“In response to a plea in early 1941 from his colleague and friend, the writer Marietta Shaginyan, who was newly infatuated with the Piano Quintet and its creator, Mickhail Zoshchenko drafted for her a portrait of the Shostakovich he knew,… — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment – and the subtlest nuances and interplay of these feelings which words are powerless to express and… — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something. — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over. — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
I don't know what will become of this piece. Our brave critics will no doubt charge me with imitating Ravel's Bolero. Too bad -… — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
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… — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don't succeed, I consider it my own fault. — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. In his 15 symphonies, 15 quartets, and in other works he demonstrated mastery of the… — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I… — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true! — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music. — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward. — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on… — Dmitri Shostakovich Copy Share Image
