Tragic waltzes and satirical marches

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One notable cultural success of the Soviet period was co-opting talented and even brilliant composers.  Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and many others wrote marches, oratorios, movie music, and popular tunes that celebrated and supported the regime.  Stravinsky, perhaps the most brilliant of them all, escaped to the West, but Prokofiev and Shostakovich were two of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.

This is not in accord with our "artist as revolutionary" ethos: current dogma is that all artists are in opposition to the state, and to what is accepted and respected.  So we look for subversion in their works, as we do in the works of all artists. So the musical production of that time seems to be covertly subverting its ostensible purpose.

Prokofiev died the same day as Stalin, and so did not have the opportunity for ex-post-facto justification, but Shostakovich lived until 1975, and so was able to attempt to rehabilitate his reputation in a less-brutal time.  Was he trying to point out subversive elements that weren't originally there?  Music's meaning is notoriously contextual.  Most of what we think we perceive in it is just our own expectations.

Still, the waltzes of the Soviet period have a distinctly end-of-the-party mournful quality.  And some of the marches seem almost absurd in their satire, so much so that you can't believe Party functionaries commissioned them and paraded to them.

One tragic waltz was used by Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut.  Here is a good version.  Another is Khachaturian's, from the Masquerade Suite from incidental music to a Lermontov play, here.  The mood reminds me, maybe weirdly, of the Christmas song that manages to catch some of the tragic sense of evanescence that is an essential part of the holiday, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

Then there are the satirical marches, best of which is from the master of genre satire, Prokofiev:  the innocuously named "March for Military Band in Bb".  The first half of it is here.  All of it is in the soundtrack of this horse video, starting at 4'33".  Shostakovich wrote a "March of the Soviet Police" which can be played straight, I think.  I can't find a version online.  But I can't really imagine any collection of serious Soviet types marching toward the future to the Prokofiev.  How did they really perceive these pieces?