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'A terrifying and unhappy book...' The Guardian This astounding
self-portrait covering the whole of Shostakovich's life (1906-1975)
was prepared in collaboration with the distinguished Soviet
musicologist Solomon Volkov. With the composer's consent, the
manuscript was smuggled out of Soviet Russia - but Shostakovich,
fearing reprisals, stipulated that the book should not appear until
after his death. Ever since its publication in 1979 it has been the
subject of controversy, some suggesting that Volkov invented parts
of it, but most affirming that it revealed a profoundly ambivalent
Shostakovich which the world had never seen before - his life at
once triumphant and tragic. Either way, it remains indispensible to
an understanding of Shostakovich's life and work. Testimony is
intense and fiercely ironic, both plain-spoken and outspoken.
A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website
where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble
them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas,
the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the
prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S"
words that reveal a "spectacular story!" With creative characters,
humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's
Christmas musical your kids will love performing.
Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the San Francisco Symphony for this
performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, which was originally
broadcast by the American television channel PBS in 2009 as part of
the 'Keeping Score' classical music series.
Andris Nelsons conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in this
performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No.8, recorded live at the
Lucerne Festival in 2011.
After considerable hesitation and soul-searching I have decided to
publish the letters Dmitry Dmitriyevich Shostakovich wrote to me.
This choice by the composer's close friend Isaak Glikman brought
the tormented feelings of the musical genius into public view. Now
those feelings resound in the first substantial collection of
Shostakovich's letters to appear in English.From the early 1930s
until his death in 1975 Shostakovich wrote regularly to Glikman, a
Leningrad theater critic and historian. The 288 letters included in
this volume began in 1941, at the time of Operation Barbarossa and
the composition of the controversial (Leningrad) Symphony no. 7,
and continue until 1974, by which time Shostakovich was too frail
to write. Glikman's extensive introduction explains that the
earlier letters were lost presumably left behind when both men were
evacuated from besieged Leningrad. In his account of those years,
Glikman relates personal details of the composer's life during the
height of the Stalinist Terror, including Shostakovich's response
to the public humiliation inflicted by the regime after the
premiere of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.Taken together, the
letters and Glikman's fascinating commentary form a portrait of a
complex and acutely sensitive personality endowed with enormous
moral integrity, humanity, compassion, and a sharp, often
self-deprecating, sense of humor. The book recounts some of the
most pivotal episodes of Shostakovich's life, including the long
withdrawal of the Symphony no. 4, the regime's 1948 attacks on the
composer, his subsequent trips to the United States and other
Western countries, his frame of mind upon joining the Communist
party in 1960, his reactions to the music of his contemporaries,
and his composition of the devastating late symphonies and final
string quartets.The battles over the politics of Dmitry
Shostakovich and his music continue with undiminished vehemence,
and Story of a Friendship is sure to occasion still more argument.
At the same time, the book provides a unique opportunity better to
understand the man and his music, on the one hand, and the regime
that alternately hailed and reviled him, on the other."
A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website
where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble
them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas,
the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the
prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S"
words that reveal a "spectacular story!" With creative characters,
humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's
Christmas musical your kids will love performing.
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