Between 1942 and 1945, the three pre-eminent Russian composers wrote music responding to World War II. These responses differ in fascinating and revealing ways. Both Dmitri Shostakovich and Serge Prokofiev were eyewitnesses to the war; Shostakovich in fact endured the beginning of the siege of Leningrad before being evacuated east along with Prokofiev and other eminent … [Read more...] about Music in Wartime
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Shostakovich and the State
“People underestimate Stalin’s level of control,” says Solomon Volkov. “I once started to calculate how many people in the arts Stalin controlled personally -- that is, read their writing, listened to their music, attended their performances. And it was close to one thousand. And not in some abstract way. This was an incredible, unprecedented amount of attention to the … [Read more...] about Shostakovich and the State
Music in Challenging Times — An Opportunity
Back in the 1930s, American radio – that is, American commercial radio, which is all we had – knew that listeners were amenable to paying attention to what they were hearing and nothing else. A long attention span was assumed. Commensurately, the airwaves were full of classical music – a phenomenon I pondered in my most reviled book, Understanding Toscanini (1987). … [Read more...] about Music in Challenging Times — An Opportunity
Furtwangler, Shostakovich, Toscanini: Music in Adverse Times
A new podcast, produced by The American Interest (TAI), translates my article on “Furtwangler and Shostakovich: Bearing Witness in Wartime” into a 30-minute podcast with tremendous musical examples. The distinguished historian Richard Aldous, as interlocutor, expands my purview to include Arturo Toscanini -- a topic of which I've steered clear since the publication in … [Read more...] about Furtwangler, Shostakovich, Toscanini: Music in Adverse Times
Music and Healing: An Armenian Odyssey
The healing properties of music is suddenly an inescapable topic. Serendipitously, the last concert given by PostClassical Ensemble before the pandemic shut down live music was an exercise in healing. This was An Armenian Odyssey at the Washington National Cathedral on March 4. The final three minutes, documented in the film clip above, evoked the 2018 Velvet … [Read more...] about Music and Healing: An Armenian Odyssey