Who Was Shostakovich?
To his fellow citizens he was a great artist and a patriot. In the West he was seen first as an anti-fascist hero, then as a Soviet toady, and later as a dissident. To critics and musicians he was either a keeper of the symphonic flame or a clumsy provincial who was debasing musical values. To our author he is not only the greatest Soviet composer but the greatest Soviet artist of all, and the creator of what may turn out to be the twentieth century’s most precious artistic legacy—precisely because his music can never be fully understood