"Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin, a butcher, knew that." 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 Volkov--who cowrote Shostakovich's controversial 1979 memoir, "Testimony--"describes how this lethal uncertainty affected the ...
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"Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin, a butcher, knew that." 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 Volkov--who cowrote Shostakovich's controversial 1979 memoir, "Testimony--"describes how this lethal uncertainty affected the composer's life and work. Volkov, an authority on Soviet Russian culture, shows us the "holy fool" 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 Shostakovich's contemporaries--Mandelstam, Bulgakov, and Pasternak among them--fell victim to Stalin'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 century's greatest composers and one of its most infamous tyrants.
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Add this copy of Shostakovich and Stalin: the Extraordinary Relationship to cart. $15.28, good condition, Sold by Off The Shelf rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Imperial, MO, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Knopf Publishing Group.
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The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.
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Very Good. Size: 6x1x9; First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good / Very Good Mylar-protected dust jacket. Free of any markings and no writings inside. Clear Text. Minor shelf-wear. For any additional information or pictures, please inquire.
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