Recollections, A Life With Shostakovich

In the first instalment of our Recollections series, Hoi F. Cheu PhD ( Director of the Centre for Humanities Research and Creativity at Laurentian University and Director of Doran Planetarium) recounts how a teenage encounter with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony shaped his extraordinary dual career - and several close relationships...

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"It was 1976 in Hong Kong. My father brought home a new LP of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Paavo Berglund was at the helm of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. My father and I lay in bed by his desk. He tried to understand how this Soviet composer was supposed to be great. He was an honest socialist: he did not love the symphony; he was a Tchaikovsky fan. I had no opinion; I was ten. That day marked my first memory of intellectual curiosity.

 Then, a new page! The digital recording of the symphony came in 1982 – the Concertgebouw conducted by Haitink. Now, a rebellious teenager, I bought the LP with my Chinese New Year money. I played the album loudly. My friend Tai Yau taught me about planets, stars, supernovae, and black holes, and I taught him about Shostakovich and the power of art. We imagined space travel with the mighty Fifth. We had no doubt that the dark and scary development section of the first movement was a supernova explosion, and the movement ended with a space ship sinking into a black hole. We used the recording as background music for our slideshow about the life of a star at the Joint School Science Exhibition. That was eight years before Stephen Hawking agreed that Cygnus X-1 was the first observed black hole.

Although I did not lose my interest in physics and astronomy, I became an English literature major with a music minor at the University of Waterloo, Canada. I read the Volkov arrangement of Shostakovich’s memoirs, realizing that the black hole in the symphony was psychological and political. I met a Mennonite who loved Mahler and was not annoyed by Shostakovich. We were engaged within just a summer.

 Later, when I was working on my doctoral thesis on James Joyce, Elizabeth Wilson’s Shostakovich biography drew my attention. Not for academic reasons I read it along with Shostakovich’s memoirs over and over. They were “light readings” when I needed to take my mind off Finnegan's Wake and the crying of my new-born daughter. My father had retired and moved to southern China. He did not bring any LPs with him, including those that I left behind in Hong Kong.

 My father will soon turn 90. He still loves Tchaikovsky. I still cherish every rare minute when we share the joy of music. My two daughters have grown up – one became an editor and the other a composer. My wife still loves Mahler. Tai Yau and I still chat about astronomy and music. I teach James Joyce at Laurentian University while serving as the director of the university’s planetarium. Everyone wonders how an English professor ends up managing a planetarium. Some ask explicitly. I want to tell them that the connection is a symphony by Shostakovich, but they are likely to be confused further. Only few understand how the power of artistic imagination can fuel scientific thinking. Music opens my mind – it still does."

Hoi F. Cheu, PhD (Director of the Centre for Humanities Research and Creativity at Laurentian University and Director of Doran Planetarium)