ldquo;Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin; a butcher; knew that.rdquo; So said the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich; whose first compositions in the 1920s identified him as an avant-garde wunderkind. But that same singularity became a liability a decade later under the totalitarian rule of Stalin; with his unpredictable grounds for the persecution of artists. Solomon Volkovmdash;who cowrote Shostakovichrsquo;s controversial 1979 memoir; Testimonymdash;describes how this lethal uncertainty affected the composerrsquo;s life and work. Volkov; an authority on Soviet Russian culture; shows us the ldquo;holy foolrdquo; in Shostakovich: the truth speaker who dared to challenge the supreme powers. We see how Shostakovich struggled to remain faithful to himself in his music and how Stalin fueled that struggle: one minute banning his work; the next encouraging it. We see how some of Shostakovichrsquo;s contemporariesmdash;Mandelstam; Bulgakov; and Pasternak among themmdash;fell victim to Stalinrsquo;s manipulations and how Shostakovich barely avoided the same fate. And we see the psychological price he paid for what some perceived as self-serving aloofness and others saw as rightfully defended individuality.This is a revelatory account of the relationship between one of the twentieth centuryrsquo;s greatest composers and one of its most infamous tyrants.From the Hardcover edition.
#858789 in eBooks 2007-12-18 2007-12-18File Name: B000XUBDOE
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Voice Long StilledBy Jennifer L. BuntingI read Scaddings famous memoirs of early Toronto in my student days; and enjoyed it but did not fully appreciate the insights it contains. Re-reading it in the 21st century I relished his take on the evolution of early Toronto even more; particularly the personalities he knew. However; this would be a difficult book for a reader who is unfamilier with the geography (streets) of Toronto downtown. It would also be a challenge for someone who has no knowledge of the founding families of Toronto as Scadding often assumes that his reader knows something about his subjects already. His recollections are "gossipy" -- they are similar to 21st century columns about movie stars. We are expected to know the names and enjoy the tidbits. However; if 19th century Ontario is your interest; this book should be on your reading list.