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In 1936 when Muddle Instead Of Music was published Shostakovich started a scrap book of press clippings to follow what the media was saying about him. In the same spirit, this is an attempt to put together as many of such media articles I can find on the web, as a resource for friends and researchers. If you have any articles not found on this list, do send it in to contact_chloh@
yahoo.com
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| 2004 - 02 | 2001 |2000 |1999 | 1990 to
1998 | 1989 and
earlier - Miscellaneous
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| 6/08/04 |
Ross, Alex - The New Yorker 
Unauthorized
Sounds like an American popcorn thriller, and nearly reads the same: "If Shostakovich had known what was going to be printed under his name, he might have hated Volkov with a passion that not even Joseph Stalin inspired in him." Cue thunder and lightning effect.
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| 12/07/04 |
Mitchinson, Paul - www.andante.com
Wishful Thinking
"Paradoxically, one possible reason why Shostakovich has assumed such an exalted position among the intelligentsia is because of his cowardice." Peppered with gems such as these Mitchinson brings discussion on Shostakovich back to the Stone Age.
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| July 04 |
Ross, Alex - www.therestisnoise.com
Free Shostakovich!
Ross's blogsite article on why Casebook remains his favourite bedtime reader
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| June 04 |
Loh, CH - Options2, The Edge (Malaysia)
The Sound Of Conscience
The KL Edge reviews Volkov's "Shostakovich and Stalin". Why doesn't CH review this together with MH Brown's Casebook like most other decent reviewers? Only because IUP made the wise decision to avoid sending this pro-Volkovite lemming a copy.
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| 13/06/04 |
Page, Tim - Washington Post
His Master's Voice
"Invective is slung, nits are picked, and a certain strain of distinctly academic ferocity is indulged." A sample of the profundity of Washington Post's review of Casebook and Shostakovich & Stalin.
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| May 04 |
Loeffler, James - www.nextbook.org
Hidden Sympathies
This I have none for the writer. James Loeffler makes fence-sitting an art form and tosses off inaccuracies without a conscience. But hey, isn't that what great journalism is all about, Oy!
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| 10/04/04 |
Rothstein, Edward - New York Times
Where Music May Owe Stalin a Little Credit
I vote this "stupid title of the Year". Try this one for laughs: "[Muddle Instead Of Music] succeeded in shedding unexpected light on an individual work while also making such forceful points.."
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| 24/03/04 |
Lebrecht, Norman - La Scena Musicale
The Fight for Shostakovich
Lebrecht reflects on the auspicious release of Indiana University Press' "Shostakovich Casebook". Love him or hate him, the man makes valid points. |
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Sept 01
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Collected
Press Clippings - various
Lady Macbeth
Sees The World
Shostakovich's
operatic genius is once again seeing the light of day in opera houses
around the world.
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17/04/01
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Pasles,
Chris - LA Times
Emerson Quartet
Conveys Shostakovich's Power
Review of Emerson
Quartet's Shostakovich concerts.
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4/5/01
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Kimberly,
Nick - The Independent
Shostakovich's
brave new world
Who could make a
frothy operetta out of a Soviet housing scandal? The composer who,
according to opera director David Pountney, could have been the 20th
century's Verdi. Nick Kimberley discovers a very modern operatic
genius
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??
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McBurney,
Gerard - www.indexoncensorship.org
Surviving
Stalin
McBurney talks to Judith Hall about
Shostakovich
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12/1/01
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Loomis,
George - Moscow Times.com
Lady Macbeth
Gets Her Way At Last
Compared with the
revision Shostakovich made after Stalin's death, the original is more
forthright in its eroticism
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31/10/00
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Fairclough,
Pauline -
Guardian
Concert
Review
Review of Lazarev's Glasgow
Concert
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31/10/00
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Sandow,
Greg - Wall Street Journal
A Russian Poet
Offers His Take On the Real Shostakovich
"Yevgeny Yevtushenko -- the weathered, haunted, extravagant
Russian poet -- is telling me stories he's surely told many times before."
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30/10/00
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Tumelty,
Michael - Glasgow Herald
At Last, The Score
Is Settled
"In the end, wisdom prevailed. And
Shostakovich, the composer, won the battle. The international symposium on
Shostakovich, held in Glasgow ..."
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Wilson,
Conrad - Glasgow
Herald
Russian Giant Faces A Counter Revolution
"When the
British decide to place a composer on a pedestal, we can be sure that
someone - also British - will invariably try to knock him off it"
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Sept 00
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Michael
Tumelty - Glasgow Herald
Behind the
monarch's mask
Alexander Lazarev:
" ... Prokofiev was strong. He didn't admit to any guilt. ... But
Shostakovich?" - Lazarev has only "nice" things to say.
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Volkov,
Solomon - New York Times
Letter to
NYT
Volkov responds to Irina Shostakovich's letter
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Shostakovich,
Irina - New York Times (NYT)
An Answer to Those Who
Still Abuse Shostakovich
The composer's widow comments on the
Shostakovich debate
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Kinetz,
Erika - The American Prospect
The Rehabilitations Of
Shostakovich
"Shostakovich's music has spawned a cottage industry of
noise; journalists, academics, and critics have provided listeners with a
deafening rattle of interpretation"
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Ashkenazy,
Vladimir - Financial Times
Papa, what if they hang
you for this?
"Had the West, guided by Soviet propaganda, not
thought of Shostakovich as a "loyal son" of the Soviet Union, this
controversy would never have arisen"
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June '00
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Paul
Mitchinson - Lingua Franca
The
Shostakovich Variations (Excerpt)
Down with the literal paraphrasts,
whoever they may be.
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19/05/00
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Philip
Kennicott - Washington Post
The
Shostakovich Variations (Excerpt)
Down with the literal paraphrasts,
whoever they may be.
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05/00
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Daniel
Jaffe - The Independent on Sunday (UK)
Emerson
Quartet's Shostakovich Cycle
Review of the concert of the complete
cycle. "It really has become like an historical event," says Emerson
violinist Philip SeIzer.
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Driver, Paul - Sunday Times
Review of Fay's "A
Life"
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7/04/00
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Fred
Mazelis - World Socialist Website
Clarifying a
confused debate
Confusing or clarifying? A fine
example of the dangers of the journalism-in-a-can approach to Shostakovich
commentary.
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Letter
- NYT
'Babi
Yar' Troubles -
A reader's letter to
NYT
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12/3/00
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Vulliamy,
Ed - The Observer
Savaged messiah
Review of Fay's "A Life"
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9/3/00
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Holland,
Bernard - NYT
Great Music Isn't Necessarily Made by Great People
"A
postscript on the Shostakovich month just past and a caution: You can like
the music; you don't have to like the man."
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Taruskin, Richard -
NYT
Will 21st Century Be Shostakovich's?
Taruskin says
some nice things about Shostakovich for a change.
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5/3/00
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Taruskin,
Richard - NYT
Casting a Great Composer as a Fictional Hero
Taruskin "reflect[s] at leisure on [Shostakovich's] stature as
musician and, alas, as the object of a cult." Zoological observations not
included
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2/3/00
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Ross,
Alex - New Yorker
Ruined Choirs: How did Shostakovich's Music survive Stalin's
Russia
Or, how would
Shostakovich survive intelligent articles like this one
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March
2000
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Bernstein,
Tamara - National Post
Shostakovich in shades
of grey: Have revisionists kidnapped the memory of the Russian
composer?
Interview with Fay: "He was a brilliant, brilliant man --
talented beyond anything that most of us can imagine. .... On the other
hand, he was a wuss."
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March
2000
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MacDonald,
Ian - post to DSCH List
Unpublished Letter to
Gramophone
"In his review .... David Gutman refers, as if
scornfully, to 'revisionist orthodoxy concerning the Eighth
Quartet...."
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14/2/00
Top
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Eichler,
Jeremy - The Nation
Was It Good Party
Music?
Review of Shostakovcich: A life
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2/2/00
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Horowitz, Joseph - NYT
Shostakovich: A Moral
Beacon Amid the Darkness of a Tragic Era
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7/1/00
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Lebrecht,
Norman - The Daily Telegraph
Russian roulette
Review of Fay's Shostakovich: A Life
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7/1/00
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Kettle,
Martin - Guardian
Dissident Notes
What Shostakovich is really all
about
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2/1/00
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Robsinson,
Harlow - NYT
A Bitter Music: Was Shostakovich a loyal Soviet artist or a
closet dissident?
Review of Shostakovcich: A
life
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Dec 99
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Taruskin,
Richard - NYT
Letter to the Editor
Criticism of Terry Teachout's
Commentary article
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Dec
99
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Teachout,
Terry - NYT
Letter to the Editor
Reply to Taruskin's letter
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Oct
1999
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Terry
Teachout - Commentary
The Composer and the
Commissars
"Testimony will henceforth be generally acknowledged as
what Volkov has always said it was: the autobiography of Dmitri
Shostakovich." - Review of Shostakovich Reconsidered
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1999
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Dyer,
David - ??
Book Review
Shostakovich Reconsidered
reviewed
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29/11/98
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Chris
Pasles - LA Times
Was He Or
Wasn't He?
The Soviets claimed Dmitri Shostakovich as a true
believer; others say he was secretly a dissident. The answer may lie in
his work.
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2/11/98
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Oestreich, James R - NYT
Still in Debate:
Shostakovich, Loyal Son or Not?
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2/11/98
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Bernstein, Tamara - National Post
Memoirs in the wrong
key
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17/10/98
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Rothstein, Edward - NYT
Sly Dissident or Soviet
Tool? A War Over Shostakovich Memoirs
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Sept
98
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Fanning,
David - BBC Music Magazine
Testimony or Travesty
Fanning vents vitriol on "Shostakovich Reconsidered." Includes
reply
by authors Allan Ho and Dmitry Feofanov.
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22/6/98
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Amiel,
Barbara - Maclean's
Lingering questions
about a musical giant
Barbara Amiel's amazing insight: "If Slava
couldn't hear [Suliko], I'd say it wasn't there!"
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8/5/98
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Oestreich James R - NYT
Hearing Bach and
Shostakovich in Conversation
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14/4/96
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Fay,
Laurel - NYT
The Composer Was Courageous, But Not As Much As In
Myth
On the cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry:
Shostakovich.sure
picked the wrong folk!
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Feb
95
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Taruskin,
Richard - Atlantic Monthly
Who Was
Shostakovich?
"Beware of loving friends. They can be jealous
guardians" - on Glikman's Letters to a Friend.
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6/11/94
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Taruskin,
Richard - NYT
A Martyred Opera Reflects Its Abominable Time
".. it
remains, at the profoundest musical level, a profoundly inhumane work of
art," - on Lady Macbeth, and the infamous missing
comma
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March
1992
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Libby,
Ted - Absolute Sound
Keeper Of The
Flame
"For as the Twentieth Century nears its end, it is likelier
than ever that Dmitri Shostakovich will be regarded as its patron musical
saint.
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20/3/89
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Taruskin,
Richard - New Republic
The Opera And The
Dictator
"In the days following Dmitri Shostakovich's burial in
August 1975, a story went around Moscow of a bearded stranger: - on
Testimony and the opera Lady Macbeth
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9/11/81
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UNKOWN
- US News & World Report
Exodus of Artists Leaves
Russians ''More Alone''
Interview With Maxim
Shostakovich
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28/1/36
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UNKOWN
- Pravda
"Muddle Instead of Music''
The infamous article that
signalled Shostakovich's downfall.
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Miscellaneous articles and papers
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SPEAKINGOFSHOSTAKOVICH...