Notes for: August 14, 2007
Like Mozart, Shostakovich had frequent financial problems resulting from living beyond his means. He had a large household to maintain. He employed a cook-housekeeper, a children’s nurse and a driver. He sent money regularly to his mother and sister in Leningrad. He could not refuse anyone who came to him for assistance. His problems with Soviet authorities often cut into his income, and to pay pressing bills, he was compelled to compose commercial music for quick sale. He even fantasized about finding a patroness like Tchaikovsky’s Madame von Meck.
And like Mozart, he turned to friends to make ends meet. One such friend was Levon Atovmyan, who worked in various managerial jobs, including Muzfond, a music government-owned publishing house, and the All-Russian Society of Composers and Dramatists. Atovmayan negotiated fees and honoraria on Shostakovich’s behalf, and, a composer in his own right, made commercial arrangements of Shostakovich’s ballets and film scores, sharing in the proceeds.
Shostakovich ran into one of his financial dry spells in 1955. Shostakovich had composed the score for the film The Gadfly, based on a novel by an English writer, Ethel Lilian Voynich. Published in 1897, the novel was set in 1840s Italy, then rebelling against the political dominance of Austria. The plot centered on Arthur Burton, a member of the Youth Movement, and was a story of faith, disillusionment, revolution, romance and heroism.
The film score was published as Opus 97, and to produce additional income, Atovmayan fashioned four arrangements for supplemental publication – a suite of 12 pieces for orchestra; a tarantella for two pianos; four waltzes for flute, clarinet and piano; and these three violin duets with piano accompaniment.
The duets – entitled “Preludium,” “Gavotte” and “Waltzes” – are cafe miniatures with the violins in close harmony. The first is sentimental in mood, and the second and third are light and tripping dance music.