This may not be the timeliest moment to proclaim Russia’s creative superiority, but the musical facts are incontrovertible. Over the past century, Russia has produced most of the world’s outstanding ...

Performances in N.Y.C. Advertisement Supported by “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” by Dmitri Shostakovich, a tale of love and betrayal once banned in Soviet Russia, is returning to the Metropolitan Opera. By ...

Note: While much if not all of this story is true, some details originate in Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov. This book, while possibly the ...

The new nationalistic Soviet anthem (TIME, Jan. 3) was widely played in the U.S. last week. No sooner had the music been published in the U.S. press than U.S. orchestra leaders fell all over ...

Russia’s composers had spoken their apologies for their past sins of “formalism” and “bourgeois ideology,” and promised they would try harder to stay in the right key. Last week, the big brass of the ...