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Sinfonia Leningrado (2011)

by Sarah Quigley(Favorite Author)

3.82 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

8854505900 (ISBN13: 9788854505902)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Neri Pozza

review 1: Quigley takes HUGE license with her fictional interpretation of Shostakovich and his interactions with his colleagues in a changing Russia. However, the central character in the book, the conductor, is an interesting figure and Quigley develops his character in a sympathetic way that certainly kept my interest fanned throughout. Once I divorced my mind from thinking of the "real" Shostakovich and the Shostakovich portrayed in this book, I began to enjoy it better.
review 2: Set during the siege of Leningrad, Quigley's powerful and enthralling novel focuses on the character of Karl Eliasberg, the conductor who managed to assemble an audience of half-starved musicians from the city's desperate inhabitants and coax from them a performance of Shostakovich's newly... more-composed seventh symphony. This performance, broadcast on loudspeakers to defenders and assailants alike, would come to stand for the resilience of the Leningrad people under the most extreme privation.Eliasberg is a man tortured by lack of confidence and low self-esteem. Yet in in the pursuit of a task so utterly demanding that there is scarcely time for him to drag his mother's corpse to the frozen cemetery, and no time at all to tell his friends and colleagues of her death, he manages to find a redemptive strength and purpose.All the characters in this novel are powerfully drawn - they are, after all, individuals under the most extreme stress, inhabiting the very margins of existence; and behind them lurks the overwhelming personality of Leningrad, a city where bombs and artillery fall like rain and where the melting snow of Spring reveals dead bodies that have been partly cannabalised by the starving inhabitants.Despite its often cerebral concerns, this novel manages to be a real page turner. I was scarcely able to think about anything else until I reached the end. less

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