Publisher's Synopsis
Dmitri Shostakovich was the most popular Soviet composer of his generation. Internationally esteemed, his reputation has increased since his death in 1975. He is now widely considered to be the last great classical symphonist.He wrote his First Symphony aged only nineteen and soon embarked on a dual career as concert pianist and composer. His early avantegardism was to result in the triumph of his 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Though first highly praised, Shostakovich would suffer from a complex and brutalising relationship with Stalin and the Soviet governments that followed him. In spite of this persecution his Seventh Symphony was embraced as a potent symbol of Russian resistance to the invading Nazi army in both the USSR and the West.Though his later years were marked by ill health, his rate of composition remained prolific. His music became increasingly popular with audiences as he established himself as ‘the most popular composer of serious art music in the middle years of the 20th century'.
