Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich

by Dmitri Shostakovich

Book Overview

This is the powerful memoirs which an ailing Dmitri Shostakovich dictated to a young Russian musicologist, Solomon Volkov. When it was first published in 1979, it became an international bestseller.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879100214
• ISBN13: 9780879100216
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Limelight Editions
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An indispensable document

Testimony is 276 pages of a "shackled genius" (as Solzhenitsyn described him) being truly and 100% candid for the first time in his adult life. Compiled through interviews with the much-maligned Solomon Volkov, Shostakovich requested that they be published "after my death, after my death" for good reason.For the more casual reader, a fabulous read; gripping, powerful, shattering. And educational, too.For the historian or musicologist, one sees through "Testimony" the society Shostakovich and his colleagues lived in, and composed in. For the musician, the groundwork is laid for gaining insight to Shostakovich the person, and thus the basic aspects of the composer's music: bitterness, sarcasm, satire, quotation, and a very direct, pointed language.To consider the controversy regarding this book's "authenticity," I direct your attention to Ho & Feofanov's "Shostakovich Reconsidered," which is a truly enlightening work, both about "Testimony" and Shostakovich in general. Elizabeth Wilson's book is remarkable, too.

Problematic - but important nonetheless

Instead of flaming one another on the topic of 'Testimony' based on our political preference, we might do better looking at the quality of the text itself. Because whether it is Dmitri Shostakovich' own story or a first-person novel by Volkov, this is a deeply engrossing, chillingly emotional and intensely tragic tale about the cost of fame in the Stalin years. And whether the precise details of the story are accurate or not, I have little doubt - also based on other 'testimonies' - that in that respect this one hits the nail on the head. The matter of its relation to Shostakovich' music is more problematic. Statements often quite explicitly contradict earlier opinions by Shostakovich, even if there seems no political reason for doing this. See, for instance, his description of the first symphony. I can hardly imagine any conspiracy being at work here - there are far more explicit condemnations of the Soviet Union to be found. As a document of cultural history, this is a very important text, and anyone interested in Shostakovich, his life, and his work, will be forced to form an opinion about 'Testimony'

This book is no fake...The discrediting has been discredited

Although numerous assaults have taken place against testimony, as if Dmitri Shostakovich had offered his heart on a platter in his film scores but not in the 4th quartet, _Testimony_ has managed to come out the victor amidst the barrage. In addition to the fact that Shostakovich's (or "Shostakovich's", if you skeptics prefer) words coincide so well with the music, I have read various collections of evidence pro Testimony- I think that dozens and dozens of quotations from colleagues of Shostakovich (including his daughter and son) attesting to the truthfulness of Testimony are better evidence than the pedantic date-mincing of cynics who had never met the man.With all of this further defense of the book aside, I must say that this is a fine book, and it is finer still if you will accept the words within as fact. Read all of the mud-slinging regarding Testimony first if you wish, but with all of it aside this book is a fine work of fact, and would even be a fine work of fiction.Although pedants may be quite blind to the fact, this book is rather moving, at times humourous, at times starkly observant... One who does not adore Shostakovich's music would do well to read the book, for one gains a great psychological perspective into what are merely very good works when viewed as 'absolute music'.

Testimony is authentic and accurate

From 1992 to 1998, Dmitry Feofanov and I thoroughly researched the authenticity and accuracy of Testimony, including conducting interviews with Solomon Volkov, Maxim and Galina Shostakovich, and many others. In a forthcoming book, Shostakovich Reconsidered (Toccata Press, 1998), we reveal how opponents of the Shostakovich memoirs have failed to report all of the facts, have taken things out of proper context, and, above all, have remained curiously silent on the wealth of information that corroborates Testimony. (Allan B. Ho)