A Shostakovich Casebook

Malcolm Hamrick Brown’s collection analyzes the legitimacy of Solomon Volkov’s Testimony, a memoir claiming to represent Dmitri Shostakovich’s private anti-Soviet sentiments. The contributors, including musicologists Laurel Fay and Richard Taruskin, identify factual inconsistencies and questionable archival practices to challenge the narrative of the composer as a secret dissident. By examining newly accessible Soviet documents and interviews with the composer’s widow, the book argues that Shostakovich’s identity cannot be reduced to a binary of party loyalist or hidden rebel. Instead, it documents his complex survival within the political constraints of a totalitarian regime.

Historians and fans of twentieth-century classical music read this volume to bypass simplistic myths surrounding the composer’s politics. The text provides the technical and historical tools needed to evaluate primary source materials and detect forged biographical accounts. Readers finish the book with a clearer understanding of how Cold War ideologies influenced the reception of Russian art. They gain a factual framework for interpreting Shostakovich’s symphonies within their original bureaucratic and cultural context.

Deep; a moderate read.

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