Shostakovich by Brian Morton

Shostakovich by Brian Morton

Dmitri Shostakovich was the most popular Soviet composer of his generation. Internationally esteemed, he is widely considered to have been the last great classical symphonist, and his reputation has continued to increase since his death in 1975. Shostakovich wrote his First Symphony aged only nineteen and soon embarked on a dual career as concert pianist and composer. His early avant-gardism was to result in the triumph of his 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Though at first highly praised by Stalin, Shostakovich would later suffer from a complex and brutalising relationship with the Soviet dictator and the governments that followed him. In spite of this persecution, his Seventh Symphony was embraced as a potent symbol of Russian resistance to the invading Nazi army in both the USSR and the West. Though his later years were marked by ill health, his rate of composition remained prolific. His music became increasingly popular with audiences as he established himself as the most popular composer of serious art music in the middle years of the twentieth century.

'Brian Morton has composed a model biographical sketch buttressed by a sympathetic exegeses of the most important thing: the work' - Guardian.

Brian Morton was the literary editor of Times Higher Education and a regular contributor to The Times. More recently, he has written comment pieces for the Observer (Scotland) and The Scotsman. His Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (co-written with Richard Cook) is the essential reference work on recorded jazz. He lives in a former monastery in Kintyre in western Scotland.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781913368432
ISBN 10	1913368432
Title	Shostakovich
Author	Brian Morton
Series	Life And Times Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Haus Publishing
Year published	2021-12-20
Number of pages	220
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.