An updated discography of Vladimir Sofronitsky

[Christian Scheen]

Dear all,

As mentioned last month, here is an updated discography of Vladimir
Sofronitsky. The download link is given on the `welcome page' of this
WordPress blog, next to the PDF icon:

https://sofronitskydiscographie.wordpress.com/

I decided not to go with Mediafire, 1fichier, et al., because I wish to
be able to publish new versions of the PDF file (with corrections,
additions, etc.) without people automatically loosing the old download
link when the previous version has been superseded by the new one.
(All this is CC BY 4.0.)

I would like to thank Farhan Malik for letting me put this on the Web.
Of course, Farhan Malik's permission does not mean he endorses the PDF
file or my work: I am solely responsible for any errors in this
discography. So:

-- if something is right, then all credit should go to Farhan Malik if
it is a pre-1998 release;
-- if something is wrong, then I am the only one to blame;
-- if something is wrong, don't just bitch: contact me if you wish (see
the WordPress page for a contact method).

Please do let me know if you are having trouble downloading the file.

Christian

[christian....@gmail.com]

Already commented on SS. Amazing!!!!

[pjot...@gmail.com]

Hi Christian, thank you for this! It looks like a really thorough piece of work you have done here - a life's work really. And it is going to be really helpful for me in getting my Sofronitsky collection properly organised and documented... at last!

Pete Taylor

[Christian Scheen]

On April 30, 2017 at 10:45, Pete Taylor wrote:

> Hi Christian, thank you for this! It looks like a really thorough
> piece of work you have done here - a life's work really. And it is
> going to be really helpful for me in getting my Sofronitsky
> collection properly organised and documented... at last!
>
> Pete Taylor

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your message. (I apologize for this very late reply...
By the end of April, I foolishly deleted my Thunderbird folder, and
lost the configuration of the nntp.aioe.org server I used. I just
saw your message through the Google Groups interface.)

Are you, by any chance, the Peter Taylor who put up a Web page
dedicated to Sofronitsky in 1999 (under www.richter.ukf.net)? It
was really useful!

Best wishes,

Christian Scheen

[michaelkay...@gmail.com]

Fascinating! Truly monumental.
I wonder if more Liszt recordings could exists - like the Mephisto Waltz 1, and Rhapsody No 9...

[Christian Scheen]

Thanks! ;) I don't know about those Liszt pieces. The Mephisto-
Waltz No. 1 appear quite frequently in VS's recital programs. The
Rhapsody No. 9, less so. There's a paper by Igor Nikonovich, in
Nikonovich and Scriabin (2008), p. 345-348, where he says that
there's no recording of some masterpieces (see p. 348). This
includes the First Mephisto-Waltz, Rhapsodies No. 2, 9, and 12,
Schumann's Humoreske, Faschingsschwank aus Wien, and Kinderszenen,
Schumann's Second and Third Piano Sonatas, Chopin's Second Sonata,
Third Scherzo, and shorter pieces, Choral Preludes by Bach/Busoni,
Ravel's Sonatina, Balakirev's Islamey, some Sonatas and Fairy Tales
by Medtner, Prokofiev's Suggestion diabolique, among others. Maybe
unknown tapes are sleeping somewhere, but I guess one should not
hold one's breath...

Two months ago, Melodiya issued large excerpts from the October 26,
1951 live recital at the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. But
these excerpts are for now only available as a download-only option,
for instance through Presto Classical (Cat. No.: Melodiya GP15926) as
FLAC files or (320 kb/s) MP3 files:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Melodiya/GP15926

I hope they will issue the recital (or at least those excerpts) as
a physical CD, too... According to Igor Nikonovich, the recorded
pieces were as follows; see Scriabin and Nikolaeva (2013), p. 392:

26.10.1951, at the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory:

First part:
1. Glazunov---Sonata No. 2, Op. 75*;
2--5. Liadov---Prelude, Op. 57 No. 1*; Barcarole, Op. 44; A Musical
Snuffbox, Op. 32; Novelette, Op. 20*;
6--7. Scriabin--- Polonaise, Op. 21*; Waltz, Op. 38*.

Second part:
8--11. Rachmaninoff---Moment musical, Op. 16 No. 2; Étude-tableau,
Op. 39 No. 5; Étude-tableau, Op. 33 No. 2; Étude-tableau, Op. 33
No. 7;
12. Blumenfeld---Two Fragments lyriques, Op. 47*;
13--14. Scriabin---Mazurka, Op. 40 No. 2*; Étude, Op. 8 No. 10*;
15. Rachmaninoff---Prelude, Op. 32 No. 12*;
16. Scriabin---Prelude, Op. 17 No. 5*.

(In the above lists, pieces marked with `*' appear on this new issue
by Melodiya, GP15926.)

I suspect some of those pieces (Blumenfeld's Op. 47, Liadov's Opp.
44 and 32, and Scriabin's Op. 8 No. 10) have already been published
on (Melodiya's) LP D16257/8, but I'm not sure yet. The other pieces
are new additions to VS's discography, AFAIK. IMO, it's especially
important for Glazunov's Op. 75 (and Scriabin's Op. 21, for which
there exists only a studio recording made November 3, 1950). Those
excerpts sound like very high quality issues or reissues, based on
one-minute snippets available as (320 kb/s) MP3 files.

Due to lack of time, I haven't yet been able to add this GP15926
edition to the discography.

--
Christian

[michaelkay...@gmail.com]

I also wonder what the Scriabin museum has in their archives, which hasn't been issued....

[cooper...@gmail.com]

A generous person with access to Russian archival material has just posted a batch of unreleased Scriabin Museum material on Symphonyshare. Also some previously un-reissued Richter (hard to believe that there is any!) :-)

AC

[howie...@btinternet.com]

I sometimes think that the Scriabin museum material doesn't really show him at his best. You know, the I've never fallen in love with his take on the Chopin sonata, nor the Haydn.

[Tony]

On Sunday, 16 July 2017 23:06:34 UTC+3, cooper...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>Also some previously un-reissued Richter (hard to believe that there is any!) :-)
>

Lots of early unreleased Horowitz recordings too

[michaelkay...@gmail.com]

that was me 8)

enjoy!

[cooper...@gmail.com]

Well, I noticed the "MK" commonality, but didn't want to make assumptions. Didn't think it stood for Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, though :-)

AC

[michaelkay...@gmail.com]

heh, good one!

cheers!

[Bozo]

>On Sunday, July 16, 2017 at 3:18:44 PM UTC-5, howie...@btinternet.com wrote:
> I sometimes think that the Scriabin museum material doesn't really show him at his best. You know, the I've >never fallen in love with his take on the Chopin sonata, nor the Haydn.

Heard this Arbiter all - Scriabin cd ? :

http://arbiterrecords.org/catalog/scriabin-chez-scriabin-live-at-the-scriabin-museum-1960/

[Leo Kover]

Dear Mr. Scheen,

So many years after you first published your discography: a late thank you!

I was wondering whether you found any new recordings in the new Hännsler box, which has rather poorly described sources.

P.S. I was unable to write you via your website, which looks complicated to someone not well-versed in softwares.

With best wishes from France

Leo K.

[Christian Scheen]

On March 29, 2022 at 01:29, Leo Kover wrote:
> Dear Mr. Scheen,
>
> So many years after you first published your discography:
> a late thank you!
>
> I was wondering whether you found any new recordings in the
> new Hännsler box, which has rather poorly described sources.

Dear Mr. Kover,

Thank you for your kind words. I assume you're talking about
the Profil Hänssler PH22006 box-set (12 CDs), for instance here:

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/alexander-scriabin-klavierwerke/hnum/10859861

I haven't yet had an opportunity to listen to it; according to
former experience, Profil Hänssler is usually reliable. So I'm
not yet in a position to answer your question...

I'm well behind schedule for the discography. Only the first
third of the big Scribendum box-set has been referenced, and of
course there's also the Membran box-set and the avalanche of CDs
in the `Russian Piano School´/`Talents of Russia´ series from
Russian Compact Disc (RCD). The Covid-19 pandemic and the onset
of the war (oops, sorry, the `special military operation©®´) in
Ukraine did (or do) not help to stay with schedule. Up to now,
the Scribendum CDs look like verbatim copies of the Vista Vera
series, with extreme filtering-out of the higher frequencies,
but of course with an altogether different order.

I'm also working on an English translation of the discography,
and maybe a brief biography to be added. For the translation,
pretty much everything `under the hood´ is done (document class,
index styles, transliteration/transcription, etc.), and work is
on the way for the bibliography; the introduction and some other
chapters will require a lot of work. The Git/GitHub structure
will hopefully be better thought-out than its present state.

As we say in French-speaking countries, `je suis en train de
courir plusieurs lièvres à la fois, au risque de n'en attraper
aucun...´ ;)

> P.S. I was unable to write you via your website, which looks
> complicated to someone not well-versed in softwares.

Yes, I'm sorry about this. There used to be my e-mail address
in the metadata of the PDF file, but I had to remove it when
I started to use Git (and GitHub), since I wanted to distribute
the sources of the document, not just their PDF end-result.
(A WordPress blog or website is just not appropriate for such
a project.)

All the best,

--
Christian

[Leo Kover]

Dear Mr. Scheen,

Thank you for your message and your comments.

It’s a great thing that you will issue a translation of the Sofronitsky discography and biography! I happen to have read your posts in French, and they also deserve a wide circulation in English.

Yes, this is the Hänssler box I have. The presentation is nice but the information is a mess. Even the cover itself: it has « Historical recordings 1946-1962 », but the recording of the 7th sonata is that made by Richter in 1964.
- There are no less than 3 recordings of the étude op. 42/5, with different interpretations, quite fascinating. But two of them are listed under the series played in Leningrad on 30Jan1952 ! The booklet mentions the « 14 » études played at that recital, but according to your discography there were only 11 recorded, and the the last 3 ones listed (op. 42/3-4-5) come from another concert, obviously.
- The format of the descriptions is irregular. A few pieces have the mention « Musej vinil »: I have no idea what this means !

There is only a short notice by Dirk Stöve, which has no new information for me, except for the mention that Sofronitsky sometimes read aloud poems of Aleksandr Blok before a Scriabin recital.
As to the recordings themselves, the general sources are listed as follows:
- Moscow and Leningrad radio stations
- Scriabin Museum
- Collection of Pavel V. Lobanov.

I don’t think you’ll find many surprises in it. I don’t have the Hänssler box of the sonatas, but some of them are in the new box, too. There is a second version of the 9th sonata labeled as « Moscow 1954 », which may be that of Lobanov’s archives.
For now I listened to the 3rd sonata labeled « 1950s Moscow » (perhaps the studio recording that you list) and it’s a beautiful recording in a fine transfer.
There are also several recordings of Richter’s (previously issued as far as I can tell), and a few by Gilels and Neuhaus. But I regret that Samuil Feinberg’s contributions to this collection were limited to the Mazurkas, which are already available on Melodiya, rather than including the 2nd and 4th sonatas.

>>As we say in French-speaking countries, `je suis en train de courir plusieurs lièvres à la fois, au risque de n'en attraper aucun...´ ;)

I understand, and the timing of my following remark is inappropriate as it looks like a request for you to chase yet another rabbit! Well, here is one question that I wanted to send you in private:
Is there a possibility for you to be involved as an official advisor for a company seriously interested in producing high quality transfers of Sofronitsky’s legacy ? E.g., Arbiter or Vista Vera.

I don’t have the Scribendum and Membran boxes and I don’t care much about such « bulk batches ». And the other day I was listening again to Schubert’s D784 sonata from the Brilliant Classics box, with its filter in the upper range, and there was again that barely conscious discomfort which left me somewhat at pains to remember what I had heard.
What to do of all these discs? After so many years of reviews and expectations, I find it discouraging to read you once again commenting about « yet another [Vista Vera, Scribendum etc.] CD with a severe filtering of the high frequencies ». I commend your effort of including all these editions in your discography, but overall I see this as a rather frustrating and sterile exercise – so many CDs which we would like to see replaced by better editions!
So this is the rationale of my question.

I would like to add two further general comments on Sofronitsky’s biography, but will have to do this later this week.

All the best,
LK

[Christian Scheen]

On April 5, 2022 at 00:54, Leo Kover wrote:

Dear Mr. Kover,

> There are no less than 3 recordings of the étude op. 42/5, with
> different interpretations, quite fascinating. But two of them are
> listed under the series played in Leningrad on 30Jan1952 ! The
> booklet mentions the « 14 » études played at that recital, but
> according to your discography there were only 11 recorded, and
> the the last 3 ones listed (op. 42/3-4-5) come from another concert,
> obviously.

For the most part, that 1952-01-30 (YYYY-MM-DD) recital has been
recorded, but it seems (Milshteyn 1982, p. 444; White 1995, p. 57-
58; Scriabin & Nikolaeva 2013, p. 434) the recital included quite
a few pieces that we know were at least performed (and maybe even
recorded?). This was an all-Scriabin recital. The other pieces
would include the `Allegro de concert´ (Op. 18), Poems from Opp.
52, 59/1, and 69 (apparently, 4 = 6 - 2 other Poems); some Encores.
Op. 42/5 from that recital has been released a number of times---
Volume 5 of the `Complete´ Recordings, Arlecchino 31, DiwClassics
1001, Vista Vera 198, and Scribendum 817 (CD #8). Opp. 42/3 and
42/4 (from that recital) seem more than dubious to me. But Opp.
42/3--5 were played together at the 1958-06-08 recital, in that
order. Sofronitsky was sometimes fond to play some pieces again
as Encores (for instance, the Étude Op. 8/12 has been played twice
at the 1950-05-19 recital).

> The format of the descriptions is irregular. A few pieces have the
> mention « Musej vinil »: I have no idea what this means !

Long before the 10-CDs series published by Vista Vera from the
Scriabin Museum archives, the Scriabin Museum itself published a
series of LPs, probably in very limited quantities. It would be
great news if Hänssler published some performances from these
archival recordings, because the Scriabin Museum LPs and the Vista
Vera + Scriabin Museum CDs do not completely overlap. Nikonovich
(p. 29) wrote that there was material for at least two or three
more CDs---and the Vista Vera `Scriabin Museum´ series itself did
not completely went according to the initial plan. If I'm not
wrong, there were four or five more CDs planned, but not (yet?)
published, and one of them would be (nearly?) identical to the
Arbiter 157 release.

> As to the recordings themselves, the general sources are listed
> as follows:
> - Moscow and Leningrad radio stations
> - Scriabin Museum
> - Collection of Pavel V. Lobanov.

Those last two sources probably are the most likely to provide
Hänssler with previously unpublished archival recordings.

> [...] I don’t have the Hänssler box of the sonatas, but some of

> them are in the new box, too. There is a second version of the
> 9th sonata labeled as « Moscow 1954 », which may be that of
> Lobanov’s archives.

Yes, probably. Prometheus Editions' `Vladimir Sofronitsky in
tuition´ CD (one CD and an additional `bonus´ CD-R) has a Ninth
Sonata labeled `1954 unpublished live recording´ (CD) and another
one labeled `1954´ (CD-R). Dates are incomplete and venues are
not mentioned. Recordings made by Pavel Lobanov, 1947--54.

> For now I listened to the 3rd sonata labeled « 1950s Moscow »
> (perhaps the studio recording that you list) and it’s a beautiful
> recording in a fine transfer.

There are two studio recordings of the Third Sonata: 1946 and
1958-09-12. The latter one is sometimes referred to as a live
recording in the Scriabin Museum at an unknown date (for instance,
on Vista Vera 249), but it is the second studio recording at
Moscow, 1958-09-12.

> [...] But I regret that Samuil Feinberg’s contributions to this

> collection were limited to the Mazurkas, which are already
> available on Melodiya, rather than including the 2nd and 4th
> sonatas.

Yes, they could also have included Feinberg's performance of the
Fifth Sonata!

> [...]

> Is there a possibility for you to be involved as an official
> advisor for a company seriously interested in producing high
> quality transfers of Sofronitsky’s legacy ? E.g., Arbiter or
> Vista Vera.

Yes, I would be very interested in participating in such a project,
though I'm only an amateur `advisor´ who happens to have numerous
CDs and LP transfers, and some books and references (mostly in
Russian, of course), some of them maybe not easy to obtain in the
West (I believe the Scriabin & Nikolaeva 2013 book has a print run
of 300 copies only).

> [...]

> What to do of all these discs? After so many years of reviews
> and expectations, I find it discouraging to read you once again
> commenting about « yet another [Vista Vera, Scribendum etc.] CD
> with a severe filtering of the high frequencies ». I commend
> your effort of including all these editions in your discography,
> but overall I see this as a rather frustrating and sterile
> exercise – so many CDs which we would like to see replaced by
> better editions!
> So this is the rationale of my question.

Probably part of the reason I'm so late referencing the Scribendum
CDs is the fact that they mostly sound like carbon copies of some
previous Vista Vera CDs. It is especially sad, considering that
the quality, cohesiveness and precision of the sound was so central
to Sofronitsky's art. In some cases, I'm left with only one way
to reference a new reissue or CD, comparing it to a well-known
reference: the sound is filtered to the point where one can only
make some kind of correlation or regression line between the sets
of onsets of notes or chords; not exactly my idea of a pleasurable
listening session!

But I believe we can be hopeful; just remember the number of years
between the first CD reissues of Schnabel's or E. Fischer's
recordings and their first publications on great-sounding CDs on
Pearl, thanks to the work of the Seth B. Winner studios! All hope
is not lost, though it seems the new golden standard is the YouTube
compression.

A project such as the one you mention above would be extremely
interesting. Oftentimes, very good results could be obtained with
meticulous transfers of good-quality LPs. When LPs have been
well taken care of, they can sound much better than the original
tapes (that are continuously aging).

> I would like to add two further general comments on Sofronitsky’s
> biography, but will have to do this later this week.

I'm going to check with GitHub to see if and how I can provide one
with my e-mail address through this system (maybe I'll define an
e-mail alias with my ISP). Maybe I could reach you through your
@gmail account, if you agree to it?

[Steve Emerson]

Coming to this late, but just want to say it's excellent news that you're contemplating writing a biography.

best,
SE.

[Leo Kover]

Dear Mr. Scheen,

Thank you for having taken the time to check this!
What you write about the unpublished Scriabin Museum archives sounds exciting.

>> But Opp. 42/3--5 were played together at the 1958-06-08 recital, in that order.

I think you’ve solved the riddle caused by Hänssler’s inconsistency. I have the Denon edition of the recital of 1958-06-08 and the études sound the same as on Hänssler (the applause was removed by Hänssler before the last étude).

>> Yes, they could also have included Feinberg's performance of the Fifth Sonata!

A pity!
I only know Feinberg’s recording of the second sonata (found at a local library in the early 90s, when I was a teenager), which made a deep impression on me. Feinberg’s « wave » playing style was most appropriate for this marine sonata!

Well, I know that among his contemporaries Sofronitsky had a special relationship with Heinrich Neuhaus (whose recordings I know little). The Hänssler box includes his recording of the Fantasy (which was a favourite of his according to Richter) and of a few small pieces. So it's a rather representative box - but the « patriarchs » Feinberg and Neuhaus are not mentioned on the cover of the box!

>> I'm only an amateur `advisor´ who happens to have numerous CDs and LP transfers, and some books and references (mostly in Russian, of course), some of them maybe not easy to obtain in the West (I believe the Scriabin & Nikolaeva 2013 book has a print run of 300 copies only).

You obviously read Russian, too. Tell me: if you were to pick up one Russian volume on Sofronitsky for translation into English, which one would you chose?

>> It is especially sad, considering that the quality, cohesiveness and precision of the sound was so central to Sofronitsky's art.

Well put! I think that what is heard as « banging » in Sofronitsky’s playing is often due to the limits of a poor recording technique.

>> But I believe we can be hopeful; just remember the number of years between the first CD reissues of Schnabel's or E. Fischer's recordings and their first publications on great-sounding CDs on Pearl, thanks to the work of the Seth B. Winner studios!

A note of hope indeed! And the remastering technique has made much progress. Since my audiophile awareness is not old, I haven’t heard the Pearl discs - my experience of improved remasterings is based mainly on Andrew Rose’s Pristine Classical (including a great Schubert/Schnabel disc). I have not yet asked him whether he would do any Sofronitsky (or other older Russians) – perhaps he doesn’t have those rare LPs.

Of course you can reach me through gmail.
Thanks again.

All the best,
LK

[Leo Kover]

Dear all,

Re: biographical matters:

Christian Scheen had posted years ago a biography in French, although it’s not a book-length one. We can only hope that he will have time to develop it and to compile all the primary sources he knows. I would like to also have a few chapters on Sofronitsky’s art in it – for I assure you that the author can do that well! 😊

I just wanted to add a comment of detail here :
Mr. Scheen’s mention of the « special military operation » the other day reminded me that I’d like to see a correction regarding the wild rumour of Sofronitsky the « drug addict ». The source of this rumour may well be a slander by the KGB. It was amplified in the internet era, but the catchy smear reminded me of other cases of secret police fabrications which reached public notoriety as « common-knowledge truths ».

Last weekend, however, I realized that Mr. Scheen had already dealt with that in a straightforward way – years ago in a message on a French-speaking forum:
https://classik.forumactif.com/t3899p11-vladimir-sofronitsky
Here we find some very well reasoned comments on the origin of the rumour. And, as you pointed out, it’s all the more painful to see such a rumour repeated ad nauseam on the WWW since we know from his family that Sofronitsly, in order to keep his ability to feel, would not even accept morphine during his final illness.

Comment: Mr. Scheen, you cited Solomon Volkov as the origin of this rumour. I didn’t remember reading about the « sniffing Sofronitsky » in Volkov’s Testimony (which I read around 1990 so my memory was quite selective). But upon checking I found to my surprise that you are right! That Volkov should put this in Shostakovich’s mouth raises additional doubts about the source of his book…
So Volkov’s was in 1979. But there was another alleged source in 1979: Richard Taruskin (of all commentators) cites the same drug tale with a reference to a memoir by the émigré pianist Mark Zeltser, who arrived in the West in 1976. However, I was not able to locate this source, and it is actually cited by Taruskin only second-hand, from a review by Joseph Horowitz in the New York Times (March 15, 1979). Zeltser himself must have heard it from someone else – he was only 14 when Sofronitsky died.
It seems likely that the rumour was first circulated in the USSR, but I doubt that it was mentioned in print at the time. So may it will remain shredded in mystery.

Best wishes,

LK

[Christian Scheen]

Dear Mr. Kover,

On April 6, 2022 at 23:29, Leo Kover wrote:

> You obviously read Russian, too. Tell me: if you were
> to pick up one Russian volume on Sofronitsky for translation
> into English, which one would you chose?

Actually, I don't read Russian; I use https://translit.cc/ to
retype the (original) Russian text, then copy/paste it to
https://www.deepl.com/translator to get a translation. I checked
DeepL against the reference of the great translations made by
Emily White for her doctoral dissertation, and have found DeepL
to be reasonably reliable, up to now...

Best wishes,

--
Christian

[Christian Scheen]

> On April 6, 2022 at 23:29, Leo Kover wrote:
>
> You obviously read Russian, too. Tell me: if you were
> to pick up one Russian volume on Sofronitsky for translation
> into English, which one would you chose?

All three books I know are interesting (Milshteyn 1982; Nikonovich
& Scriabin 2008; Scriabin & Nikoaeva 2013), but if I were to choose
one, I think it would be Nikonovich & Scriabin 2008 (Klassika-XXI).
Because the great paper by Nikonovich himself has undergone great
improvements and additions, through the years, superseding (IMO)
the 1982 version. The 2008 book also has the great paper by Varvara
Nekrasova, partly through the archives of Alexandra Emilievna (Ada)
Wiesel. It contains numerous aspects of Sofronitsky's artistic life,
far beyond what's readily known of his public or private life. So,
a translation of this 2008 book would be very interesting, I think.

But there's also a lengthy paper by Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky.
It has been edited in 1965 and published in /Sovetskaya muzyka/, but
this version is not complete. The complete (unedited?) version of
his paper appeared in 1967, in /Iskusstvo/; its contents is available
through a series of board posts starting here:

http://classicalforum.ru/index.php?topic=2537.0

and I think this paper, too, should be translated. The Russian
sources are overwhelming; it isn't easy to make one's way through
these.

[Christian Scheen]

On April 6, 2022 at 17:13, Steve Emerson wrote:

> Coming to this late, but just want to say it's excellent news
> that you're contemplating writing a biography.

What I had in mind was a brief biography expanding from what is
known in the West---I believe the best biography still remains
the one written by Pierre-Martin Juban in 1998 for IPQ, if one
limits itself to non-Russian sources. But the paper by Nekrasova
(mentioned in another post above) does contain much `material´
that would both expand and refine Sofronitsky's portrait as a
musician. And, of course, I'd just like to put some more `flesh
and blood´ around the lengthy enumeration of Sofronitsky's
chronological list of concerts and recitals (there has been much
progress in this respect since Emily White's 1995 dissertation).

All the best to you, Steve,

--
Christian

[Christian Scheen]

On April 6, 2022 at 23:54, Leo Kover wrote:

> Christian Scheen had posted years ago a biography in French,
> although it’s not a book-length one.

Hem, that is one charitable way of mentioning it; it's only a loose
set of board messages. It's not even a paper-length attempt... ;)

> [...] I’d like to see a correction regarding the wild rumour of

> Sofronitsky the « drug addict ». The source of this rumour may
> well be a slander by the KGB. It was amplified in the internet
> era, but the catchy smear reminded me of other cases of secret
> police fabrications which reached public notoriety as « common-
> knowledge truths ».

In my opinion, the best work on this subject is in Emily White's
1995 doctoral dissertation:

Emily White wrote (p. iii):
>> [A commentary] also questions the validity of common rumors,
>> especially those sustained by Shostakovich, about Sofronitsky's
>> love affairs and the possible use of drugs as a contributing
>> factor to his untimely death.

The mentioned commentary is on pp. 108--22, especially pp. 119--
21 for this matter.

Emily White wrote (p. 119):
>> Muscovites relished their gossip about Sofronitsky. They had
>> never seen him personally except on stage in his concerts, but
>> they exchanged knowing rumors about his involvement with drugs.
>> Drugs were hard but not impossible to obtain in Soviet Russia:
>> some trafficked in hashish from the Central Asian republics;
>> others used the medicines they had at home. Perhaps Sofronitsky
>> did have access to drugs, but it is highly improbable that he
>> indulged in anything apart from alcohol. Nikonovich saw him
>> frequently enough to have discovered such a secret in
>> Sofronitsky's life, and he never observed any narcotic substances
>> in Sofronitsky's presence. When the pianist was complete alone,
>> he might have used drugs, but how would people come to know about
>> them so well if not even his friends or his daughter had been
>> aware of them?

I would add that, at least in his later years, Sofronitsky was
meticulous avoiding any alcohol during the days leading to his
concerts. And the frequency of his concerts was oftentimes quite
high, as the chronological list of his recitals shows, leaving
precious little time in-between.

Emily White does not really address, if I'm remembering correctly,
the question of the level of faithfulness of Solomon Volkov's
writings with respect to what Shostakovich actually said to him,
but IIRC this aspect is considered at least problematic by some
people who did extensive research on the subject. Emily White goes
on as follow (comments between square brackets are by me).

Emily White wrote (p. 120):
>> Showtakovich was one of the expert witnesses on this subject,
>> although he had not been in close contact with Sofronitsky
>> since their student days together in St. Petersburg. Volkov's
>> /Testimony/ contains an assortment of slanderous items about
>> Sofronitsky's irresponsible behavior. When the book was
>> published, Elena Scriabina [Sofronitsky's first wife] read it
>> and commented to her daughter [Roksana Kogan-Sofronitskaya]
>> that she agreed with most of Shostakovich's statements. Some
>> of the details, however, are flatly untrue: according to
>> Roxanne [Roksana], her father was scrupulous about abstaining
>> from alcohol before a concert. The anecdote about the concert
>> cancelled when Sofronitsky had drunk an entire bottle of cognac
>> is further disproved by Nikonovich, who affirms that Sofronitsky
>> never drank cognac because it was too strong for his system.

Emily White then raises some plausible (`humaines, trop humaines´)
reasons explaining why Shostakovich `might be anxious to malign his
old friend´ (p. 120). According to her, Sofronitsky became more and
more attracted to the realm of Scriabin's music, and Shostakovich
might have sensed this as some form of distance. It seems that
Sofronitsky very much revered Shostakovich's earlier compositions,
but that he thought less of his Symphonies after No. 10 (p. 120,
again).

Setting alcohol apart, I believe we can overlook the drug addiction
`charges.´ Some parts of this mystery do look to me quite like the
infamous (KGB) strategy of `kompromat.´

There's a 2001 paper written by Sofronitsky's and Elena Scriabina's
daughter, Roksana Vladimirovna Kogan, about this subject, and you
don't even need to translate its Russian title to understand her
position:

Roksana Kogan wrote:
>> Софроницкий не был наркоманом!
>> [Sofronitsky was not an addict/a junkie!]

The reference of this 2001 paper is as follows (PDF available for
download):

Kogan, Roksana Vladimirovna (2001). `Софроницкий не был наркоманом!´
In: /Новое Русское Слово/, No. 31784 (June 15, 2001), p. 19. ISSN:
0730-8949.

--

Sofronitsky had an extended stay in the West, in Paris (end of
March or end of April, 1928 --- end of January, 1930). He himself
said unambiguously that he could not survive any longer outside
of Russia, and even had quite a few harsh words against France.
The quote below is only an example.

Sofronitsky wrote (letter to the Wiesel family, Dec 21, 1929):
>> Every day, we miss our homeland more and more painfully. France
>> is boring, but we will stay here until the end of January.

According to Nikonovich (2008, p. 132), Sofronitsky said that a
Russian man can not live for long without Russia, and that nothing
could be more sad than emigration.

But maybe Soviet officialdom did not know about his feelings, or
maybe they were not confident or convinced by what he said. He was
not allowed to move abroad after the Potsdam (1945) brief stay (on
Stalin's order). Maybe they feared he could defect?

It seems that in March, 1960 the Polish authorities requested the
presence of Sofronitsky in Poland, for the celebration of the 150th
anniversary of Chopin's birth. Valery Voskoboynikov said, in his
radio broadcasts, that Soviet officialdom replied to the Polish
authorities that `Sofronitsky was sick and did not want to leave
his homeland.´ Maybe Voskoboynikov was being sarcastic, I don't
know, but according to Nekrasova (2008, p. 184), there's indeed an
April 18, 1960 letter by Sofronitsky himself saying that he had to
cancel a March, 1960 trip to Warszawa, due to health problems, and
that he was supposed to go there to play at some concert(s?). I
believe the general health of Sofronitsky, post-1942 and the siege
of Leningrad, was among the main reasons for his not being allowed
to move abroad---but probably it was not the only reason.

--

> Comment: Mr. Scheen, you cited Solomon Volkov as the origin of this
> rumour. I didn’t remember reading about the « sniffing Sofronitsky »
> in Volkov’s Testimony (which I read around 1990 so my memory was
> quite selective). But upon checking I found to my surprise that you
> are right! That Volkov should put this in Shostakovich’s mouth raises
> additional doubts about the source of his book…
> So Volkov’s was in 1979. But there was another alleged source in
> 1979: Richard Taruskin (of all commentators) cites the same drug tale
> with a reference to a memoir by the émigré pianist Mark Zeltser, who
> arrived in the West in 1976. However, I was not able to locate this
> source, and it is actually cited by Taruskin only second-hand, from
> a review by Joseph Horowitz in the New York Times (March 15, 1979).
> Zeltser himself must have heard it from someone else – he was only
> 14 when Sofronitsky died.

The tale of the white handkerchief that Sofronitsky allegedly put on
the border of the soundboard of the piano during some of his concerts
has been circulating for a very long period of time, that's for sure.
The tale insists that one could clearly see that the handkerchief had
some `powder substance´ on it, and that Sofronitsky would put that to
use from time to time.

Someone I know tells a little tale in order to show how reality and
truth like to show themselves... There's someone sitting on a public
bench. He believes the Earth is hollow, and that an alternative
civilization lives `underneath.´ When he thinks about this, he says
that `he believes this.´ Someone else comes along and asks if he may
sit down on the bench, too. The two start a little discussion and,
after a while, both discover that each other believes in this theory
of a hollow Earth. But now, when they think about it, they just say
that `they know this.´ One can always imagine everything one wants
or likes, but the difficult part of the process will be to actually
prove it. It seems to me Emily White's hypothesis of a gossip is
the right way to handle this; a gossip that may have been serviced
by Soviet officialdom as some form of convenient `kompromat´ (just in
case); a gossip that later found huge resonance chambers in today's
networks.