"A Shostakovich Casebook" brings together 25 essays, interviews, newspaper articles, and reviews - many newly available since the collapse of the Soviet Union - to create a volume of essential reading and cutting-edge scholarship in Russian music studies. The contributors include Malcolm H. Brown, Laurel Fay, Irina Antonovna Shostakovich, and Richard Taruskin. Malcolm Hamrick Brown is founding editor of the series "Russian Music Studies". From the time he was a graduate-exchange student at the Moscow Conservatory in 1962, he has been continuously involved in teaching, lecturing, writing, and publishing on Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet music.

Reviews

"The book ... includes ... valuable essays and interviews, which move beyond the scholarly controversy to sketch a nuanced picture of Shostakovich's life under a totalitarian regime... The 'Casebook' contributors compellingly warn of replacing one mask with another, one black-and-white myth with its simple inversion." --New York Times "... an important and readable collection... It presents a devastating critique of Volkov's claims and scholarly practices in Testimony." --New York Review of Books "The book ... includes ... valuable essays and interviews, which move beyond the scholarly controversy to sketch a nuanced picture of Shostakovich's life under a totalitarian regime... The "Casebook" contributors compellingly warn of replacing one mask with another, one black-and-white myth with its simple inversion."-- New York Times "...an important and readable collection... It presents a devastating critique of Volkov's claims and scholarly practices in Testimony ." --New York Review of Books "...this book achieves what it sets out to do ... As a work of scholarship, it is consistently first-rate." --CAML Review "The entire Casebook consists of essays focusing directly or indirectly on Testimony, and almost all destroy Volkov's credibility with compelling authority." --New Leader "What a pleasure to read so many intelligent essays." --American Record Guide "[A Shostakovich Casebook] presents the views of respected individuals, some of whom knew Dmitri Dmitrievich personally. I believe their opinions are very important, and I am grateful for their publication in this book." -- Mstislav Rostropovich "A Shostakovich Casebook is more then than merely the latest salvo to be fired in the 'Shostakovich Wars'. It is the decisive knockout punch, and deserves a place on the bookshelf of those who want to learn about Shostakovich's music, life and times."--S.E.E.R., 85, 1, 2007