22 May 2006

Shostakovich: Settling old Soviet scores

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article549667.ece

Stalin denounced Shostakovich's opera but had a soft spot for his ballet. Now the Kirov wants to take the politics out of the music. David Lister reports

[Independent, 22 May 2006]

The relationship between the great 20th-century Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and the dictator Joseph Stalin was a complex one, and is still sometimes misunderstood.