The Asshole Writings: 2007-present

Dmitri Shostakovich at the tender age of 20

Remember when you were 19 years old?  Maybe you were in college.  Maybe you had begun your career.  Maybe you were drifting aimlessly waiting for something to catch your fancy.

Me?  I was in college realizing that I didn’t want to take the education classes necessary to become an educator, thereby changing my major to the eminently more esteemed and obviously useful Music Performance.  Toss in an even more useful Master’s Degree and student loans that I should have comfortably paid off about two weeks before Armageddon and you’re left with a hollowed-out shell of “ifs” and “buts” and the same type of job uncertainty facing most 3rd graders.

I wish I would have been at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1924, because had I been I would have witnessed firsthand the creative genius of Dmitri Shostakovich, which would have made me realize I was destined for failure, and I could have gone about the business of making a career change to something like writing propaganda for Pravda, or being “purged” by my own government.

Shostakovich’s First Symphony is a work of staggering consequence, considering its source.  There have been countless prodigies throughout history, including some prominent musical ones like Mozart, Mendelssohn, Barber, and Korngold.  But what separates Shostakovich (who isn’t even considered a prodigy, really) from them is that so many aspects of what would turn into one of the most recognizable and distinct musical styles of the 20th century are apparent.

The First Symphony has much of the emotional hallmarks to be found in Shostakovich’s mature works: incredible wit, drama, tragedy, playfulness, beauty, and searing intensity, sometimes at the same time.  There are notable differences to be sure (the exposed orchestration being the chief one), but the “voice” is the same.  Shostakovich, in essence, skipped puberty and went straight to being a man with this work.

Such a thing is a rare occurrence for composers.  Think back on the earliest works of most composers (particularly those in a medium of composition that they would later become best known for) and you will hear bits and pieces of what lay ahead, but mostly you will hear the strong influence of teachers and the music that has come before them.

Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I love nothing more than to make seemingly inane connections.  My friends and I would regularly have a bracket-style tournament to determine who the greatest composer of all-time was through nothing more than discussion (leading to hour-long conversations like “OK, now it’s 4th seed Maurice Ravel versus 5th seed Arnold Schoenberg…who ya got?” as if there is any reason to compare two composers like Ravel and Schoenberg).  It may seem like a stupid idea, and in fact it probably is, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is the potential of having an extended dialogue about great music, and that’s never stupid or inane.

Another great way to spark a discussion like this is to link things by something they share in common, however loose.  For example, who is the great athlete named Michael?  On the surface, most people would probably say Michael Jordan, because he is a global icon, but think a little harder and you’re left with a potentially fascinating discussion.  What about Michael Schumacher, the greatest Formula One driver in history?  Or Michael Phelps, he of the 8 gold medals in Beijing?  What about Michael Johnson, one of the greatest track and field legends in American history.  And of course there’s some other great Michaels like Schmidt, Tyson, Bossy, and Singletary.  I assure you if you’re a sports fan you could waste 4 hours hashing that out.

Likewise, I ask myself questions like “who composed the best Symphony no. 1?”  It’s an interesting question because it carries not just the significance of the individual work in question, but also seems to naturally include an assessment of the effect of the symphony on the rest of the composer’s symphonic output.  There are some pretty amazing contenders out there: Tschaikovsky, Dvorak (an underrated Symphony no. 1), Vaughn Williams, Bruckner, Kalinnikov, and Walton.  But I would guess that the most common answers given for this question would be Brahms, Mahler, Schumann, Beethoven, Sibelius, Elgar (another woefully underrated gem…read the posts about it by my friend Ken Woods and tell me they don’t get you pumped up for some Elgar), and Shostakovich in some order or other.

And for a 19-year-old kid that’s some pretty heady company.

I’m not going to dive into my own opinion on the answer to this (the correct answer is Mahler, BTW), but I would suggest that if you’re like me (chances are you aren’t, but still) you think it over, because it’s always good to reflect on beauty.  Maybe give a few of these a listen and see how your own opinion shakes out.

But remember that while every single one of these works is greater than anything I will ever accomplish in this life, only the Shostakovich makes me feel like an abject failure.  Youth may be wasted on the young, but that doesn’t mean I don’t envy the genius any less.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go fail at something else now.  But I’m going to listen to Shostakovich’s First Symphony while doing it, so at least there’ll be something amazing happening.