Shostakovich: A Life Book

Disclaimer: I skim read most of the later chapters, as I was mostly looking into the reception of Shostakovich's "War" symphonies (especially his Seventh, the Leningrad) and how the composer fell in and out of Party favour, particularly during the Stalinist years. Also, the biography itself is not actually too long, ending on p.287, with the rest of the book taken up with notes, the bibliography and a list of Shostakovich's work.

A straightforward and, above all, cautious bibliographical account of the famous Soviet composer's life, a narrative of his life rather than an analysis into his music. Fay is careful not to make any grand claims about Shostakovich's motivations or political leanings. As she states in her introduction: Writing about Shostakovich remains laced with political and moral subtexts. At its most extreme, it simply replaces one orthodoxy with another, reversing the polarities of the old, shopworn Soviet cliches: the true-believing Communist citizen-composer is inverted into an equally unconvincing caricature of a lifelong closet dissident. She is particularly scathing of Solomon Volkov's Testimony, the so-called "authorised" memoirs of Shostakovich, which in fact appears (not having read it in full myself) to be highly embellished and provocative, while offering little evidence on the authenticity of its claims. This books attempts to add in some balance. Indeed, it is impossible to say both how different Shostakovich's life and career would have been, and moreover how he felt about this personally, had he not been under tremendous pressure from the Soviet state to conform both ideologically and aesthetically. A solid read for those interested both in Shostakovich himself, and importance of art and culture in the Soviet Union.