Socialist Realism

There are no “undiscovered masterpieces.” That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. This bit is from a ballet by Shostakovich, “The Bolt,” which I had the, um, good fortune to have performed this last summer.

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The “General Dance of Enthusiasm and Apotheosis” is a good example of the celebrate-at-gunpoint school of heroic artwork propogated by your typical repressive regime. I’m glad I was playing third trumpet, it really is a forced march of a movement and I was barely hanging on by the end.

You can look up the story of the ballet, if you want; it’s really very awful.