Loyalty (Vyernost)

Yevgeni Dolmatovsky (R)

Anyone who likes to see Shostakovich in simplified terms as a ‘secret resister’ to the Soviet regime, will have something of a problem with this 20-minute cycle of ballads for unaccompanied male-voice chorus, to maudlin texts by the patriotic poet Dolmatovsky in celebration of the life and work of Lenin. For whatever Shostakovich truly though about Leninism and Communism and this kind of socialist-realist poetry – and these are matters that will be debated for many years to come – these a capella chorus works cannot easily be dismissed as mere cynical time-serving. However weak their words, these eight choruses are powerful and dramatically impressive essays in Shostakovich’s pared-down late style, with a disturbing sense of genuine grandeur and tragedy, consciously and carefully reinventing the grandeur of 19th century Russian choral-writing to modern ends. Shostakovich was not a religious believer and he wrote no church music. In a strange way, this work is the nearest he came to music of this kind.


Perhaps, when the dust of our age has settled, performers will be brave enough to return to this work. For it has something important to tell us beyond the unconvincing message of the words.


Note by Gerard McBurney