![]() | Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets A new biography of Shostakovich that views him through the intimate music of his string quartets Wendy Lesser has constructed a fascinating narrative in which the fifteen quartets, considered one at a time in chronological order, lead the reader through the personal, political, and professional events that shaped Shostakovich's singular, emblematic twentieth-century life. Weaving together interviews with the composer's friends, family, and colleagues, as well as conversations with present-day musicians who have played the quartets, Lesser sheds new light on the man and the musician. One of the very few books about Shostakovich that is aimed at a general rather than an academic audience, Music for Silenced Voices is a pleasure to read; at the same time, it is rigorously faithful to the known facts in this notoriously complicated life. It will fill readers with the desire to hear the quartets, which are among the most compelling and emotionally powerful monuments of the past century's music. Wendy Lesser , the editor of The Threepenny Review , is the author of seven previous nonfiction books and one novel. She divides her year between Berkeley and New York. |
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