How Shostakovich Changed My Mind
by Johnson, Stephen
- Used
- first
- Condition
- Fine, as new.
- ISBN 10
- 1910749451
- ISBN 13
- 9781910749456
- Seller
-
Maidenhead, Berkshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Honiton: Notting Hill editions, 2018. 1st. h/b. Fine, as new.. 12mo (190 x 130 / 7_"" x 5""). BBC music broadcaster Stephen Johnson explores the power of Shostakovich's music during Stalin's reign of terror, and writes of the extraordinary healing effect of music on sufferers of mental illness. Johnson looks at neurological, psychotherapeutic and philosophical findings, and reflects on his own experience, where he believes Shostakovich's music helped him survive the trials and assaults of bipolar disorder.'There's something about hearing your most painful emotions transformed into something beautiful...' The old Russian who uttered those words spoke for countless fellow survivors of Stalin's reign of terror. And the 'something beautiful' he had in mind was the music of Dmitri Shostakovich.Yet there is no escapism, no false consolation in Shostakovich's greatest music: this is some of the darkest, saddest, at times bitterest music ever composed. So why do so many feel grateful to Shostakovich for having created it - not just Russians, but westerners like Stephen Johnson, brought up in a very different, far safer kind of society? How is it that music that reflects pain, fear and desolation can help sufferers find - if not a way out, then a way to bear these feelings and ultimately rediscover pleasure in existence? Johnson draws on interviews with the members of the orchestra who performed Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony during the siege of Leningrad, during which almost a third of the population starved to death. In the end, this book is a reaffirmation of a kind of humanist miracle: that hope could be reborn in a time when, to quote the writer Nadezhda Mandelstam, there was only 'Hope against Hope'.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Inklings & Yarnspinners (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- IYC132963
- Title
- How Shostakovich Changed My Mind
- Author
- Johnson, Stephen
- Format/Binding
- H/b
- Book Condition
- New
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 1st
- ISBN 10
- 1910749451
- ISBN 13
- 9781910749456
- Publisher
- Notting Hill editions
- Place of Publication
- Honiton
- Date Published
- 2018
- Pages
- 155
- Size
- 12mo (190 x 130 / 7_"" x 5"")
- Keywords
- 1st, memoir, autobiography, Shostakovich, Johnson, pocket
- Bookseller catalogs
- 2nd-hand books;
- X weight
- 0.21 g
Terms of Sale
Inklings & Yarnspinners
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Inklings & Yarnspinners
Biblio member since 2021
Maidenhead, Berkshire
About Inklings & Yarnspinners
INKLINGS & YARNSPINNERSA new online bookshop forFIRST & SIGNED EDITIONS, RARE BOOKSA particular focus on:- The Oxford Inklings with their Friends & Influences (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield, Williams, Chesterton, Macdonald, Sayers, etc)- Great 20th Century Novelists (e.g. Graham Greene & John le Carré; Anthony Powell & Evelyn Waugh; P. D. James etc)- Great 20th Century Poets (e.g. T. S. Eliot, John Masefield, Walter de la Mare, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Stevie Smith, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Dylan Thomas, etc)- Christian Theology (e.g. from library sales)
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- 12mo
- A duodecimo is a book approximately 7 by 4.5 inches in size, or similar in size to a contemporary mass market paperback. Also...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...