The Campaign for Terrence Oblong - The audience at the premier of Shoshtakovich's Symphony No 5

Clapping. 

Clapping could get you killed. Clapping was a dangerous anti-state activity that could get you sent to the gulags. If you clapped the wrong person, that is.  

I've been a lone clapper. The only person in the audience enthusiastically clapping a support act in a totally different style to the main act, the happy synth pop support to a Goth headliner. I'm not afraid to stand out in this way. But had I lived during Stalin's reign of terror this attitude could have gotten me killed. 

Shostakovich had been a rising star of Soviet music, after just three symphonies he was already regarded as one of the greatest contemporary composers. Then in 1936 Stalin attended the opera to see Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District'. The opera was a critical and popular success, until Stalin saw it. Stalin found the brass too noisy and was seen laughing at the tender love scene. He hated it. Shortly afterwards the Soviet media turned on Shostakovich, even those that had already given the opera glowing reviews reversed their opinion. In the wake of criticism Shostakovich was forced to withdraw his fourth symphony before its premier. 

His entire career, indeed his life, depended on the success of his fifth symphony. Shostakovich was told that his new work must conform to the demands of socialist realism. If you don't know what socialist realism is don't worry, nobody did. Socialist realism "expressed the progress of an intellectual from of state of 'individualist illusion' to triumphant self transcendence in solidarity with the people and recognition of the inevitable apotheosis of Communism". You may find, as did Shostakovich, that this provided no help at all in defining what a socialist realist symphony should sound like. It would simply be a case of the emperor's thumbs, if it was liked the symphony would be proclaimed socialist realism, if it was disliked it would be claimed subversive and executions would follow.

This was no idle threat. At the height of Stalin's terror half a million people were shot and seven million sent to the Gulags in the space of just over a year. Accurate estimates are difficult, due to the  nature of the terror, but something akin to one tenth of the adult population were sent to the Gulags. The entire population lived in constant fear of being reported for dissident behaviour. People renounced their friends, their lovers, their family, often simply because they feared that they were about to be renounced themselves. 

The purpose of the all-embracing terror was to remove all free expression. People were programmed to love only the state and any contrary position, such as doubting was was printed in the press, would result in being sent to the camps. Even failing to smile could be seen as subversive, an expression discontent with the state.  Expressing support for a musician, writer, or director whose work was labeled subversive would result in arrest, imprisonment and possible death. So clapping a composer out of favour with Stalin would be an incredibly high risk act. 

So it was an audience adorned with fake-smiles and suppressing their inner-terror that sat down to watch the world premier of Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 5 in D minor in the Philharmonic Hall in Leningrad on 21 November 1937.  The audience knew the score (pun intended) and the atmosphere was tense, the audience understandably cautious. 

The caution was swept away by the music, the audience were visibly weeping during the symphony's slow movement, and at the end the audience arose as one and applauded the performance with an enthusiasm usually saved for Stalin's speeches, the applause is even reported to have lasted as long as the symphony itself. 

The rapturous reception saved Shostakovich's career, and probably his life.  Shostakovich regained his supremacy in Soviet music, and the fifth symphony became the model for what a socialist realist symphony should be. The Communist Party announced that the symphony was a confessional work in which its composer rehearsed his own redemption by the grace of the Party.  

His Symphony number 4 was eventually performed in 1961, 25 years after it was written. It is widely regarded as his finest work, and is my personal favourite. 

Shostakovich outlived Stalin by 22 years, dying in 1975. His orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti. He is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century.