In the following, I will occasionally interject my own comments.  These
will take the form of [ ... LTS ], where the final three letters are
your scribe's initials.

At the end of the last installment of this series, I noted Glazunov's
support of DSCH, despite his comment that he couldn't understand the
younger composer's first symphony.  But others were similarly taken aback
by Symphony No. 1, which premiered on 12 May 1926.  Nikolai Malko, then
chief conductor of the Leningrad Phil, and a friend- or at least a close
working colleague- of DSCH, conducted the premier.

DSCH had started working on his first symphony in 1924, and, after
completing two  movements, wrote his friend, pianist Lev Oberin, "it
would be more fitting to call this work 'Symphony-Grotesque'.   This
was a sardonic reference to a cutting comment that Maximilian Steinberg,
DSCH's composition teacher, made when the student composer wrote his
early Scherzo Op 7: "What is this obsession with the Grotesque?  The
 [Piano] Trio already was in part Grotesque.  Then the cello pieces are
Grotesque and finally this Scherzo is also Grotesque!"  Far from being
stung by his professor's displeasure, the young composer in fact ridiculed
the traditional tenets of this teacher: "The inviolable foundations
of The Mighty Handful, the scared traditions of Nikolai Andreevich
 [Rimsky-Korsakov] and other such pompous phrases.  Unfortunately, I can
no longer indulge him with my music".

In any case, Steinberg helped arrange for the score of the symphony to
be shown to Malko, who was duly impressed.  But when Malko and Steinberg
declared the finale unplayable at the indicated tempo, DSCH decided to
resolve that issue himself.  He took them to the clarinetist and trumpeter
in a cinema orchestra, who had no difficulty playing them.  DSCH seemed
to enjoy proving his teachers [Malko also served on the faculty of the
Conservatory] wrong, and this episode confirmed his opinion that
practicalities should be learned from performers and not from academics.
In fact, DSCH wrote to Oborin, "I believe Malko to be a rather ungifted
person.  But professionally, he knows his stuff."  As for Malko's
conducting classes, he complained to Oborin, "I am incensed by his
verbosity. He chatters away and wastes our time.  If his is asked a
question, he gives the most lengthy answers which leave you dumbfounded."

Malko's view of the situation is perhaps revealing.  Quoting Malko, "One
day, Steinberg asked me to listen to a symphony by one of his students-
and thus it was that I again came into contact with Dimitri Shostakovich.
He had changed greatly by that time.  He was no longer a child, although
he was still frail, shy, and silent.  Since all the classrooms were
filled, we went into the big concert hall, and there, in that quiet and
empty auditorium, Mitya Shostakovich played his symphony for me.  I was
amazed both by the symphony and by his playing ... It was in no sense
'pupil's work", for nothing of the boy-composer of the Scherzo was now
evident.  An entirely different composer seemed to be before me, and it
was extremely noticeable that his symphony did not have the 'academic
stamp' that usually characterized the beginning composer ... It was
immediately clear that this First Symphony by Shostakovich was the
vibrant, individual, and striking work of a composer with an original
approach.  The style of the symphony was unusual; the orchestration
sometimes suggested chamber music in its sound and its instrumental
economy ...  Shostakovich  played his symphony on the piano remarkably,
producing the effect of a full score in spite of his small, non-pianist
hands.  But characteristically, as do most composers, he played with
great attention to the notes and without much expression.  No single
counterpoint or technical passage seemed to hinder him; no intricate
harmony upset his attention.  Everything was fluent, clear and accurate,
although his tempi were constantly too fast.  By his own estimation the
symphony should last 25 minutes.  Toscannini used to play it in twenty-six
minutes forty-five seconds.  Other conductors need from thirty-two to
thirty-three minutes.  However, if the symphony were played in the tempi
indicated it would be physically impossible in many sections and would
actually take less than 20 minutes. ...  After I had heard Mitya
Shostakovich's symphony, I decided immediately to perform it.  There was
a certain amount of displeasure on the part of some members of the
Conservatory, who thought Shostakovich should wait another year, but I
did not pay much attention to this. ...

DSCH attended the rehearsals of his symphony, and it is interesting how
different people remembered him differently.  Malko wrote in his book
"A Certain Art", "At last the exact date for the concert was fixed, 12
May [1926] ... The presence of the composer during the rehearsal of a
new composition has great significance.  Much depends upon how much the
composer hears and how he listens.  By 'hear' I mean just that ...
Shostakovich immediately showed what we call attentiveness to listening.
He did not reveal his nervous state and did not fidget, but listened
with full concentration and answered sensibly when questions were asked
... I remember clearly that he never stopped the rehearsal nor interfered
with it, nor did he interrupt the work of the conductor during the
rehearsal [other conductors made similar comments  LTS]  ... The fact
is that he knew exactly what he wanted when he wrote his score.  The
first sounds that issued from the orchestra confirmed the correctness
of his imagination, and he had no reason to make any fuss.  An orchestra
is like a responsive barometer ...  and always takes young composers
with a grain of salt.  When we rehearsed the First Symphony, this attitude
was scarcely noticeable: there were almost no mistakes in the parts, the
composer himself having carefully checked the orchestral material. ...
At the concert, the symphony had a pronounced success.  The second
movement, the Scherzo [the "grotesque" part- LTS] was encored.  The
audience was thrilled, and there was a certain festive mood in the hall.
This kind of response is a difficult thing to describe in words, but it
is positive in character and, in this instance, there was no mistake
about it."

Max Steinberg had a somewhat different recollection of DSCH's comportment,
as shown by this extract from his diary during the rehearsals for the
Symphony: "Mitya's symphony sounds very good.  Mitra himself is in a
state of such indescribably excitement from hearing the sound of his own
music that I only restrained him with difficulty from gesticulating and
displaying his agitation."  One of his contemporaries related a humorous
story of how various friends of DSCH schemed to sneak into the symphony's
premier, with one member of the group- the person to whom symphony was
dedicated- creating a distraction at the ticket booth while his comrades
slipped into the concert hall!

Finally, DSCH had a strikingly different perspective on the premier of
his first symphony.  "[At the rehearal] I listened and was in despair:
instead of three trumpets there were only two, instead of three timpani,
only two, and instead of a grand piano a revolting, rattling old upright.
All this I found most upsetting.  Then the solo violinist is useless.
At the second rehearsal, despite all Malko's efforts, nothing much was
achieved, or rather nothing at all.  Malko himself said that he was
satisfied, so I didn't pursue the matter.  ... At last it came to the
concert.  Malko came out ... and somewhere close at hand some dogs started
to bark loudly.  They went on barking for an awfully long time, and the
longer they went on the louder they got.  The public was beside itself
with laughter.  ... At last the dogs stopped barking.  Malko started.
The trumpet (there were three players at the concert) immediately bungled
his first phrase.  He was followed by the bassoon playing piles of wrong
notes (we stumbled on an exceptionally awful bassoon player here). After
about ten bars, the dogs started barking again.  And throughout the first
movement the dogs often added their solo.  The orchestra barely got
through the first movement.  Then the second movement started.  In the
first two bars, however much Malko had gone over them at rehearsals, the
celli and double basses made a terrible hashup.  Then the clarinet started
playing slower than the strings ... Instead of playing piano, the violins
played forte ... Then it was the turn of the bassoon solo.  No words can
describe it.  The bassoonist caused me dire distress ... I sat there
thinking, 'What rubbish.'

When we got home, Malko said, 'It's a good thing that the Symphony was
played.'  A good thing or not, it wasn't all right.  It's all right that
I am going to be paid the author's rights, and also that on 12 July I'll
play the Tchaikovsky Concerto with orchestra.  It means that I'll be
earning money.  But there's nothing good in the fact that the local
orchestra has spattered dirt all over my symphony."

But the First Symphony was a watershed to DSCH in that it catapulted him
overnight to international fame.  In May 1927, Bruno Walter performed
the work in Berlin, and before long it was taken up by Arturo Toscanni
and Otto Klemperer.  Such diverse figures as Darius Milhaud and Alban
Berg were impressed by it.

In April 1926 DSCH was accepted into the postgraduate composition course
at the Leningrad Conservatory, and continued his piano studies.   At the
preceding graduate diploma exam it was obligatory to play a classical
work.  His friend Lydia Zhukova was amazed at his nonchalant attitude
towards this exam:

   "Two weeks beforehand he still didn't know what he would play.
   Eventually he chose Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata.  He said
   that it was inconceivably difficult, and that some of the ninths
   and tenths were unperformable [shades here of Leslie Kinton's
   comment on this List of the Hammerklavier being technically and
   intellectually the most challenging masterpiece for the piano
   LTS].  The evening before the exam I dropped by around nine
   o-clock at his house on Marat Street.  He played for me.  He was
   a wonderful pianist, with strong hands and his own precise and
   somewhat dry manner of playing.  But I felt quite sick at heart.
   This was only a sketchy performance.  How could he be ready in
   time?  But at the exam next day he played with authority and
   maturity, displaying a symphonic grasp of the whole grandiose
   work.  Already then he thought in massive symphonic boulder-like
   sections ... Then with his sister, Marusya, he played his Suite
   for Two Pianos, one of this earliest works, which was still
   boyish, prickly and rumpled in style."

The Leningrad pianist Nathan Perelman was a contemporary of DSCH.  He
writes about the composer at the end of his student days.

   "In early 1927 it was decided to send DSCH to participate in
   the Chopin competition in Warsaw.  It seemed a very strange ad
   unexpected choice.  I heard Shostakovich's performance at the
   Philharmonic Hall in Leningrad just prior to his departure for
   Warsaw.  His Chopin playing didn't resemble anything I have heard
   before or since.  It reminded me of his performances of his own
   music, very direct and without much plasticity, and very laconic
   in expression.  It was an altogether idiosyncratic manner of
   playing. ... As you know, Oberin won the competition and Ginzburg
   was also awarded some prize, but Shostakovich was only given a
   diploma. ... Few people now remember Shostakovich's amazing and
   idiosyncratic pianism.  He expressed his individuality in his
   approach to performance.  He never allowed himself to slightest
   hint of 'Chopinesque' sentiment, and this in its won way had
   much charm.  He had a wonderful technique, with fantastic octaves.
   He played Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto excellently, with
   brilliant octave passages.  There was nothing left to chance in
   his playing, it was all very closely and precisely heard in his
   head.  If he chose to use little pedal, it wasn't because he did
   not know how to use it, but because he heard the music this way.
   It didn't at all coincide with our notions and expectations of
   piano playing.  In our youthful years we were very sensitive,
   aiming for beauty of expression, suing a range of soft and
   delicate dynamics and nuances.  ...

Shostakovich emphasized the linear aspect of music and was very precise
in all the details of performance.  He used little rubato in his playing,
and it lacked extreme dynamic contrasts.   It was an 'anti-sentimental'
approach to playing which showed incredible clarity of thought.  You
could say that his playing was very modern; at the time we accepted it
and took it to our hearts.  But it made less impression in Warsaw ...
However, Shostakovich seemed to foresee that by the end of the 20th
century, his style of playing would predominate, and in this his pianism
was truly contemporary. ... It was interesting that during the 1920's
and 1930's he continued working at the piano and giving concerts, but
increasingly he performed his own music."

Finally, some observations of Mikhail Semyonovich Drushkin, a Leningrad
pianist and musicologist who was close to DSCH during his years in
Leningrad after they met in the late 1920's.

   "His exterior was deceptive: fragile and nerviously agile ...
   from his adolescent years, he was very observant, and showed
   curiosity for all sidses of life.  He had a keen eye for the
   ridiculous, oten noticing the absurd where others paid no
   attention.  He was gifted with an abundant sense of humor. Gogol
   and Chekhov remained his favorite authors.  He loved satirical
   literature, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Zoshchenko among Soviet
   writers.  Humor and high spirits, which in Shostakovich sometimes
   acquired a youthful daring, are sure sign of vitality and zest
   for life.

   This was one aspect of his complex make-up.  There was another
   deeply arcane side to his nature. ... In his youth, Shostakovich
   was unpredictable and given to sudden vacillations of mood; at
   one moment jolly and easy, the next pensive; then suddenly he
   would switch off altogether.  And does not this mass of varying
   moods also exist in his music, with its exclusively wide range
   of genre, often in diametric opposition, and this unexpected
   twists in the unfolding of its drama? ...

   He was disciplined and restrained.  Although this restraint cost
   him great moral effort, it became the mainstay of this stoic
   spirit.  He was sociable and absolutely lacking in arrogance;
   he was well-disposed towards people and at the same time aloof,
   (only in his own music could he be completely open and sincere);
   he had natural good manners, but simultaneously kept his distance
   from the vast majority of people whom he met (he was secretive
   because he was vulnerable).  At the same time, despite his
   enormous workload- or you might say his obsession with work- he
   never refused any requests for help of a personal or professional
   kind.  He was like this both in his youth and in his mature
   years. ... So from his first creative efforts, Shostakovich,
   already crowned with success, occupied an independent position
   and defined his own terms in art without submitting to the
   aesthetic of the recognized authorities."

Elizabeth Wilson's own interview with Drushkin elicited the idea the
DSCH had a terror of officials and a deep mistrust of everybody, including,
on occasion, his closest family.  She notes, dryly, that these features
were exacerbated by the conditions of Soviet life.

This brings this account to the end of DSCH's student days.

Larry