Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, one of the mainstays of the twentieth-century orchestral repertory, ends with an unapologetic display of musical bombast. The coda consists of thirty-five ...

The musical and political strands of Dmitri Shostakovich’s life were intertwined like the braids of a noose. Dmitri Shostakovich was a coward. Or at least the great Soviet composer admitted as much to ...

Dmitri Shostakovich became one of the Soviet Union’s most famous composers while living under the constant threat of Stalin’s ...

Benjamin O’Mahony will star as Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich in the world premiere of Holy Fool. The new play by ...

The Spanish quartet are recording all 15 of Shostakovich’s string quartets, this opening volume features the first five, all given refined performances The first volume in the Cuarteto Casals’ survey ...

When guns speak, the muses keep silent, says an old Russian proverb. Last winter, as he listened to the roar of German artillery and watched the sputtering of German incendiaries from the roof of ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Throughout Shostakovich’s lifetime the most familiar recordings of his symphonies were made by Soviet ...

In this immensely powerful wartime symphony, Shostakovich looks beyond the anguish of violence, in search of hope and renewal. During the summer of 1943, Shostakovich worked on his Eighth Symphony at ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...