---
product_id: 8514692
title: "Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (Limelight)"
brand: "solomon volkovdmitri shostakovich"
price: "€ 69.21"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 10
url: https://www.desertcart.com.cy/products/8514692-testimony-the-memoirs-of-dmitri-shostakovich-limelight
store_origin: CY
region: Cyprus
---

# Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (Limelight)

**Brand:** solomon volkovdmitri shostakovich
**Price:** € 69.21
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (Limelight) by solomon volkovdmitri shostakovich
- **How much does it cost?** € 69.21 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
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## Description

Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (Limelight)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    An important view into the composer's musical life
  

*by L***E on Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2006*

I bought this used from an Amazon vendor for the Shostakovich year about the same time I bought the new set of symphonies by Kitaenko and the Cologne Gurzenich Orchestra. I didn't expect I would listen to all the symphonies before finishing the book, which I expected -- from everything I'd read about it for 20 years -- to be a riveting engagement.Sad to say, it was not. The book is a set of professional memoirs from the author at the end of his life, presented through the voice of Solomon Volkov, who knew the composer as editor of a Soviet musical publication.Since the book covers Shostakovich at the end of his life -- he told Volkov not to publish it while he was alive -- it is a tome of his bitterness built up over the decades. Shostakovich goes on for pages about other musicians, people lost to the Stalin purges, his teacher Glazunov and others in the Soviet artistic intelligentsia. The book covers virtually no personal ground for the composer; there is nothing in it about his children other than a few photos.Many of the famous quotes attributed to Shostakovich, including "my symphonies are tombstones" are included in the text. You have to get about halfway through the thing before it goes into any detail in the important matters about Shostakovich's music, its hidden messages only legible to those who knew him at the time, and what he had to do to publish these works during the era of Stalin's Soviet realism.Shostakovich's famous wit and cynicism appear much earlier in these pages. His distaste for Toscanini is recited in the first 25 pages. He's onto a split view of Stravinsky 5 or 6 pages later. Not much later, he says Prokofiev had the soul of a goose and a chip on his shoulder. A few pages later he called Russian conductor Alexander Gauk "a rare specimen of stupidity." He has even harsher words for other composers and artists.I was a little disappointed by all this, to be honest. I expected more of a polemic on Soviet society and less of a laissez faire view of the composer's artistic life and friends. The book spends more time on Shostakovich's trip to New York in 1947 and his disdain of American reporters than it does on any aspect of his childhood, marriages, or life with his children. And that wasn't much, either.Still, this is an important perspective on the 20th century's most important and accomplished symphonist, whose music has been celebrated this year. Through its discussion of Shostakovich fulfilling the Russina "yurodivy" role, we intrinsically understand the finale of his great 5th Symphony is the joy of forced labor. We have an idea the noisy and cacaphonous sections of his 4th Symphony are his fear of the secret police taking him away. We know his 8th symphony is more about ther rigors of totalitarianism than Russia's Great Patriotic War.For this, the book is an enduring view into the mind and artistic life of the composer that probably best illuminated life in Soviet Russia. There is no mirror of the composer that was considered a faithful communist and wunderkind after composing the wonderful and joyous 1st Symphony. That person does not exist in this book and his memoirs are not included.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    you've heard the music, now read the book
  

*by D***Z on Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2018*

Indispensable, if incomplete. I have loved this book ever since it appeared in 1979. I left my old copy in a storage locker and bought it again. I wish the publisher had made an electronic version, but publishers rarely do what the rest of us want. If you love the music, then here is the same voice in conversation. Volkov's mediation is a tour de force. Back when the book first appeared, the Soviets were alive and kicking; they had fervent support in the West, and a huge attack was launched on this book, which was a dagger in the heart of the USSR's self-image. The old Soviet fans have long since moved on to different causes, while the issues raised in this book are eternal. The book is one-sided, but that's how it is with memoirs. In combination with a good scholarly source -- like Laurel Fay's book -- or another vantage point like Galina Vishnevskaya's autobiographical masterwork, Testimony will tell you all you need to know about the heart-rending history of Soviet Russia.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Really good book, really good seller
  

*by A***T on Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2020*

Firstly, the book came in perfect condition, as if it was completely new. Secondly, about the book:  I recommend anybody who is interested in Shostakovich read this. It is basically an autobiography.

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*Product available on Desertcart Cyprus*
*Store origin: CY*
*Last updated: 2026-03-05*