[audiobook] Towards Creative Learning Spaces: Re-thinking the Architecture of Post-Compulsory Education by Jos Boys at Arts-Photography

Description

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 Shostakovichs 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 Shostakovichs singular; emblematic twentieth-century life. Weaving together interviews with the composers 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 centurys music.