Levon atovmyan shostakovich biography

In the introduction to her authoritative biography of Shostakovich, published in 2000, Laurel Fay sounds a sharp warning about the historical value of personal reminiscences:

Fascinating and useful as these can be, memoirs furnish a treacherous resource to the historian.

Reminiscences can be self-serving, vengeful, and distorted by faulty memory, selective amnesia, wishful thinking and exaggeration. They can be rife with gossip and rumour. The temptation to recast the past to suit the present . . .

can be hard to resist.

Dmitri shostakovich symphony no. 7

Dmitri shostakovich symphony no. 7

The second waltz

Dmitri shostakovich cause of death

Shostakovich suite for variety orchestra waltz 2

Why did shostakovich write waltz no 2

In any case, factual accuracy is not generally one of their most salient features.

Researching a Life of Stravinsky in the 1990s, I talked to many people who had known him more or less intimately. I read, of course, Stravinsky’s own published reminiscences, and the memoirs of those who had, in effect, helped him write them.

I looked at filmed interviews, including I forget how many hours of out-takes from Tony Palmer&rsqu