The Conductor (2011)

I must confess that I have never particularly enjoyed works of 'faction' - until now.

Karl Eliasberg is to conduct Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony during surely one of the cruellest episodes known to man - the siege of Leningrad. On 9 August 1942, with loudspeakers broadcasting the performance throughout the city as well as to the German forces in a move of psychological warfare, Eliasberg and his scratch orchestra of starving, exhausted, miliatrary-rejects, kept going with additional food rations, play as though their lives depend on it.

Sarah Quiley's book describes the lead up to this point during a period of cold and chaos. Shostakovich struggles to compose, what with the fire-watching duties and over-crowded living conditions. Eliasberg wrestles with his inferiority complex and tries to cope with his aged mother. Other personalities with their stories move in and out of the narrative.

This is a seriously good book - well-researched, well-written and a gripping, intelligent read. Excellent! ( )

The Conductor brings to life the siege of Leningrad, and the difficulties faced by those who remained behind once the city was surrounded and under attack from Hitler’s army. Told from the perspectives of Dmitri Shostkovich, Karl Eliasberg and Nikolai Nikolayev Quigley evokes three strong personalities and their shared passion for music against a backdrop of harsh deprivation and uncertainty.

The first half of the book focuses on Shostakovich, Russia’s most celebrated composer of the time, as he battles to write the score for his Leningrad Symphony while doing fire watch duty and digging trenches to aid in the defence of his beloved city, as his scared family slowly starve around him.

With Shostakovich and his family eventually forced to evacuate it falls to Eliasberg, conductor of the second rate Radio Orchestra, to lead the performance of the completed symphony which the Russians hope will lift the spirits of the nation. With a limited number of musicians still alive, but so weak they cannot play their instruments properly, Eliasberg struggles to produce the performance demanded of him by the Russian authorities.

Contrasted with the genius Shostakovich and Eliasberg, who for one performance rises above his own mediocre talents and achieves something great, is Nikolai, a musician tortured by the uncertainty of his daughter's fate after she is evacuated from the city with hundreds of other children. While we can see the almost unendurable hardship faced by Shostakovich and particularly Eliasberg, it is Nikolai who brings a more human side to the story.

I have no knowledge of classical music, and only a small understanding of Russia’s role in WWII, but Quigley transports her readers to another time and place completely.

The Conductor has a subtle power which comes from Quigley’s understated style, and the characters, while flawed and human, are compelling. This is a gripping read, and one I’d highly recommend. ( )

An evocative account of the siege of Leningrad and the composition of Shostakovitch's symphony, and most successful at evoking the privations of hunger and winter. It didn't quite ring true for me though; partly the odd mixture of anachronism and Russianesque language, partly characters disappearing from the stage (probably from the dictates of history). ( )

In June 1941, Nazi troops march on Leningrad and surround it. Hitler's plan is to shell, bomb, and starve the city into submission. Most of the cultural elite are evacuated early in the siege, but Dmitri Shostakovich, the most famous composer in Russia, stays on to defend his city, digging ditches and fire-watching. At night he composes a new work. But after Shostakovich and his family are forced to evacuate, only Karl Eliasberg - a shy and difficult man, conductor of the second-rate Radio Orchestra - and an assortment of musicians are left behind in Leningrad to face an unendurable winter and start rehearsing the finished score of Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony.
Library. Read in January 2012 ( )

I read this at a very busy time in my life, the arrival of a first grandson. Nonetheless, I found it an easy tale to return too.
The author has done a fine job of creating the hardships experienced by a group of people during the siege in Leningrad, in1941. The main character, Karl Eliasberg, a shy, taciturn conductor of the second-rate radio orchestra, is commissioned to pull a group of musicians together to perforn Shostokovich's Leningrad Symphony to uplift and inspire the poor tormented souls still surviving the siege. It is a difficult task due to the near starvation of most musicians. We also follow the misfortunes of violinist, Nikolai Nikolayev, as he attempts to locate his daughter who went missing when children were transported out of the besieged city.
The author has brought together a group of flawed but likeable characters. I have not read any previous books by this author, but will seek some out.
An added bonus to the book is the inclusion of Shostokovich's Leningrad Symphony on CD. ( )