Keeping Score - Shostakovich. Sfs/tilson Thomas (b

San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas

Keeping Score - Shostakovich: Symphony No.5 (Blu-Ray)

Shostakovich may have hidden a subversive cipher beneath the surface of his life-saving Symphony No. 5. This is all the more shocking since another bad review from Stalin's totalitarian forces could have meant a sentence to the Gulag or worse. After his opera Lady Macbeth was publically condemned as immoral by Pravda, the Soviet newspaper, Shostakovich knew he had only one chance to redeem himself. When he penned this fifth symphony, the composer was literally writing for his life. The risk was so high that Shostakovich slept on the stairs outside his apartment so the secret police would not wake his family when they came for him, as he was sure they would. This volume of Keeping Score investigates the symphony that would either redeem Shostakovich or doom him. Join Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony as they explore the hidden language of this masterwork. As a bonus, the DVD includes a full-length concert performance of the symphony.

Price: $39.98