I was reading a bit on Shostakovich just now (again) and I just wanna say. so much of history is painful. i wanna cry so bad. aughhhh
during the siege of leningrad, shostakovich and sollertinsky couldn't meet up because shosty was stuck where he was (he refused to leave his home town until the very last minute).
Letters from Shostakovich to Sollertinsky:
Often at night, suffering from insomnia, I begin to weep. Nina and the children sleep in the other room so I don't disturb them. I often think of you and can't do without your company.
I miss you terribly [...] your company is as essential for me as the air I breathe [...] each day I dream I will soon come to Novosibirsk and we will see each other after almost a year's separation.
from 1941 to 1943 shostakovich stayed in leningrad until the Red Army cleared a land corridor for them to escape. So they had renewed hope of meeting again, and life might go on as usual, even with the war, as long as the two friends were together.
No. In the beginning of 1944 Sollertinsky suffered a heart attack and passed away. The last time they met were for a brief while in a train station in 1943, when they thought that they would finally be reunited, away from the throes of the war.
My god. what would shostakovich have felt then? To lose such a dear friend, in the midst of a lengthy, dreadful war. Shostakovich had been composing the second piano trio then, and finished it late in 1944. He dedicated it to Sollertinsky. Such human grief can be heard in that piece! I can't even begin to describe it but I really hold this piece in reverence. The first movement opens with difficult cello harmonics and is dissonant. The second movement has a playful character that stands in stark contrast to the rest of the piece. I can't figure out what this might mean! Perhaps it's like a person dancing closer and closer to the edge of delirium. Idk really.
the third movement opens with some heavy slow chords on the piano, again in contrast to the previous movement's allegro, and the specific markings of marcatissimo and pesante. There's some other stuff that's too deep for my less than satisfactory music theory to do it justice, something about most of the piano parts in this mvmt being chords symbolising grief blah yada yada. And lastly there's the fourth movement with its infamous jewish theme. F# G C C C Then suddenly the theme from the first movement hits you again and you're overpowered by such violent sorrow. Ouhuhhh. Ughhh., WAAAAAHHH
THEIR FRIENDSHIP IS SO SACRED <3<3 ALL HAIL SOLLERTINSKY