Shostakovich Reconsidered by Allan B. Ho. That proves Testimony at least not necessarily incorrect, if not proving it firmly correct.
Most of Testimony (the bits that are not controversial in it) are just plagiarised directly from Shosta early in his life with dates removed.
As for Testimony, Maxim Shostakovich had publically stated that the book is essentially correct, despite some flaws in the details. Several other authors have likewise defended the book
So someone who needs Shosta to be popular (to make money) is promoting his fathers works in ways that keeps it popular? Amazing. And how come Shostakovich's wife's accusations on Testimony are irrelevant? There is no evidence that Volkov met (at
least more than once) Shostakovich apart from Volkov's own admission, How come Volkov has refused to answer any questions about the plagiarism or the huge amounts of inconsistencies in it?
oversimplifications of opposing viewpoints into something you can easily ridicule?
I agree, they were simplified - I used simpler words! Also, try looking up the actual deffinition of ad hominem, because none of that quote of yours (of me) had any argument to the man - at all!
But there's a big difference between a Hollywood blacklist and death by firing squad.
I agree, and when there is any evidence that Shosta of under any threat of that I will come to your side. Please note, that Testimony is not evidence. It is completely unverified anecdotal evidence - it could be true, but like existence of a god, until there is actual evidence I am not going to believe it.
Also please pardon my spelling (I think I got confused with Mahler's wife), I mean Elmer Bernstein -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Bernstein#Politics
(Even the most conservative estimates place the number of executions in 1937 and 1938 at nearly 1,000 per day.)
Well, the most conservative of the extreme right at any-rate.
" six prominent Soviet composers, all former students and friends of Shostakovich, declare that Solomon Volkov" - of course, by default, if they are Soviet composers, they are lying - so clearly this means nothing.
"Volkov saw Dmitrich three or maybe four times. ... He was never an intimate friend of the family-he never had dinner with us here, for instance.... I don't see how he could have gathered enough material from Dmitrich for such a thick book" - But is wife is also clearly biased, we should believe his son who has ulterior motives.
"Simon Karlinsky has pointed out two passages in Testimony which are verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions of memoirs previously published by Shostakovich" and " I have identified, so far, five additional extensive passages in the book which, likewise, are taken from previous- ly published Soviet sources."
"Careful comparison of the original passages with their counterparts in Testimony indicate that some significant alterations have been made. In several instances, sentences which would date the reminiscences have been altered or removed from the variants in the book."
"I wrote my Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad," very quickly. I couldn't not write it. War was all around. I had to be together with the people. I wanted to create the image of our country at war, to engrave it in music.
From the first days of the war I sat down at the piano and began to work. I worked intensely. I wanted to write a work about are days, about my contemporaries who spared neither stregnth nor life in the name of victory over the enemy" - Testimony pp. 154-155 (Apparently Shosta has an unbelievable memory) -
AND "Kak rozhdaetsia muzyka" pp. 36
Yes two pages later:
"The Seventh Symphony had been planned before the war and con- sequently it simply cannot be seen as a reaction to Hitler's attack. The "invasion theme" has nothing to do with the attack. I was thinking of other enemies of humanity when I composed the theme." - Let's all just believe Shosta was senile maybe?
" Indeed, Volkov states explicitly, "This is how we worked. We sat down at a table ... then I began asking questions, which he answered briefly, and, at first, reluctantly. ... I divided up the collected material into sustained sections . . . then I showed these sections to Shostakovich, who approved my work" - Yet they are word for word from published soviet writings.
"...the first pages of seven out of the eight chapters of Testimony, the pages on which Shostakovich's inscription "Read. D. Shostakovich" is alleged to appear, consist substantially, if not totally of material which had already appeared in print under Shostakovich's name at the time of signing."
Amazing also how, when he talked with Shosta, it was... "...usually early in the morning, when the office was still empty" (p. xvii). In other words, there were no witnesses.
The book is too full of holes and other problems to be regarded as anything NEAR the memoirs of Shosta, and until ANY evidence is found that proves Testimony correct, it is merely Western propaganda.