But neither then nor later could the run of approved Soviet music altogether seduce me – though it might intrigue, as did a musical celebration of Lenin a few years ago. One could only call it an oratorio, not simply because it was a sacred ritual, Lenin cast as Jesus (or rather Jesus cast as Lenin) and proceeding through suffering to apotheosis, but because the techniques were borrowed from the Passions of Bach: the evangelist-narrator, the solo recitatives and arias, the hymns for full chorus. In one scene Lenin, visiting a factory, causes a girl worker to swoon, at the end of which mystical experience she offers him a rose. It is an extraordinary example of socialist religion, which I would dearly love to present in the West. Such oddities apart, Soviet music is immensely competent, but its deference to mass taste, or Kremlin taste, its appeal to a narrow range of broad emotions, sound somewhat commonplace and tiresome to foreign ears. No doubt direction from above is to blame for much, although I suspect that even allowed the emancipation and sophistication Stravinsky enjoyed, Soviet composers of the caliber of Kabalevsky or Khachaturian could never have matched his originality and power for all their skill in bringing off effects. << less