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Dmitri Shostakovich: Pianist by Sofia MoshevichReview by: David FanningSlavic Review, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Summer, 2005), pp. 477-478Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3650055 .

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Book Reviewsook Reviewsand Melisande s the only truly Symbolist opera? Still, these are minor cavils that do little tomar the significance of this book. Clearly,unlike the composers he discusses, Morrison hasnot found himself incapacitated by his ambitious subject matter.

PHILIP Ross BULLOCKUniversityCollegeLondon

Dmitri Shostakovich:Pianist. By Sofia Moshevich. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UniversityPress, 2004. x, 222 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Discography. Illustrations. Pho-tographs. Tables. Musical Examples. $39.95, hard bound.Sofia Moshevich sets the bar high with her opening and closing remarks: "DmitriShosta-kovich was not only a great composer of the twentieth century but also an outstanding Rus-sian pianist, one of the best of his generation"; "WithShostakovich's death, the galaxy ofthe century's most important composer-pianists lost its last star"(3, 182).

She knows well that this is a minority view and that it was so even in Russia, whereShostakovich's playing was far better known than in the west. As Vladimir Ashkenazi-apianist whose admiration for Shostakovich the composer and the man could never bedoubted-put it recently in interview on BBC Radio 3 (25 June 2004): "I'm not of theopinion that [Shostakovich] was a great pianist. My teacher, Mr. [Lev] Oborin, knew himvery well [Oborin took firstprize at the firstChopin Competition in Warsaw n 1927, whereShostakovich gained a diploma]. He played terribly dry and not very well prepared. So I'mnot sure that he was really an outstanding pianist.... I don't think you can compare thoseperformances [Shostakovich's recordings] with those by professional pianists. It's not re-ally that great."And many sources Moshevich herself cites sayas much.In seeking to prove her case against these witnesses, Moshevich is thrown back on alegacy of recordings, most of it comparatively well known but made at a time when thecomposer had long since confined his public solo repertoire to his own music and was,presumably, unable or unconcerned to maintain his technique at the highest level. It wasa time, too, when professional and private anxieties were rarelyfar from the surface.Yet there is undoubtedly much to be gained from sustained critical engagement withthese recordings. The main task they present is to distinguish underlying strength of per-sonality from technical faults the composer himself and all but his blindest worshippersacknowledged-above all a tendency to get nervous and to rush. Sadly,Moshevich for themost part confines herself to the externals of the playing, usefully noting divergences fromthe printed text, but tending to inflate her positive observations out of all critical propor-tion (for instance in finding Shostakovich's pedaling "spectacular"when it is within thebounds of the kinds of liberty any decently trained pianist would routinely take). Crucialbroader features-such as structurallyconceived accelerations that really do mark out thecomposer's playing from that of all his interpreters-go unremarked.Sadly too, although two editors are included in the long list of acknowledgments, thebook is full of misprints and approximations of idiom. And some important details goawry-such as the onset of the composer's right-hand disability,which Moshevich places,without explanation, in 1955, three years before any other source.In fact, Dmitri Shostakovich: ianist does not so much seek to prove its controversialopening hypothesis as let it drive an enthusiastic fact-gathering mission. Read in that light,it is richly rewarding. Moshevich presents a useful database of foreground detail on suchmatters as tempo in Shostakovich's different recordings of the same piece, and she placesit against a helpful background picture of what he performed, where, and when. (That in-formation would have made a useful appendix, supplementing and updating the list inSof'ia Khentova, Shostakovich-pianist, 1964). The study is as much about Shostakovich ascomposer for the piano as about him as pianist, and at the very least Moshevich's painstak-ing coverage reminds us how much of Shostakovich's career remained bound up in oneway or another with playing the piano.In fact, her book is far too well researched to cover up or brush aside Shostakovich'sshortcomings as a pianist. It would simply have been a great deal stronger for acknowl-

and Melisande s the only truly Symbolist opera? Still, these are minor cavils that do little tomar the significance of this book. Clearly,unlike the composers he discusses, Morrison hasnot found himself incapacitated by his ambitious subject matter.PHILIP Ross BULLOCK

UniversityCollegeLondon

Dmitri Shostakovich:Pianist. By Sofia Moshevich. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UniversityPress, 2004. x, 222 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Discography. Illustrations. Pho-tographs. Tables. Musical Examples. $39.95, hard bound.Sofia Moshevich sets the bar high with her opening and closing remarks: "DmitriShosta-kovich was not only a great composer of the twentieth century but also an outstanding Rus-sian pianist, one of the best of his generation"; "WithShostakovich's death, the galaxy ofthe century's most important composer-pianists lost its last star"(3, 182).

She knows well that this is a minority view and that it was so even in Russia, whereShostakovich's playing was far better known than in the west. As Vladimir Ashkenazi-apianist whose admiration for Shostakovich the composer and the man could never bedoubted-put it recently in interview on BBC Radio 3 (25 June 2004): "I'm not of theopinion that [Shostakovich] was a great pianist. My teacher, Mr. [Lev] Oborin, knew himvery well [Oborin took firstprize at the firstChopin Competition in Warsaw n 1927, whereShostakovich gained a diploma]. He played terribly dry and not very well prepared. So I'mnot sure that he was really an outstanding pianist.... I don't think you can compare thoseperformances [Shostakovich's recordings] with those by professional pianists. It's not re-ally that great."And many sources Moshevich herself cites sayas much.In seeking to prove her case against these witnesses, Moshevich is thrown back on alegacy of recordings, most of it comparatively well known but made at a time when thecomposer had long since confined his public solo repertoire to his own music and was,presumably, unable or unconcerned to maintain his technique at the highest level. It wasa time, too, when professional and private anxieties were rarelyfar from the surface.Yet there is undoubtedly much to be gained from sustained critical engagement withthese recordings. The main task they present is to distinguish underlying strength of per-sonality from technical faults the composer himself and all but his blindest worshippersacknowledged-above all a tendency to get nervous and to rush. Sadly,Moshevich for themost part confines herself to the externals of the playing, usefully noting divergences fromthe printed text, but tending to inflate her positive observations out of all critical propor-tion (for instance in finding Shostakovich's pedaling "spectacular"when it is within thebounds of the kinds of liberty any decently trained pianist would routinely take). Crucialbroader features-such as structurallyconceived accelerations that really do mark out thecomposer's playing from that of all his interpreters-go unremarked.Sadly too, although two editors are included in the long list of acknowledgments, thebook is full of misprints and approximations of idiom. And some important details goawry-such as the onset of the composer's right-hand disability,which Moshevich places,without explanation, in 1955, three years before any other source.In fact, Dmitri Shostakovich: ianist does not so much seek to prove its controversialopening hypothesis as let it drive an enthusiastic fact-gathering mission. Read in that light,it is richly rewarding. Moshevich presents a useful database of foreground detail on suchmatters as tempo in Shostakovich's different recordings of the same piece, and she placesit against a helpful background picture of what he performed, where, and when. (That in-formation would have made a useful appendix, supplementing and updating the list inSof'ia Khentova, Shostakovich-pianist, 1964). The study is as much about Shostakovich ascomposer for the piano as about him as pianist, and at the very least Moshevich's painstak-ing coverage reminds us how much of Shostakovich's career remained bound up in oneway or another with playing the piano.In fact, her book is far too well researched to cover up or brush aside Shostakovich'sshortcomings as a pianist. It would simply have been a great deal stronger for acknowl-

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SlavicReviewlavicReviewedging those often identified faults and for going on to develop a richer critical vocabu-lary to articulate the strengths in his playing; those are just as real as the faults to anyonewho can hear beneath the surface, but admittedly far harder to describe.

DAVID FANNINGUniversity fManchester,UnitedKingdom

The CambridgeCompanion o Stravinsky.Ed.Jonathan Cross. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versityPress, 2003. xvi, 327 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Chronology. Index. Figures. Mu-sical Examples. $70.00, hard bound. $26.00, paper.Since his death, much has changed. Up until almost the very end of his life, Igor Stravin-skyretained the capacity to surprise. Through sudden changes in compositional directionand through a mountain of provocative prose (written and spoken), Stravinsky's atestworks and words often confounded our expectations. No more. So too, Stravinsky's nflu-ence on the direction of contemporary musical composition, though still strong, has ap-preciably diminished. When very late in life Stravinskyembraced serialism, he turned se-rial composition into the mainstream, prompting others to follow suit. No longer does heexert that kind of influence.

Similarly transformed has been his ability to influence the writing of his artisticbiog-raphy.While he was alive, Stravinskywent to great lengths to try to dictate the wayin whichhis works would be understood and received. And while he was alive, he was remarkablysuccessful in this enterprise. The past thirtyyears, however, have demonstrated the almostpathetic futility of the attempt. Properly skeptical musicologists have unmasked deceptionafter deception, leading us to the point where we are now leery of accepting anythingStravinskysaid or wrote at face value.The evolution of Stravinsky nto a figure enshrined in the canon and the thorough-going transformation of our knowledge of his personality have led to an understanding ofStravinsky'smusic appreciably different than that which held sway n his lifetime. With TheCambridgeCompanion oStravinsky,onathan Cross has skillfully put together a fine collec-tion of essays that alternately reflect and highlight the evolution of our understanding ofhis personality and works.Like other volumes in the Cambridge Companion series, the essayscover a wide vari-ety of topics, are written by acknowledged experts in the field, and make current scholar-ship accessible to a wider reading public. If one were in need of a single book that wouldprovide a solid introduction to many different aspects of Stravinsky's ife and works, thisbook would be ideal. It strikes a balance between broadness of coverage and depth of ex-amination, between accessibility to a general reader and scholarly rigor, between techni-cal detail and easily understood prose. Cross has organized the essays into three parts:"Originsand contexts," "Theworks,"and "Reception." Although hardly airtight, these areuseful categories that enabled Cross to bring together a varietyof essays that address manyinteresting topics.In the first part there are essays by Rosamund Bartlett, Christopher Butler, andArnold Whittall. All three provide us with useful perspectives on Stravinsky'slife andworks, ranging from Stravinsky'sRussian origins and his relationship to those origins(Bartlett), through the applicability and meaning of the term "modernist" as applied toStravinskyand his works (Butler), and finally on to an assessment of Stravinsky'spositionin twentieth-century music (Whittall).In the second section of the book, Cross has brought together five essaysthat addressdifferent parts of Stravinsky'soeuvre. It is customary to divide Stravinsky'soutput into anapprenticeship period and three principal periods: "Russian,""neo-classic,"and "serial."Four essays, by Anthony Pople, Kenneth Gloag, Martha Hyde, and Joseph Straus,provideuseful introductions to the music of each of those four periods, respectively. Periodizationhas obvious weaknesses, most notably its tendency to suppress the recognition of featuresthat are common to more than one period. Happily, Jonathan Cross addresses an aspectof this problem in his examination of Stravinsky's heater music, a genre that was not lim-

edging those often identified faults and for going on to develop a richer critical vocabu-lary to articulate the strengths in his playing; those are just as real as the faults to anyonewho can hear beneath the surface, but admittedly far harder to describe.DAVID FANNING

University fManchester,UnitedKingdom

The CambridgeCompanion o Stravinsky.Ed.Jonathan Cross. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versityPress, 2003. xvi, 327 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Chronology. Index. Figures. Mu-sical Examples. $70.00, hard bound. $26.00, paper.Since his death, much has changed. Up until almost the very end of his life, Igor Stravin-skyretained the capacity to surprise. Through sudden changes in compositional directionand through a mountain of provocative prose (written and spoken), Stravinsky's atestworks and words often confounded our expectations. No more. So too, Stravinsky's nflu-ence on the direction of contemporary musical composition, though still strong, has ap-preciably diminished. When very late in life Stravinskyembraced serialism, he turned se-rial composition into the mainstream, prompting others to follow suit. No longer does heexert that kind of influence.

Similarly transformed has been his ability to influence the writing of his artisticbiog-raphy.While he was alive, Stravinskywent to great lengths to try to dictate the wayin whichhis works would be understood and received. And while he was alive, he was remarkablysuccessful in this enterprise. The past thirtyyears, however, have demonstrated the almostpathetic futility of the attempt. Properly skeptical musicologists have unmasked deceptionafter deception, leading us to the point where we are now leery of accepting anythingStravinskysaid or wrote at face value.The evolution of Stravinsky nto a figure enshrined in the canon and the thorough-going transformation of our knowledge of his personality have led to an understanding ofStravinsky'smusic appreciably different than that which held sway n his lifetime. With TheCambridgeCompanion oStravinsky,onathan Cross has skillfully put together a fine collec-tion of essays that alternately reflect and highlight the evolution of our understanding ofhis personality and works.Like other volumes in the Cambridge Companion series, the essayscover a wide vari-ety of topics, are written by acknowledged experts in the field, and make current scholar-ship accessible to a wider reading public. If one were in need of a single book that wouldprovide a solid introduction to many different aspects of Stravinsky's ife and works, thisbook would be ideal. It strikes a balance between broadness of coverage and depth of ex-amination, between accessibility to a general reader and scholarly rigor, between techni-cal detail and easily understood prose. Cross has organized the essays into three parts:"Originsand contexts," "Theworks,"and "Reception." Although hardly airtight, these areuseful categories that enabled Cross to bring together a varietyof essays that address manyinteresting topics.In the first part there are essays by Rosamund Bartlett, Christopher Butler, andArnold Whittall. All three provide us with useful perspectives on Stravinsky'slife andworks, ranging from Stravinsky'sRussian origins and his relationship to those origins(Bartlett), through the applicability and meaning of the term "modernist" as applied toStravinskyand his works (Butler), and finally on to an assessment of Stravinsky'spositionin twentieth-century music (Whittall).In the second section of the book, Cross has brought together five essaysthat addressdifferent parts of Stravinsky'soeuvre. It is customary to divide Stravinsky'soutput into anapprenticeship period and three principal periods: "Russian,""neo-classic,"and "serial."Four essays, by Anthony Pople, Kenneth Gloag, Martha Hyde, and Joseph Straus,provideuseful introductions to the music of each of those four periods, respectively. Periodizationhas obvious weaknesses, most notably its tendency to suppress the recognition of featuresthat are common to more than one period. Happily, Jonathan Cross addresses an aspectof this problem in his examination of Stravinsky's heater music, a genre that was not lim-

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