VALERY GERGIEV E SHOSTAKOVICH

Gergiev Offers Shostakovich Without Politics: Norman Lebrecht
By Norman Lebrecht
Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A new schism has opened in the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich.

"In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, you could tell a conductor's politics from the way he shaped the music. Party lackeys played the symphonies like paeans of praise to the Marxist dream while musicians who worked closely with the composer -- Kurt Sanderling, Mstislav Rostropovich, Kirill Kondrashin, among others -- brought out buried ironies and coded inflexions to suggest their opposition to state tyranny. "