Shostakovich: A LifeFor this authoritative post-cold-war biography of Shostakovich's illustrious but turbulent career under Soviet rule, Laurel E. Fay has gone back to primary documents: Shostakovich's many letters, concert programs and reviews, newspaper articles, and diaries of his contemporaries. An indefatigable worker, he wrote his arresting music despite deprivations during the Nazi invasion and constant surveillance under Stalin's regime. Shostakovich's life is a fascinating example of the paradoxes of living as an artist under totalitarian rule. In August 1942, his Seventh Symphony, written as a protest against fascism, was performed in Nazi-besieged Leningrad by the city's surviving musicians, and was triumphantly broadcast to the German troops, who had been bombarded beforehand to silence them. Alone among his artistic peers, he survived successive Stalinist cultural purges and won the Stalin Prize five times, yet in 1948 he was dismissed from his conservatory teaching positions, and many of his works were banned from performance. He prudently censored himself, in one case putting aside a work based on Jewish folk poems. Under later regimes he balanced a career as a model Soviet, holding government positions and acting as an international ambassador with his unflagging artistic ambitions. In the years since his death in 1975, many have embraced a view of Shostakovich as a lifelong dissident who encoded anti-Communist messages in his music. This lucid and fascinating biography demonstrates that the reality was much more complex. Laurel Fay's book includes a detailed list of works, a glossary of names, and an extensive bibliography, making it an indispensable resource for future studies of Shostakovich. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 Childhood 19061919 | 7 |
2 Conservatory 19191926 | 17 |
3 Spreading Wings 19261928 | 33 |
4 Pioneer 19291932 | 49 |
5 TragedySatire 19321936 | 67 |
6 Crisis 19361937 | 87 |
7 Reprieve 19381941 | 107 |
11 The Thaw 19531958 | 185 |
12 Consolidation 19581961 | 207 |
13 Renewal 19611966 | 225 |
14 Jubilees 19661969 | 247 |
15 Immortality 19701975 | 265 |
Notes | 289 |
List of Works | 347 |
Glossary of Names | 363 |
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akademiya Alexander April artistic Atovmyan ballet bass Beethoven Quartet Bolshoy Theater Boris Cello Cheryomushki comp completed composer’s composition concert conducted conductor creative critics cultural D. D. Shostakovich dated David Oistrakh December dedicated director Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitriy Shostakovich February Fifth Symphony film friends Galina Glikman GTsMMK f Ibid iskusstvo January Khachaturyan Khentova Khovanshchina Khrennikov Kondrashin kovich Kozintsev Lady Macbeth later Lenfilm Lenin Leningrad Conservatory Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra Letter from Shostakovich libretto March Meyerhold Mikhaíl mire Shostakovicha Mitya Moscow Conservatory movement Mravinsky Musical Theater musicians Muzïkal’naya Myaskovsky Nikolai November October Oistrakh performance Petersburg pianist piano Pis’ma k drugu play poem Pravda Prokofiev rehearsal Repino Rostropovich Russian score September Seventh Symphony Shaginyan Shebalin Shosta Shostakovich letter Shostakovich’s music Sollertinsky Sonata songs Sovetskaya muzïka Soviet Composers Soviet music Stalin Stalin Prize stat’i student teatr Texts Thirteenth Symphony tion Union of Composers Violin Vishnevskaya Wilson,Shostakovich write Yavorsky Yevgeniy Yevtushenko zhizn