Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Copyright © 2004 by Hugo S. Cunningham.

first posted 20040929
latest minor change 20040929

Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitrievich (1906-1975) --
Pianist, composer.
His career spanned much of Soviet history. He was publicly loyal to Stalin and his successors, despite occasional condemnations of his work by the Soviet press, most fearsomely on 28 Jan 1936 at the beginning of the Great Purge.
After Shostakovich's death, musicologist Solomon Volkov published Shostakovich's supposed memoirs Testimony (1979) in the West, revealing him to be a secret dissident. Shostakovich's third wife Irina has denounced Testimony as a forgery, but his son Maxim has embraced it.

For more on Shostakovich, check out:
Speaking of Shostakovich...
An archive of media clippings
http://www.geocities.com/kuala_bear/ds.html

Some Soviet reviews from 1936 -- What music should sound like

A minor curiosity


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