"In his lifetime he was forced to play a surreal game with mortal stakes. He survived three cataclysmic events: the Russian revolution, world war two and Stalin's purges. His sadly uneven output gains much of its power from our understanding of what he lived through and tried to embody in his work and to fully understand his work, we must read between the lines, and behind the notes to find the real voice." - Jan Swafford

In this episode of Music for a While, join in Brian Finley & Barbara Hobart as they discuss the life, music and trials of Dmitri Shostakovich.