More from Dmitri Shostakovich

  1. I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders. I suffer for everyone…
  2. Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it, it's multifaceted, it can appear to be happy…
  3. People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destro…
  4. I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It's as if s…
  5. It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.
  6. 'I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don't succeed, I consider it my own fault.'
  7. What do you think of Puccini? [ Britten: 'I think his operas are dreadful.' ] No, Ben, you are wrong. He wrote marvellous operas, but dread…
  8. ' Rimsky-Korsakov used to say that he refused to acknowledge any complaints from composers about their hard lot in life. He explained his p…

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