Heard Tatiana Nikolayeva play the Preludes and Fugues thirty years ago and it has stayed with me as one of my great musical experiences. I have read about them and the period but this video was illuminating. Thank you!
Painstakingly so, though. Would have done it sooner had Stalin not murdered everyone involved in trying to make the army stronger in regards to firearms. I would say Shostakovich prevailed despite the Soviet Union, in any case.
@@snorefest1621 Yeah man. It's really amazing that Shostakovich was somehow not murdered or jailed or tortured or sent a labour camp or... You get the point. Most of his friends did. I just feel so bad about the whole thing because while we did get really important art from the Soviet Union, it's tortured art, it's made by starving musicians, people that had the privilege of being considered vital to culture but also pressure immensely because of that.
I would agree with you but only if you allow me to alter your use of the word 'thing' to describe a person, when nouns come in 3 flavors (persons, places, and things). It would be so like the Soviet single-party dictatorship to relegate "person" status to the status of a mere "thing", and there is no doubt that the CCCP tried hard to hammer and sickle all the person-ness out of DSCH and render him into the merest fragment of what was once a man and now is only a slavish pair of hands to exploit for whatever 5 Year Plan happens to be in effect at any given time. It is one of the great miracles of the 20th Century that the CCCP did not succeed in that malevolent endeavor.
And what's wrong with that? I've heard plenty of performances by musicians who play music that's not really close to them... (I'm thinking of a certain French-oriented conductor trying to perform some German repertoire when it's obvious he's almost allergic to it...)
At 0:47 Shosty (I call him Shosty sometimes because he's lovable) lights the filter end of his cigarette. I think all smokers do that once in awhile. But also it's dark, his eyesight isn't great, and he's probably nervous being out in public.
@@na-kun2136 Correct. And for all those readers who might be getting a bit confused by the name "Georgia", we're talking here about the country on the flank of Russia, and definitely NOT the U.S. state. LOL. Although one can argue that the U.S. state of Georgia is currently in danger of falling into a kind of political subservience not unlike that of a former SSR with regard to the U.S. Republican Party's unethical and frankly unconstitutional heavy-handed suppression of fair and open elections in that particular "Red" state.
