3 Great Historical Novels (74 page)
Read 3 Great Historical Novels Online
Authors: Fay Weldon
I have found a number of books and articles about Shostakovich and the Leningrad Symphony extremely useful while working on this novel. They include: ‘Orchestral manoeuvres’ by Ed Vulliamy published in
The Observer Magazine
, 25 November 2001;
Shostakovich: A Life
by Laurel E. Fay;
Shostakovich and His World
, edited by Laurel E. Fay;
Shostakovich: A Life Remembered
by Elizabeth Wilson;
Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman 1941–1975
, with commentary by Isaak Glikman, translated by Anthony Phillips;
Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich
as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov, translated by Antonina W. Bouis;
The New Shostakovich
by Ian MacDonald.
I would like to acknowledge W.W. Norton & Company for permission to quote from the poem ‘As if through a straw, you drink my soul’ in
Anna Akhmatova: Poems
, selected and translated by Lyn Coffin, 1983.
I am grateful to the following people for their help in varying ways, including general advice and support, close readings of the manuscript and the invaluable offer of quiet writing space: Jill Foulston, Sarah
Lees-Jeffries
, Rachel Paine and Rob Wilson, Sebastian Schrade, Dulcie Smart, Jon Stallworthy, John Wilson, and Antoinette Wilson. Many thanks to my agent Simon Trewin, my editor Jane Parkin, and Harriet Allan and the team at Random House New Zealand.
Special thanks to Margaret Quigley, Rachel Quigley, and Gustav Hellberg for their constant support and encouragement.
June 1941: Nazi troops surround the city of Leningrad, planning to shell and starve the people into submission. Most of the cultural elite is evacuated, but the composer Shostakovich stays behind to defend his city.
That winter, the bleakest in Russian history, the Party orders Karl Eliasberg, the shy, difficult conductor of a second-rate orchestra, to prepare for the task of a lifetime. He is to conduct a performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony – a haunting, defiant new piece, which will be relayed by loudspeakers to the front lines.
Eliasberg’s musicians are starving, and scarcely have the strength to carry their instruments. But for five freezing months the conductor stubbornly drives them onwards to perfection, depriving those who falter of their bread rations. Slowly the music begins to dissolve the nagging hunger, the exploding streets, the slow deaths… but at what cost? Eliasberg’s relationships are strained, obsession takes hold, and his orchestra is growing weaker. Now, it’s a struggle not just to perform but to stay alive.
This is a profoundly moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit and the emotive power of great music.
‘Superb. An extraordinary period of history brought to life by a daring novelist’
Lloyd Jones, author of
Mister Pip
‘In a besieged city, a starving orchestra brings to life a great new symphony that will speak for Russia at war. Quigley’s novel, like the story it tells, is a heroic enterprise’
C.K. Stead
‘Deserves to be mentioned alongside Jane Smiley, Andrea Levy and Rose Tremain’
Sunday Herald
‘A symphony on the power of love – the love of music, home, family, city… A triumph on every level’
New Zealand Herald
‘Quigley’s story of the creation and performance of a masterpiece is a masterpiece in itself’
Nelson Mail
Sarah Quigley is a New Zealand-born novelist, poet and critic. She has a D.Phil in Literature from the University of Oxford, and has won several awards for her writing.
The Conductor
was the highest-selling adult fiction title in New Zealand in 2011, remaining at number one for twenty weeks. Quigley lives in Berlin.
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First published in New Zealand in 2011 by Vintage.
This edition first published in the UK in 2012
by Head of Zeus, Ltd.
Copyright © Sarah Quigley, 2011.
The moral right of Sarah Quigley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (TPB): 9781908800022
ISBN (E): 9781908800824
Printed in Great Britain.
Head of Zeus, Ltd
Clerkenwell House
45–47 Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
