Symphony for the City of the Dead - Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad

M.T. Anderson

Candlewick Press

2015

464 páginas

15h 28m

ISBN-10: 0763668184

National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson delivers a brilliant and riveting account of the Siege of Leningrad and the role played by Russian composer Shostakovich and his Leningrad Symphony.
In September 1941, Adolf Hitler s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history almost three years of bombardment and starvation that culminated in the harsh winter of 1943 1944. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets, their relatives having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Residents burned books, furniture, and floorboards to keep warm; they ate family pets and eventually one another to stay alive. Trapped between the Nazi invading force and the Soviet government itself was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who would write a symphony that roused, rallied, eulogized, and commemorated his fellow citizens the "Leningrad" Symphony, which came to occupy a surprising place of prominence in the eventual Allied victory.
This is the true story of a city under siege: the triumph of bravery and defiance in the face of terrifying odds. It is also a look at the power and layered meaning of music in beleaguered lives. "Symphony for the City of the Dead "is a masterwork thrillingly told and impeccably researched by National Book Award winning author M. T. Anderson."

Resenhas (1)

5 (Perfeito)

Uma história tocante e inimaginável. Um trabalho impecável.

A primeira biografia que li, me marcou e que sempre irei recordar. Me ensinou muito sobre história, governos, políticos, sobre dor e censura.

Esse livro lhe da oportunidade de ver o que artistas passaram no século passado na Russia em busca de liberdade e força. Músicos, compositores, escritores, diretores, poetas...deram sua vida para espalhar sua arte que foi dada o valor que merecia. A eles lhe devo respeito, pois foram e são verdadeiros heróis.

Aprendi muito através da vida de Dmitri Shostakovich. Um compositor e pianista que passou por muito para se manter vivo.