for a time, before I decided
that having explicit favorites
was sort of impossible/limiting
— or that “Under Stalin’s
Shadow” doesn’t deserve a
Grammy (I heard the Boston
Symphony Orchestra perform
it last summer, and it certainly
does), but simply that his fame
is augmented by his story,
however fictitious. So much of
his notability is constructed on
a falsehood. And yet, I would
postulate that in this context,
the idea of Shostakovich-as-
dissident is not necessarily
false, even if it’s a lie.
Without getting into too
much technical detail, there
is a concept in philosophical/
literary theory called verisi-
militude, or the idea that one
thing can be less false than
another, perhaps even if the
first is a lie and the second the
objective “truth,” in the sense
that the second only expresses
what something is, while the
first expresses what something
means.
As Tim O’Brien succinctly
notes in his excellent Vietnam
War novel “The Things They
Carried,” “A thing may happen
and be a total lie; another thing
may not happen and be truer
than the truth.” So perhaps
that’s what all the Shostakovich
stories are — truer than truth
because of what they mean to
the audience. Ultimately, you
just have to listen and decide
for yourself.
Hare is The Daily’s new
Classical Music Columnist.
You can email him at
haredayt@umich.edu.
CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMN
Shostakovich, Stalin,
Terror & Truth
M.I.A. takes ‘AIM’
and misses the mark
By MATT GALLATIN
Daily Arts Writer
Unabashed activism is impor-
tant. Important, and danger-
ous. The more radicalized we
become, the
less we allow
our
posi-
tions to be
challenged
and
our
understand-
ings
to
be
broadened.
It’s easy to
scream talk-
ing points over confrontation —
nuance is hard. AIM, the fifth
and supposed final album from
the Sri Lankan refugee artist
M.I.A, would have benefited
from some confrontation and
nuance.
The
production,
handled
by Diplo, is “bigger” here than
on nearly any of her previous
works — though not necessar-
ily better. Right from the start
a pounding bass is placed at the
foreground. “Borders” pulses
with the familiarity of any num-
ber of Electric Daisy Carnival
headliners: swirling synths, the
pause of the production on a
high pitched hook and the quick
return, accompanied either by
the sound of a car zooming or,
maybe, a refrigerator powering
up.
Much
here
resembles
an
echo, and not always in the most
pleasant or successful way. The
beats can echo into redundancy.
M.I.A.’s delivery echoes her pre-
vious work, often incorporating
and rehashing lyrics and refer-
ences from her own discogra-
phy. And the album itself echoes
what once was, distant from the
greatness of earlier albums like
Kala and Arular.
AIM does have its moments,
though. “Go Off” is exciting and
catchy enough to feel in your
bones, and manages to make
some of the subtle, yet biting
critiques of Western society that
she’s done so well in the past:
“At least you tell your children I
came from London.” The bragga-
docious “A.M.P.” recalls some of
her more successful tracks, like
“Bamboo Banga” and “Boyz.”
But it’s the final — and best —
track, “Platforms,” which offers
us the most powerful reminder
of that burning yellow roman
candle we once knew, with con-
templative, cryptic lyrics and
a confident flow that demands
attentiveness. That it took 16
tracks to reach this level of suc-
cess, though, is telling.
What’s certain is that there
is nothing here even remotely
comparable to her ceiling-shat-
tering single “Paper Planes” or
the unforgettable “Bad Girls.”
The rest of the album, frankly,
is almost entirely forgettable.
This is especially frustrating
given the reputation that she’s
built as a kind of global ambas-
sador in recent years. Where she
once stitched sounds and ideas
from Bollywood films and pre-
teen Australian rap groups, she’s
now rapping about Proactiv
over commercialized beats and
shouting out R. Kelly. It’s almost
baffling the lack of actual sub-
stance included on this album,
given the ongoing migrant cri-
sis, increasing global xenopho-
bia and the increasing growing
disdain shown to refugees today.
These are all issues M.I.A. has
been a fierce critic of before.
Why she isn’t making an equally
fierce album in response is any-
one’s guess.
When she does makes state-
ments here, they come across as
confusingly boring and underde-
veloped, like she’s listing talking
points, not arguing for them. She
opens the album with a series of
questions: “Borders / What’s up
with that? / Politics / What’s up
with that? / Police shots / What’s
up with that?” The ideas here
have potential, which makes it
all the more frustrating that she
only brushes them with vague
and lazy hands — there’s so
much that she could have done,
and has done before, that she
hardly even attempts on AIM.
Perhaps M.I.A. fans would be
better off simply omitting this
final album. There’s too much to
praise, to admire, before this.
‘Our Little Sister’ is
sluggish & minimal
By JOE WAGNER
Daily Arts Writer
“Our Little Sister,” direc-
tor Hirokazu Koreeda’s most
recent film,
based
on
the popular
manga series
“Umima-
chi
Diary,”
which liter-
ally
trans-
lates
to
“Seaside
Town Diary,” is a modern tale of
divorce. It endeavors to address
the slew of consequences relat-
ed to divorce and moreover, and
perhaps unfortunately, to life in
general.
Three sisters, Sachi Kouda
(Haruka Ayase, “Ichi”), Yoshi-
no Kouda (Masami Nagasawa,
“From Up on Poppy Hill”),
Chika Kouda (Kaho, “A Gentle
Breeze in Village”) live togeth-
er in the house in Kamakura
that they were raised in until
their parents divorced, and
their mother then abandoned
them while the eldest was still
in high school. After not talk-
ing to their father for 15 years,
the three sisters attend their
father’s funeral, where they
meet their younger half-sister
Suzu Asano (“Suzu Hirose,
“Chihayafuru Part I”). The
eldest sister offers to have Suzu
come back and live with them
at their home in Kamakura. As
far as plot goes, this is about the
extent of the movie. What fol-
lows is the dealings of the four
sisters living under the same
roof.
Each of the three blood-relat-
ed sisters clearly represents a
certain type of person. Sachi,
the eldest, is serious, work-ori-
ented and struggles with love.
Ironically, she has an affair
with a married man — the same
action that destroyed her fam-
ily. Yoshino is constantly falling
for different men and cares lit-
tle about her job. Chika is in cer-
tain ways the most immature, a
bit ditsy, but overall, seems to
be the happiest and maintains
a healthy relationship with her
boyfriend. Yoshino and Chika
call Sachi “Sis” in a way that
is reminiscent of how a more
typical family might address
their mother as “Mom.” When
Suzu comes to their home, she
helps to put all of their lives in
perspective. Suzu is happy, or
at least relatively so, even after
her father has passed, constant-
ly cheerful while simultane-
ously acting quite mature for
her age. As a result, these char-
acters feel flat and their actions
are predictable.
The sisters learn from each
other and attempt to find pas-
sion in each of their lives. With
the death of their father and
the terminal diagnosis of a
close family friend who runs
a diner, their lives are put into
perspective. The sisters learn to
value their sisterhood, and try
to reconcile relationships with
their mother. They grow to
understand that relationships,
particularly familial ones, are
give and take, that they are two
sided. These same deaths teach
them beauty and its value. The
most memorable line from the
film is when Suzu recalls sit-
ting next to her dying father
in the hospital and he remarks
about how he is happy that,
even while dying, he is still able
to appreciate beauty. But the
plot simply isn’t strong enough
to warrant the exploration of
these large themes.
While “Our Little Sister”
examines so many beautiful
and touching themes, the nar-
rative is so minimal it is diffi-
cult to maintain interest in this
rather sluggishly paced film.
The soft focus compositions of
the Japanese countryside seem
like paintings, lending a fantas-
tical aura to “Our Little Sister.”
These shots are true highlights
throughout the film. The movie
feels like a fable. But every
good fable has not only strong
themes, but a strong narrative
through which those themes
can be explored.
FILM REVIEW
INTERSCOPE
We found her in action!
ALBUM REVIEW
C-
AIM
M.I.A.
Interscope
B-
Our Little
Sister
Toho
A large part
of me wants
to believe the
compelling lie.
“A thing may
happen and be
a total lie,” says
Tim O’Brien.
It was June 1937
in Moscow.