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But don't you find there are redemptive moments in the Shostakovich, Kelsey? In the last movement, where the first theme comes back high in the violin and cello, with the rushing 32nd notes in the piano, for instance. I always felt like I had broken free and was flying when I played that passage. Hey Megan, I actually feel like it's even more repressed there because Shostakovich has marked if fortissimo (ff) and with a mute on, it's like he's trying to break free but he can't because theres been a clamp put on. The whole piece is amazing to me and I love it, it's so incredibly difficult to do it justice though, for sure. "Another description was that of corpses dancing, finally freed from their living hell."

Really powerful description, and so apt.

“The whole piece is so dark, filled with musical irony and Shostakovich's voice, sharing his emotions in the only way he could at the time and had he been discovered he would have been killed or exiled. Why would someone take a chance at being caught?”

The human need to expression is both universal and powerful. To some of us, without which life is not worth living. Coming from the Chinese Communist regime myself, I have, especially during the Cultural Revolution, intimate experience of the darkness of the dictatorship that is very similar to that of Stalin and Khrushchev Soviet Union. When it is oppressive and dangerous outside, the only freedom we had was the interior world (i.e., our mind and heart), and consequent to such internal expansion and enormous of rich material we accumulated, we just had to express by whatever means we hoped to get away with. Music was in fact one of the safest means of expression because the interpretation of precise meaning is very difficult. Writing or acting would be a lot harder but were still frequently done only with a lot of veils.

I don’t have any advice for you, but only hope that you don’t let yourself trapped too much into the darkness if the music, Kelsey.

Yixi, I believe that western classical music was outlawed during the Cultural Revolution. It must have been a severe hardship to live without it. When it was allowed back in, the Chinese people gobbled it up as if they had been starved, which, in a way, they were.

Kelsey, first, thanks for taking the time during your busy experience at YAE to tell us about what you're doing. I hope that writing and receiving comments about the Shostakovich piece provided some exorcism for you.

Paulin, you are quite right about the outlaw of western music during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), especially before Nixon’s China visit in 1972. Soon after that, especially after Philadelphia Orchestra visited China in 73, a lot of western classical music started to be radio-broadcasted in big cities such as Shanghai and Beijing. Still, even before then, many people were studying western music underground quietly, especially the ones from well connected or professional musician families. A lot of sheet music was hand-copied passing from one student to the other. They were remarkably accurate now come to think of it. Looking back, it was not all dark those days.