Time Magazine featuring "Fireman Shostakovich"

Time. The Weekly Newsmagazine. Volume XL. Number 3. July 20, 1942, featuring the famous illustration on the cover by Boris Artzybasheff.  80 pp. In fine condition. 

"At the beginning of the “Great Patriotic War” in 1941, Shostakovich, like millions of his countrymen, sought to enlist in the Red Army. He proudly declared, “Until now I have only known peaceful work. But now I am ready to take up arms.” However, Shostakovich was quickly rejected because of his poor eyesight. He appealed the decision and tried to enlist once more, but the result was the same. Instead, he joined a home guard unit drawn from members of the Leningrad Conservatory where Shostakovich himself was on faculty. For several weeks, the composer helped to build defensive lines and barricades, and dug trenches around the city. Once the German bombardment of Leningrad started in earnest, city authorities urged him to leave. However, Shostakovich demanded to stay put and joined a firefighting brigade charged with extinguishing incendiary shell that might land on the roof of the Conservatory. This assignment “proved largely symbolic, as the school’s directors always found excuses to keep their most valuable faculty member busy elsewhere.”"

"The famous composer, bespectacled and helmeted in his fire warden’s uniform with large oven mitts on his hands and standing on the roof of the Leningrad Conservatory was a propaganda opportunity not to be missed! On 29 July 1941, a number of photos were taken and widely distributed in Leningrad and beyond. A stylized image with Shostakovich wearing a golden helmet and holding a fireman’s nozzle even made it onto the cover of the 20 July 1942 issue of Time Magazine. Against the burning ruins of the city, a musical motive drifts across the sky. And the famous caption reads, “Fireman Shostakovich: Amid bombs burning in Leningrad he heard the chords of victory.” The musical motive actually belongs to a large-scale symphonic composition, which Shostakovich began drafting on 19 July 1941. No composer before Shostakovich had ever written a symphony during a raging war, “and no composer had ever attempted to describe a future victory, in music, with such power and conviction.” There is an old saying in Russia that states, “When guns speak, the muses keep silent.” Supposedly, Shostakovich replied, “Here the muses speak together with the guns.”" (Georg Predota, Interlude, 11/10/2015)  (22286)

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Classical Music

Ephemera

Program, unsigned

• Sold