The New Shostakovich

Party stalwart or secret dissenter? A major reassessment of the life, works, and politics of the Soviet Union's greatest composer by one of our best music critics.

One of the best biographies of Dmitri Shostakovich I have read

Compelling ... a portrait of a creative artist tormented and harried by the random assaults of Stalinism

Persuasively argued and forceful ... A valid, politically driven reconsideration of the composer's works

With passionate integrity, MacDonald fastidiously builds a case to rival the most compellingly labyrinthine detective investigation. Now the great music of Shostakovich will be heard anew

Anyone concerned with Soviet music, twentieth-century music, arts in politics, and politics in art, will be interested in this book

Fascinating ... Manages, better than any previous publication, to make connections between Shostakovich's work and the works of other Soviet artists whom he admired and was influenced by

A considerable tour de force of musical and social analysis which will hold its own for some time to come

The best biography of the composer available... has broken new ground by fusing biography with political analysis. A formal lesson to Western writers on post-1917 Russia, whether their subject is music or life itself

Superb ... This compassionate and very knowledgeable book is humbling in its understanding of how far an individual can be pushed by the coercive forces of a grotesque, perhaps insane, authority

Ian MacDonald was born in 1948. A writer of many interests, he was Assistant Editor of the New Musical Express during 1972-5. He also worked as a songwriter and record producer, and is the author of Revolution in the Head (1994;1997; 2005), The People's Music (2003) and The Beatles at No. 1 (2003). He died in 2003.

Who was Dmitri Shostakovich? The USSR's official figurehead composer and son of the revolution that brought the Soviet state into being, or a secret dissident whose contempt for the totalitarian regime was scathing? Perhaps both? 
 
Since the posthumous publication in 1979 of alleged memoirs by Shostakovich, the controversy about the composer and his music has escalated into the most rancorous debate the world of classical music has ever known. Ian MacDonald's The New Shostakovich presents the case for the dissident view, arguing passionately that the meaning of the composer's music cannot be fully appreciated without a knowledge of the terrible times he and his fellow artists lived through under Soviet Communism. 
 
A widely read and critically acclaimed book in the 1990s, this new edition has been comprehensively revised, extensively corrected, and updated with much new material. Whichever side of the debate readers support, The New Shostakovich presents them with a viewpoint which cannot be ignored.

Selected Journalism

The People's Music

The very best pieces from the UK's finest rock journalist.

A triumph - compelling, seductive, delightful

An unprecedented critical feat... The most powerful and enlightening work on British pop since Jon Savage's England's Dreaming

No book has ever taken us closer to the actual music of The Beatles... A brilliant piece of work

The most sustainedly brilliant piece of pop criticism and scholarship for years. Essential

Ian MacDonald was born in 1948. A writer with many interests, he was Assistant Editor of the New Musical Express during 1972-5. He has also worked as a songwriter and record producer, and is the author of The New Shostakovich, The People's Music and The Beatles at No. 1.He died in 2003.

From the author of the acclaimed Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald takes us on a journey through the music of the sixties and seventies. Starting with one of the most important assessments of Bob Dylan to appear in print for many years, these essays range from the psychedelia of the Beatles and the rebellion of the Rolling Stones to the political activism of John Lennon, the 'dark doings' of David Bowie and the spiritual quest of Nick Drake. In the central essay of this collection, The People's Music, MacDonald argues that the emergence of the Beatles in the early sixties changed the world of music for ever, as the power in the industry shifted to the audience. 
 
Combining a close reading of the music with a detailed understanding of the times, this collection confirms Ian MacDonald's reputation as one of Britain's most important music journalists. Enlightening and entertaining, The People's Music is music writing as its best.

Ian Macdonald

Books by Ian Macdonald

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