The fact that Joseph Stalin loved music and believed it mattered was both a blessing and a curse for the men and women who made it. If your work found favour you were treated as a secular god with all the trimmings – palatial apartment, good food and freedom to roam as far as the decadent West (assuming you came back when called).
But for those who offended Stalin’s arbitrary and shifting tastes it was another matter. The Father of Nations regularly took time out from his busy killing schedule to vet each new classical music record that came across his desk, noting on the sleeve whether it was “good”, “average” or “rubbish”. A bad rating could earn you a stint in the gulag or, if there were aggravating circumstances (homosexuality, say), a bullet in the back of the head. It has been calculated that 68 composers were sent to Siberia during Stalin’s 30-year reign of terror. Hundreds of other musical artists, from virtuoso composers to popular songbirds via second violinists, were consigned to oblivion when the paper trails concerning them were deliberately destroyed.
