A biography that is a challenging and thought-provoking polemic of the musical kind. The author argues that Shostakovich's music cannot be extricated from the Soviet program of propaganda and political control. However you view MacDonald's take on the influence of the Soviet political machine, Shostakovich's music remains, for me, as often expressing divergent opinions and both subtle and not so subtle evidence of his views that were thoroughly anti-Soviet. ( )

Dmitri Shostakovich died in 1975 but already the myth of the composer as a loyal supporter of Communism and the Soviet state has been effectively scuppered not least by Shostakovich himself in his controversial memoir , Testimony. The authenticity of that book has been disputed , but , as Ian MacDonald reports in the opening chapter of his biography , its essential truthfulness is now widely accepted.

MacDonald is the first writer to really test that truth against evidence of the music and, if The New Shostakovich is the most conventional of these books in form - a chronological narrative of the man and his works - in content , it is the most revelatory. The backbone of the book is MacDonald's "decoding" of many of Shostakovich's major works to reveal a secret , dissident history of Russia through the nightmare decades of Stalinist dictatorship . It 's a gripping, often horrifying, story and MacDonald astutely marches the politics to the music , making you re-listen and re-think your responses to the latter with discomfiting regularity. I'm not sure I'd agree with every detail of his interpretations, but the main thrust of his argument and most of his conclusions are indisputable. A magnificent reappraisal of one of the last century's greatest and, it seems, most misunderstood artists. ( )

I frankly don't understand the political exploitation of Shostakovich's work in this country (USA). It is almost as bad as the very core of the Communist deal that all these books (Volkov in primis) try to undo or reveal. There is no Shostakovich's performance that does not have at least 80% of the notes describing how he was writing this music to mock Stalin; out of fear; because of pressure; because he wanted to try the regime's limits, etc. There is very little, in concert notes as well as in this book, about MUSIC. Was he a great composer? Do we like his music only because his life stirred so many opposite feelings? Do we care to analyze his relationship with Mahler's music, his many different styles (so Mahler cannot be the whole story!), the fact that he was married three times, that his son Maxim is also a conductor but not a composer (how could he with this load of genius in the background?). There is very little in these books about the structure of his (DHS's) work, besides of the usual cliché of the 4th symphony (try the regime's limits), the Fifth (Regime 1:DHS 0), etc. There is also little concerning the most of his opus, the wonderful chamber music and solo instrument music. This book barely mentions the music of the piano Trios (one short, one long, both incredible capolavori!). Maybe Leonard Bernstein was right: we often confuse music with literature and film, we are predominantly visual animals with an appetite for alphabets and grammar, and when it comes to C sharp we think about seeing an optometrist! If you like classical or contemporary music, please listen and stop reading these fake "biographies"! The author of the one I am reviewing here concludes that basically there is a "high probability" that Volkov was right, that if one "imagines" what was going through DHS's mind one can see his anti-whatever stance, etc. People who are egocentric to the point of having their head publicly examined write books, not symphonies! ( )