Overview

"Most previous books about Dmitri Shostakovich have focused on either his symphonies and operas, or his relationship to the regime under which he lived, or both, since these large-scale works were the ones that attracted the interest and sometimes the condemnation of the Soviet authorities. ""Music for Silenced Voices"" looks at Shostakovich through the back door, as it were, of his fifteen quartets, the works which his widow characterized as a 'diary, the story of his soul'. The silences and the voices were of many kinds, including the political silencing of adventurous writers, artists, and musicians during the Stalin era; the lost voices of Shostakovich's operas (a form he abandoned just before turning to string quartets); and, the death-silenced voices of his close friends, to whom he dedicated many of these chamber works. Wendy Lesser has constructed a fascinating narrative in which the fifteen quartets, considered one at a time in chronological order, lead the reader through the personal, political, and professional events that shaped Shostakovich's singular, emblematic twentieth-century life. Weaving together interviews with the composer's friends, family, and colleagues, as well as conversations with present-day musicians who have played the quartets, Lesser sheds new light on the man and the musician. One of the very few books about Shostakovich that is aimed at a general rather than an academic audience, ""Music for Silenced Voices"" is a pleasure to read; at the same time, it is rigorously faithful to the known facts in this notoriously complicated life. It will fill readers with the desire to hear the quartets, which are among the most compelling and emotionally powerful monuments of the past century's music."

Full Product Details

9780300169331

Table of Contents

Reviews

Lesser moves between looking at the life as a way of understanding the quartets, and using the music of the quartets as a way of comprehending the complexities of Shostakovich and the manner in which he both negotiated and was pushed through the history of Stalin's Soviet Union. The always imprecise links between a life and the work that comes out of it are beautifully elucidated. The idea of the quartets as songs for not singing resonates with many other elements of Shostakovich's contradictory life. --William Kentridge<br>

Winner of the 2011 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) in the Performing Arts category, as given by the Association of American Publishers --PROSE Award in Music and the Performing Arts Association of American Publishers (02/02/2012)

What makes Lesser''s book such a ripping good read, in addition to deeply considered music appreciation, is her intelligently personal involvement with the subject. --Jonathan Kiefer, SF Weekly --Jonathan Kiefer SF Weekly

Lesser moves between looking at the life as a way of understanding the quartets, and using the music of the quartets as a way of comprehending the complexities of Shostakovich and the manner in which he both negotiated and was pushed through the history of Stalin's Soviet Union. The always imprecise links between a life and the work that comes out of it are beautifully elucidated. The idea of the quartets as songs for not singing resonates with many other elements of Shostakovich's contradictory life. --William Kentridge<br>--William Kentridge

Author Information

Wendy Lesser, the editor of The Threepenny Review, is the author of seven previous nonfiction books and one novel. Winner of awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and numerous other organizations, she has written book, theatre, film, dance, and music criticism for a variety of print and online publications. She divides her year between Berkeley and New York.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available