Testimony

Shostakovich was born in 1906, in St. Petersburg. He survived the Russian Revolution and soon became wildly succesful and popular. His symponies and his operas were performed throughout the land, to great acclaim. Then, the fall. Stalin disliked the opera Lady Macbeth; Pravda wrote that Shostakovich's music was chaos. He was denounced and humilated and he apologised. But at least he was not shot and lived on writing music. Yet after the War, Stalin chose to denigrate him, even to the extent of sending Shostakovich to an International Peace Congress in New York and forcing him to castigate those of his fellow musicians who had fled Russia. Shostakovich never forgave himself for this betrayal to his friends. (pressbook)