Dmitri Shostakovich Citations
Dmitri Shostakovich: Citations en anglais
From an article in Sovetskoye Iskusstvo, November 5, 1934; translation from Laurel Fay Shostakovich: A Life (2000) p. 77.
“What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.”
Page 229
Testimony (1979)
“If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.”
Said to Isaac Glikman, 1936; cited from Laurel Fay Shostakovich: A Life (2000) p. 92.
In conversation with Isaac Glikman, July 4, 1966; Josiah Fisk & Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (1997) p. 355.
Letter to Isaac Glikman, August 28, 1955; Josiah Fisk & Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (1997) p. 364.
Letter to Isaac Glikman, February 26, 1960; Josiah Fisk & Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (1997) p. 354.
"The Power of Music" (1964), translated in Music Journal, September 1965, p. 37.
“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.”
Page 175
Testimony (1979)
In conversation with Flora Litvinova, 1970; cited from Elizabeth Wilson Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (1994) pp. 425-6.
In discussion with an opera audience, January 14, 1930; cited from Laurel Fay Shostakovich: A Life (2000) p. 55.
“It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.”
Page 8
Of his Eleventh Symphony.
Testimony (1979)
"The Power of Music" (1964), translated in Music Journal, September 1965, p. 37.
Quoted in Lord Harewood The Tongs and the Bones (1981) p. 133.
“The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.”
Page 156
Testimony (1979)
New York Times, December 20, 1931.
Robert Craft, journal entry for October 1, 1962; published in Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft Dialogues and Diary (1968) pp. 291-2.
Michael Kennedy The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (1980) p. 593.