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trkravtin 's review for:
This book is powerful; very moving. Devastating, at times. I’ll do a lot of listening because of this book.
I didn’t know too much of about the Russian point of view of the Bolshevik Revolution/years of Lenin/then Stalin/the siege of Leningrad during WWII/or the Russian point of view of WWII, so this was all a revelation.
I do know Shostakovich’s music, his Symphony No. 5, I played it in high school, not No. 7 about which the book is centered. I ultimately think it doesn’t matter if you have the classical music connection to appreciate the scholarship here, but it helps. It helps to know the character of Russian classical music, but it isn’t essential.
Here I will pause and give a shout out to my high school band director, who introduced us to much classical music in symphonic band arrangements. Through him we played a wide range of composers, thereby filling our high school experience with a rich musical legacy. I went on to college with a music scholarship and majored in music education and performance. As is often the case, the stories behind the music, the biographies of composers, the time in which composers are influenced is critical to having a greater appreciation of the context within which the music resides.
Symphony for the City of the Dead beautifully pulls together such disparate elements as a world war, a composer suffering through the tumultuous transformation of his country and his home city, as well as the fear of potential political retribution, while balancing the needs of his soul and the safety of his family without sacrificing his art. It is an incredible tale, and I urge you to read it. It is inspiring and riveting and remarkable.
I read years and years ago biographies of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, and I very much enjoyed Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire. (A tangential recommendation is The Orphan Sky by Ella Leya, Sourcebooks.) I also love other Russian composers: Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky & Rimsky-Korsakov. Because of this book, I found this lovely collection of the Shostakovich Complete String Quartets by the Pacifica Quartet produced by Cedille Records.
I didn’t know too much of about the Russian point of view of the Bolshevik Revolution/years of Lenin/then Stalin/the siege of Leningrad during WWII/or the Russian point of view of WWII, so this was all a revelation.
I do know Shostakovich’s music, his Symphony No. 5, I played it in high school, not No. 7 about which the book is centered. I ultimately think it doesn’t matter if you have the classical music connection to appreciate the scholarship here, but it helps. It helps to know the character of Russian classical music, but it isn’t essential.
Here I will pause and give a shout out to my high school band director, who introduced us to much classical music in symphonic band arrangements. Through him we played a wide range of composers, thereby filling our high school experience with a rich musical legacy. I went on to college with a music scholarship and majored in music education and performance. As is often the case, the stories behind the music, the biographies of composers, the time in which composers are influenced is critical to having a greater appreciation of the context within which the music resides.
Symphony for the City of the Dead beautifully pulls together such disparate elements as a world war, a composer suffering through the tumultuous transformation of his country and his home city, as well as the fear of potential political retribution, while balancing the needs of his soul and the safety of his family without sacrificing his art. It is an incredible tale, and I urge you to read it. It is inspiring and riveting and remarkable.
I read years and years ago biographies of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, and I very much enjoyed Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire. (A tangential recommendation is The Orphan Sky by Ella Leya, Sourcebooks.) I also love other Russian composers: Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky & Rimsky-Korsakov. Because of this book, I found this lovely collection of the Shostakovich Complete String Quartets by the Pacifica Quartet produced by Cedille Records.