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“They replaced second and seventh chords with thirds, fourths and unisons,” recalls the aging violist Rudolf Barshai. In Bruno Monsaingeon’s cogent 2003 documentary The Red Baton (newly reissued in this double-feature DVD set), Barshai speaks of Soviet music students penciling in less-dissonant chords, a result of the infamous 1948 decree that stifled artistic freedom in the Soviet Union. Monsaingeon thrives on unsettling scenes as he explores the Soviet regime’s suffocating grip on its musical landscape throughout the 20th century. By talking extensively with eminent conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, the filmmaker provides a gripping firsthand account of one of music history’s most notorious dystopias.
In addition to the interviews, the stark archival footage is chilling. In one shot—which reads both sad and comical—a bored Dmitri Shostakovich performs a gooey waltz he probably had no intention of composing. In another, composer and pianist Tikhon Khrennikov, the denouncer of Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, sings his own saccharine composition—and this was the man who banned or permitted new works. At a mere 55 minutes, the movie could cover more ground, yet its focused brevity packs a punch.
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky: Conductor or Conjuror? (2003), the other Monsaingeon documentary on this twin bill, serves as an apologia for the Russian conductor’s often misunderstood art. Replete with master classes, rehearsals and up-close interviews, Rozhdestvensky shows the craft at its most personal and sublime. While conducting Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, Rozhdestvensky looks at his orchestra with wonder as the love theme begins: “I almost stop conducting here,” his voice-over says. “It would be superfluous.” These are the rare moments Monsaingeon captures that make this DVD a singular experience.
