Pacific Symphony announces 2013-2014 season

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto! “Carmina Burana”! Gah!

Seriously, though, there are some interesting things on the schedule.

Click here to read my article, or pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Orange County Register.

classical music

Carl St.Clair, Pacific Symphony

March 12, 2013

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6 comments

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chris

“…controversial scholar Solomon Volkov, best known for the book “Testimony,” will be on hand…”

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “best known for FORGING the book “Testimony”? Just sayin’…

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March 12, 2013 9:12 pm
tmangan

Probably, yes. I was surprised that he’s being invited, that’s for sure. But I felt a season announcement wasn’t quite the place to stir things up. At some point, though, I guess I will be forced to write about it, in one way or another.

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March 12, 2013 9:18 pm
MarK

Is the “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” verdict in the case of that book really so clear-cut and definitive? According to several people who knew the composer, as well as his time and circumstances of his life, there is quite a lot of truth in the book. The author may have embellished it a little and possibly exaggerated his own importance a bit, but the gist of the main points seems very believable.

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March 12, 2013 11:24 pm
- chris
  
  What Volkov did was present to Shostakovich the start of each chapter. These were exact matches of essays Shostakovich wrote. After the first page of each essay, the texts then diverged into something of Volkov’s creation. He gave credibility to this by having Shostakovich sign the first page of each under the guise that it was going to be a collection of his essays that were going to be published.
  Shostakovich’s widow Irina said that because of Shostakovich’s poor health, Volkov came to the house maybe three or four times total, certainly not enough to collect all of the information for the book. She has dismissed the book as a fake. In Volkov’s defense, his son Maxim believes the book is real but, for me, Irina knew what has happening everyday and would have the closer knowledge of Volkov’s relationship with her husband. That being said, Volkov did give a pretty good picture of Shostakovich. Not real but still pretty good.
  
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  March 17, 2013 7:43 pm
  - tmangan
    
    Thanks, Chris. The other thing Volkov has done, or rather not done, is answer his critics. The Shostakovich scholar Laurel Fay is one.
    
    I seem to remember Maxim Shostakovich telling me once that he thought the book was mostly correct. Still, that’s different from having the words directly from D. Shostakovich’s mouth. Such widely quoted anecdotes as his supposed interpretation, in Testimony, of the end of the 5th being “forced rejoicing” … well, it’s just impossible to know how to take that. With a grain of salt, or a ton?
    
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    March 17, 2013 9:48 pm
MarK

If the composer was indeed misled by Volkov, his widow’s resentment toward the author is completely natural and understandable. Taken that into consideration, the son’s endorsement (however partial) is to me a rather significant indication of the book’s accuracy and therefore its value. Another person who knew a thing or two about the subject and felt that the book could be trusted for the most part – including the bit about the Fifth’s Finale – was the late Maestro Kurt Sanderling.

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March 18, 2013 12:00 am