Dept. of Self-Improvement, Cont'd.

While we're talking about self-improvement and authorship I won't stop myself from sharing part of an unsent letter by Shostakovich -- excerpted in Laurel Fay's fine and deeply sensible biography of the composer, which I just finally got around to reading -- in which he defends the poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko (apparently against charges of being too moralizing) and, as Fay notes, says something about the motivations behind his 13th Symphony as well:

You don't like it that he collared you and preaches what you know: "Don't steal honey," "Don't lie," etc. I also know that one shouldn't behave that way. And I try not to. However, it doesn't bore me to hear it over and over again. Perhaps Christ said it better, probably even best of all. But that doesn't deprive Pushkin, Lev Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, J.S. Bach, Mahler, Musorgsky, and many others of the right to speak about it. Moreover, I believe they have an obligation to speak about it, as does Yevtushenko....

Every morning, instead of morning prayers, I reread – well, recite from memory – two poems by Yevtushenko, "Boots" and "A Career." "Boots" is conscience. "A Career" is morality. One should not be deprived of conscience. To lose conscience is to lose everything.

"A Career" is the text Shostakovich sets in the final movement of the 13th, which is more expressive on the subject of compromise in art and in life than anything else I'm aware of.