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Jan. 3--TALLINN, Estonia -- Inside a small apartment in a dingy, gray building with peeling paint on Parnu Street is a trove of musical genius that could--and should--fill a museum.
Letters, symphony scores, film soundtracks all penned by Dmitri Shostakovich jam the bookshelves and cabinets of Natalia and Mark Matsov's flat, as forgotten as stacks of tax records at an assessor's office, neglected by a world that never fully understood the enigmatic Russian composer.
For decades, Shostakovich was viewed by Russians and the West alike as a mouthpiece for Soviet propaganda. Even in today's Russia, he is dismissed as irrelevant or conformist. But Matsov and her brother, Mark, ardently believe the archive Shostakovich left in their apartment can help rehabilitate that reputation, making him not just a historical figure to commemorate but a creative voice to revere.
On a recent icy morning in the Estonian capital, Matsov, the daughter of Roman Matsov, Shostakovich's close friend and conductor, leafed through dog-eared folders of writings and scores: a batch of 1946 letters to doctors urging them to treat the elder Matsov, then a budding pianist and violinist recovering from a war injury to his right hand; a 5-inch thick file scoring all instruments for Shostakovich's last symphony; telegrams he sent to Roman Matsov in 1953 hailing the conductor's performances in Leningrad.
For three decades, Natalia Matsov says, Shostakovich's archive has languished here unstudied, a disorganized jumble of boxes and folders layered in dust.
"The full scores are on the shelf, but the rest isn't catalogued," says Matsov, 38, a London opera singer who flies to Tallinn every few months to pay bills and check on the apartment. "I don't even know how many recordings there are."
Last year marked the centenary of Shostakovich's birth, a milestone Russia barely noticed. A concert in Moscow conducted by the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in September marked one of the only tributes Shostakovich's motherland paid him.
Regarded as one of the world's most misunderstood giants of classical music, Shostakovich is seen by many in Russia as a turncoat who bent to the will of Josef Stalin. His Second and Third Symphonies are viewed as pro-Soviet odes. He placated Kremlin bosses with a bevy of patriotic film scores.
That take is misguided, says Mark Matsov, who like his sister has long struggled to find a suitable home for the composer's scores and recordings. In an era when dissident thought and creativity were brutally suppressed, Shostakovich found a way to survive, at times deftly weaving into his music themes that railed against the barbarity of Stalin.
Double meanings
Matsov cites one of Shostakovich's landmark compositions, his Seventh Symphony, as a prime example. The piece has always been associated with the Siege of Leningrad, when Nazi troops blockaded the Russian city and 1.7 million people died . But many scholars believe the symphony was written before World War II, and in reality was a condemnation of the Stalin regime.
"Shostakovich often exposed the atrocities committed by the regime," Matsov says. "My father always performed this symphony as if it were about the German invasion. To do otherwise was impossible. But he always included part of Shostakovich's original meaning in those performances."
Moving Shostakovich's archive into a museum where it could be scrutinized by music scholars would put to rest many myths that still cast a pall on his legacy, Mark Matsov says. But interest in the archive is low, and Matsov doesn't trust the few institutions that have talked about making a home for the material.
An Estonian cultural museum has expressed an interest, but the Matsovs doubt Shostakovich's material would be showcased in a museum devoted to Estonian composers. The Shostakovich museum that Rostropovich established at the composer's St. Petersburg apartment has also discussed taking the material, but Matsov believes housing it in Russia could doom it to obscurity.
"It would be stupid to bring this archive from a democratic and free Estonia to a place like Russia, where the materials would be locked away for good," Matsov says.
Shostakovich remains one of classical music's most complicated, controversial figures. His acquiescence to Soviet apparatchiks, including a decision to accept a seat in the Supreme Soviet in 1960, branded him as a conformist by Russia's dissident community as well as in the West.
And yet, he often fell out of favor with Communist leaders, who banned his music at times. Many scholars echo Matsov's assertion that Shostakovich often slipped into this music anti-Stalinist statements masked well enough to avoid retribution from the Kremlin. Shostakovich appeared to acknowledge the tactic in 1970, according to Elizabeth Wilson's biography of the composer, "Shostakovich: A Life Remembered."
Fighting in camouflage
"Without 'Party guidance,'" Shostakovich said, "I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage."
That was part of Shostakovich's genius, Matsov says--surviving in the Soviet era without being consumed by it.
"He was one of the few who managed to fight against a totalitarian system," Matsov says. "But to not perish and to not surrender, he had to have a thousand faces to put on."
The relationship between the Matsovs' father and Shostakovich blossomed after Shostakovich awarded Matsov second prize in a 1946 music contest.
The pair worked together until Shostakovich's death in 1975. Natalia Matsov recalls Shostakovich as grimly serious, a nervous man with thick glasses who "never appeared comfortable in any surrounding."
Matsov's children kept the apartment after their parents died several years ago, solely to house the archive. That hasn't been easy, with Natalia living in London and Mark living in Moscow. They struggle to afford the $400 rent and secure the flat; a 2005 break-in attempt was foiled by the neighbors.
"The landlord can take away this apartment at any time, with just two months' warning," says Mark Matsov. "Then that would be it. The archive would die."
ajrodriguez@tribune.com
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Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune
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