Review: Mestariluokka

STALIN ALSO MASTERED COMPOSERS

There are four masters in the City Theatre, none of whom is inferior to the other, even though even in “equal” communist countries, some were always more equal than others. If in the 20th century Hitler was the devil’s right hand, the left was used by Stalin, whose left hand was Andrei Zhdanov, the officially beloved chairman of the post-war Finnish Control Commission.


In 1948, in the master class, squire pals Stalin (Lasse Pöysti) and Zhdanov (Martti Suosalo) teach Sergei Prokofiev (Esko Roine) and Dmitri Shostakovich (Asko Sarkola) to compose as a good communist should. Father Sunny gently tells us what kind of music would build the Soviet nation. Zhdanov accompanies the swords, threatening the swords, with a blow to the head, if the overly obscure and bourgeois art music does not become more melodic, simpler and thus more beautiful.

The undercurrent of humour is black, the flow of the underworld. Artists don’t have much to hold back in laughter, no matter how crazy the musical visions of despotic rulers are. Many of the composers close to the composers accused of corrupting music were liquidated and their lives were also in danger.

The theme of the struggle between the wills of artists and those in power develops into wild climaxes after a slow first half; in major, when the quartet tries to compose Stalin’s wretched Georgian poem together, and in minor, when millions of people murdered by Stalin rise from their graves to Shostakovich’s gut-wrenching music.

The theme resonates with our time: What are we willing to do, or do we do out of opportunistic desire just because the powers that be, the market, mammon and glory tell us to?