Victor spells it "Szostakowicz," Columbia "Shastakowitch," and to the general public it means some of the best music to come out of Europe since Strauss and Sibelius said their last important says. He is already considered by many critics the White Hope of the symphony, although his name has not yet crept into the Widener stacks. The greatest factor in this meteoric rise was, of course, the great qualities of his music, but the Soviet Propaganda machine, through which he is new Russia's Composer Laureate and intellectual idol, also had a great deal to do with it. Back in '36, in his pre-fifth-symphony days, he was considered a decadent by the Commisary of Culture, and publicly reprimanded by Pravda for being a callous, shallow, "modern," who destroyed the old formal bases of art just for the fun of it. Soon afterwards, however, he had a startling change of heart, dropped his former pan-European artistic ideals, and became overnight the musical exponent of the new social gospel. The politicians were quick to see the propaganda value of a widely admired artist who was willing to cooperate, and he also probably saw certain material conveniences in the arrangement. His fifth symphony was performed in Moscow on the anniversary of the October Revolution before wildly cheering crowds. Contrary to what many have said, I don't believe he has allowed himself to be coerced to the extent of supplying "interpretations" of his symphonies along political lines, and has thus left the question open as to whether he is depicting a picnic on the Volga, a Soviet tank factory, or the Triumphant Will of the Proletariat. He has shown by the immense amount of defense work he has undertaken in beseiged Moscow a very genuine love for Russia, and this love, I think, is the only objective idea he tries to get into his music.

As far as music goes, we are a very tolerant decade, and willing to listen to almost any old symphonic scraps and husks which show signs of technical skill in the fashioning. As a result we have no single general style to use as a critical yardstick, and have to depend largely on our instinctive reactions. When, therefore, out of the common welter of academic modernism, music with Szostakowicz's internal strength and broad emotional appeal comes to light, then there is a mighty dither among critics and listeners alike, and the heavy-duty-adjectives are brought into play. On the whole, however, I think that his music justifies his reputation.

Victor has just released Stokowski's excellent recording of Szostakowicz's sixth symphony, and Columbia has recorded his quintet for piano and strings with the Stuyvesant Quartet and a Miss Vivian Rivkin. I haven't been able to hear the quintet, but I was very much impressed by the sixth. I don't think it will rank as high as the fifth in the long run, but there is a lot of good stuff in it, especially the sombre and leisurely first movement which is the kind of drawn-out thematic development which he does to perfection in the first and third movements of the fifth. His fast movements tend to degenerate into mere bursts of nervous energy, but the smoothness of the orchestration keeps up the interest, and never lets you forget that here is one of the real masters of the orchestra. I noticed in the paper the other day that his seventh symphony was recently played in Moscow with the customary tumultuous success, and with luck, we should be hearing it in Boston before the spring is over.