An enduring friendship

Shostakovich and Weinberg

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Mieczys¯aw Weinberg, a Polish composer of Jewish descent, fled to the USSR, where he met Dmitri Shostakovich, who became a close friend and colleague (both pictured above). Weinberg was profoundly affected by this initial meeting and would later describe it ‘as if I had been born anew’.

It was at Shostakovich’s urging that Weinberg moved to Moscow in 1943. But in 1948, several of his works were banned and his fatherin-law, the renowned Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels, was murdered on Stalin’s order (as part of his plan to liquidate Jewish culture). Over the next five years, Weinberg himself was a target of Soviet agents and in 1953 he was arrested on charges of ‘Jewish bourgeois nationalism’. Shostakovich wrote to the authorities on his behalf and offered to look after his daughter if his wife was also arrested, but Weinberg was saved by Stalin’s death the following month.

Thereafter he continued to compose and to speak with Shostakovich daily. His works feature a number of explicit references to his mentor: his 12th Symphony is dedicated to Shostakovich and quotes from a number of his friend’s works. The admiration was mutual, and Shostakovich likewise drew inspiration from Weinberg, dedicating his Tenth String Quartet to the younger man. There were general stylistic similarities, too, though both composers maintained highly distinctive individual voices.