You ask if I would have been different without "Party guidance"? Yes, almost certainly. No doubt the line I was pursuing when I wrote the Fourth Symphony would have been stronger and sharper in my work. I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage.


In conversation with Flora Litvinova, 1970; cited from Elizabeth Wilson Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (1994) pp. 425-6.

Dmitri Shostakovich Quotes

You ask if I would have been different without Party guidance? Yes, almost certainly. No doubt the line I was pursuing when I wrote the Fourth...

You ask if I would have been different without Party guidance? Yes, almost certainly. No doubt the line I was pursuing when I wrote the Fourth...

You ask if I would have been different without Party guidance? Yes, almost certainly. No doubt the line I was pursuing when I wrote the Fourth...

You ask if I would have been different without Party guidance? Yes, almost certainly. No doubt the line I was pursuing when I wrote the Fourth...