Theme

And indeed, to speak with Galina Visjnevskaja:"No one would dare to die at the same time Stalin dies? […]. Fate would not have accepted that [Prokofjev] would feel the satisfaction of hearing his tormentor died".
Oboist Ivan Paisov and pianist Natalia Sjtsjerbakova play Marina Dranisjnikova’s Poème of 1953. The work seems not to be inspired so much by Stalin’s death but more by an unfortunate love for an oboist. During her life, the composer’s fame was overshadowed most of the time by her father’s fame, a friend of Prokofjev and conductor at the Mariinski Theatre, who led the world premiere of Moesorgski’s original Boris Godoenov in 1928.
Stalin’s death bed was visually described by his daughter Svetlana in ‘Twenty Letters to a Friend’. The palace revolution that followed, would settle the fate of Lavrenti Beria who would not survive the change of power. And she marked Nikita Chroesjtsjov taking up his new post of party leader.
Galina Visjnevskaja delicately points out that ‘the red tsar’ died on the eleventh birthday of the seventh symphony of Sjostakovitsj. Svjatoslav Richter had to be flown over from the Caucasus for the funeral. Because of the bad weather and all other passenger planes were already in use to fly party officials to the capital, the pianist had to travel in a cargo plane which was fully packed with flowers. Together with David Oistrach he played Sergej Prokofjev’s First Violin Sonata at the funeral, a secret tribute to the big composer, for whom no flower was left in the entire Soviet Union, to dress up his funeral. You will hear the sonata in a performance of Oistrach and Lev Oborin on piano, a recording of 1946.
One year earlier, Dmitri Sjostakovitsj composed his Fifth String Quartet, which he dedicated to the Beethoven Quartet at the occasion of their 30th anniversary. You will hear this quartet in the performance of String Quartet opus 92. 
On the morning of 6 March 1953, Sjostakovitsj was composing in his room when he heard the door of his house suddenly open and fast footsteps approaching his room. The door was opened without knocking and he crouched. Police? Then he saw his seventeen-year old daughter Galina and she looked reproaching at him. Hardly being friendly he asked what was going on. ‘Stalin is dead, I just heard, downstairs, outside at the house of the snowplowers, and I don’t need to go to school.’ He looked at his daughter for a long time and asked almost mute: ‘You say Stalin is dead?’ ‘Yes!,’ she almost yelled, ‘is everything going to change now?’ Sjostakovitsj nodded and replied hardly audible: ‘yes, let’s hope so.’
He returned to the symphonic work that he had put aside when slander hit him in 1948 and he proceeded in his characteristic way: in the Tenth Symphony he introduces the personal motive ‘D-Es-C-H’, the notes of the initials of his name which would recur in his future works being a personal settlement with Stalin and Stalinism. 
Listen to thework performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jevgeni Mravinski. The work had its premiere on 7 December 1953, four days before Stalin’s birthday. Biographer Krzysztof Meyer explains that the second part, ‘his shortest scherzo ever, was according to the composer himself, a portrait of the monstrous oppressor .’
At the time of composing, Sjostakovitsj let Mravinski know that a new symphony was about to be made. The conductor visited the composer on September 29th in Moscow and he witnessed the creation of this ‘first work created after 1948 that was freed from the chains of the resolution ‘about the opera “the great friendship” and the decisions of the congress of the Composers’ Union’.  
Stalin was a Georgian and the Souliko was his all time favourite music. The Souliko is a Georgian dance. We close this episode with the Souliko from the Miniatures for String Quarter on Georgian folk music by composer Soelchan Tsintzadze, performed by the Georgian State String Quartet.
1. Marina Vladimirovna Dranisjnikova (1929-1994).
Poème (1953).
Ivan Paisov, hobo, and Natalia Sjtsjerbakova, piano.
Naxos 8.570596.
2. Sergej Sergejevitsj Prokofjev (23.4.1891 – 5.3.1953).
Sonata nr. 1 for violin and piano in f, opus 80 (1946): 1) Andante assai, 2) Allegro brusco, 3) Andante, 4) Allegrissimo.
David Oistrach, violin, Lev Oborin, piano.
Brilliant Classics David Oistrakh 100th Birthday Edition 9056/14.
Dmitri Dmitrijevitsj Sjostakovitsj (1906-1975).
3. String Quartet nr. 5 in Bes major, opus 92 (1952), to the Beethoven Quartet: 1) Allegro non troppo, 2) Andante, 3) Moderato.
Beethoven Quartet: Dmitri Tsyganov, Vasili Sjirinski, violin. Vadim Borisovski, viola. Sergej Sjirinski, cello.
Doremi DHR-7911-5.
4. Symfonie nr. 10 in e minor, opus 93 (1953): 1) Moderato, 2) Allegro, 3) Allegretto, 4) Andante, Allegro.
Leningrads Philharmonic Orchestra led by Jevgeni Mravinski.
MEL CD 10 00774.
5. Soelchan Tsintsadze (Gori 23.8.1925 – Tbilisi, 15.9.1991).
“Soeliko (Mingreels slaapliedje”, Uit: 19 miniaturen voor strijkkwartet op Georgische volksmuziek).
http://www.georgian-music.com/free_music/classic.php.