Dreadful Shostakovich

 

Dreadful Shostakovich

     There is a story in these two words and it illuminates the unspoken kindness Greg always showed me throughout our long friendship. When we became men, that is after our fathers died and we were allowed at the helm of adulthood he always looked out for me. Without ever saying a word he picked me up when I was less than flourishing financially. In short, Greg always made more money than me and was also part of a dual income family with some deserved family help. By the world's standards I was and am priveleged beyond what I deserve. We both celebrated how lucky we were but Greg aspired for a little more in life including, travel, vacations, visits to the theater and some fine dining. Lissy had a big part in this enjoyment they all most certainly deserved.  He often invited me as his guest to any number of football games, dinners, Bear Cove fun and wonderful casual Friday concerts at the Disney Hall. We would have a relaxed meal at a nice restaurant like the Checkers Hotel dining room before the show and ride a limousine over to the hall, then get picked up after by the same limo for the ride to the hotel lot after the show. It was a blast playing rich and I loved the company and the music. Greg picked up the dinner tab and of course the concert ticket. Despite my dilletante's  knowledge of classical concerts sometimes the shows were a bit over my  head. I have over 500 concerts under my skull but visiting Disney Hall was a uniquely Los Angeles experience. I absolutely loved the opportunity to rub elbows with these cultured Angelenos at the great hall and watching to see who could stay awake through the hour long performances. One of the particularly abstruse pieces on a Friday night was a rare playing of Dmitri Shostakovich's strange opera "the Nose." It is based on a story by Nicolai Gogol written in the 1830"s and made into this "opera" by the highly original Russian composer in 1930. It is a satire that describes the nose of a government official that leaves his face and goes off on its own. The opera is now referrred to as a masterpiece and a farce on the level of Monty Python or Yorgos Lanthimos but it zoomed right over my head and proved to be a very, very long night in  the side orchestra for me. Shostakovich himself insisted that the piece must be performed with dancing to flesh out the ideas presented. When it was originally peformed in the  purely orchestral form against the composer's wishes the critics tore it to pieces. It might have been a different story if I had seen the dancing noses but this was a dizzying collection of musical styles and sounds.  The next day I was one of those sorehead critics and savaged the thing, calling it "that dreadful Shostakovich" but Greg calmly said he loved it and by God he had ordered the CD on Amazon that very morning. The case sits gathering dust at Francis today.