The New Shostakovich

Oct 3, 2024 9:27 PM

Author:Ian Macdonald

Who was Dmitri Shostakovich? The USSR's official figurehead composer and son of the revolution that brought the Soviet state into being, or a secret dissident whose contempt for the totalitarian regime was scathing? Perhaps both?

Since the posthumous publication in 1979 of alleged memoirs by Shostakovich, the controversy about the composer and his music has escalated into the most rancorous debate the world of classical music has ever known. Ian MacDonald's The New Shostakovich presents the case for the dissident view, arguing passionately that the meaning of the composer's music cannot be fully appreciated without a knowledge of the terrible times he and his fellow artists lived through under Soviet Communism.

A widely read and critically acclaimed book in the 1990s, this new edition has been comprehensively revised, extensively corrected, and updated with much new material. Whichever side of the debate readers support, The New Shostakovich presents them with a viewpoint which cannot be ignored.

Reviews

One of the best biographies of Dmitri Shostakovich I have read

—— Maxim Shostakovich

Compelling ... a portrait of a creative artist tormented and harried by the random assaults of Stalinism

—— Financial Times

Persuasively argued and forceful ... A valid, politically driven reconsideration of the composer's works

—— New York Times Review of Books

With passionate integrity, MacDonald fastidiously builds a case to rival the most compellingly labyrinthine detective investigation. Now the great music of Shostakovich will be heard anew

—— Q

Much-needed - a very fascinating insight

—— Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys)

Anyone concerned with Soviet music, twentieth-century music, arts in politics, and politics in art, will be interested in this book

—— Gunther Schuller

Fascinating ... Manages, better than any previous publication, to make connections between Shostakovich's work and the works of other Soviet artists whom he admired and was influenced by

—— Times Educational Supplement

A considerable tour de force of musical and social analysis which will hold its own for some time to come

—— Norman Lebrecht

Harrowing... riveting... superb

—— Classic CD

The best biography of the composer available... has broken new ground by fusing biography with political analysis. A formal lesson to Western writers on post-1917 Russia, whether their subject is music or life itself

—— Andrei Navrozov

Superb ... This compassionate and very knowledgeable book is humbling in its understanding of how far an individual can be pushed by the coercive forces of a grotesque, perhaps insane, authority

—— Sydney Morning Herald

A monumental achievement

—— City Limits

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