About this item
Dmitri Shostakovich is without a doubt one of the central composers of the 20th century. His symphonies and string quartets are mainstays of the repertoire. But Shostakovich is also a figure whose story raises challenging and exciting issues that go far beyond music: they touch on questions of conscience, the moral role of the artist, the plight of humanity in the face of total war and mass oppression, and the inner life of history's bloodiest century. And though he was not without flaws, he was a faithful witness to the survival of the human spirit under totalitarianism. And now you can discover the extraordinary life, times, and music of Shostakovich in a probing series of eight lectures from an acclaimed conductor, teacher, and music historian. Drawing on both the flood of declassified documents from the Soviet Union that began in 1991 and Shostakovich's own extraordinarily frank posthumous reminiscences, Professor Greenberg shows how Shostakovich, who, in the words of a friend, "did not want to rot in a prison or a graveyard" was still unwilling to become a docile instrument of the Soviet regime.
About the Author
Robert Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1954, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1978. Greenberg received a BA in music, magna cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976. His principal teachers at Princeton were Edward Cone, Daniel Werts, and Carlton Gamer in composition, Claudio Spies and Paul Lansky in analysis, and Jerry Kuderna in piano. In 1984, Greenberg received a Ph.D. in music composition, With Distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley, where his principal teachers were Andrew Imbrie and Olly Wilson in composition and Richard Felciano in analysis.Greenberg has composed over fifty works for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal ensembles. Performances of his works have taken place in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, England, Ireland, Greece, Italy and The Netherlands, where his Child's Play for String Quartet was performed at the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam. Greenberg has received numerous commissions and awards. His music is published by Sheet Music Plus, Fallen Leaf Press and CPP/Belwin, and has been recorded on the Innova label. A number of his recent works can be seen/heard on his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/robertgreenbergmusic.Greenberg has performed, taught and lectured extensively across North America and Europe. He is currently music historian-in-residence with San Francisco Performances, where he has lectured and performed since 1994. For fifteen years Greenberg was the resident composer and music historian to National Public Radio's "Weekend All Things Considered" and "Weekend Edition, Sunday" with Liane Hansen.Since 1993, Greenberg has recorded nearly 650 lectures on subjects musical for The Great Courses, formerly The Teaching Company. Available on both CD and DVD formats and in book form, the courses have garnered wide praise. His webTV show, "Scandalous Overtures", can be seen on Ora.TV. Greenberg's book, How to Listen to Great Music, was published by Plume, a division of Penguin Books, in April, 2011. His webcourses "Mozart in Vienna" (16 lectures) and "The Music of the Twentieth Century" (18 lecturers) can be sampled and purchased on his website at RobertGreenbergMusic.com.In February 2003, The Bangor Daily News (Maine) referred to Greenberg as being the Elvis of music appreciation, an appraisal that has given more pleasure than any other.Robert Greenberg is a Steinway Artist.For more information (as if this wasn't enough!) , or to read my weekly blog "Music History Monday", or to sample my webcourses please visit my website at RobertGreenbergMusic.com.
