How Shostakovich Changed My Mind

A powerful look at the extraordinary healing effect of music on sufferers of mental illness, including author Stephen Johnson's struggle with bipolar disorder.

BBC music broadcaster Stephen Johnson explores the power of Shostakovich’s music during Stalin’s reign of terror, and writes of the extraordinary healing effect of music on sufferers of mental illness. Johnson looks at neurological, psychotherapeutic and philosophical findings, and reflects on his own experience, where he believes Shostakovich’s music helped him survive the trials and assaults of bipolar disorder.

There is no escapism, no false consolation in Shostakovich’s greatest music: this is some of the darkest, saddest, at times bitterest music ever composed. So why do so many feel grateful to Shostakovich for having created it—not just Russians, but westerners like Stephen Johnson, brought up in a very different, far safer kind of society? The book includes interviews with the members of the orchestra who performed Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony during the siege of that city.

About the author

Stephen Johnson

Summary

BBC broadcaster Stephen Johnson explores how Shostakovich's music took shape under Stalin's reign of terror. Johnson writes of the healing effect of music on sufferers of mental illness and tells of how Shostakovich's music lent him unexpected strength in his struggle against bipolar disorder.

Product details

• Authors: Stephen Johnson
• Publisher: Notting Hill Editions
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 14.05.2019
• EAN: 9781910749456
• ISBN: 978-1-910749-45-6
• Dimensions: 120 mm x 190 mm x 15 mm
• Weight: 210 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > Music > General, dictionaries; Mindfulness, SELF-HELP / General, Russia, Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups, MUSIC / Individual Composer & Musician, Memoirs, SELF-HELP / Mood Disorders / Bipolar Disorder, PSYCHOLOGY / Psychopathology / Bipolar Disorder, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Abnormal psychology, Creative therapy (eg art, music, drama), Literary essays, True stories of heroism, endurance and survival, Composers and songwriters, 20th Century & Contemporary Classical Music, Classical style, Art music, orchestral and formal music, 20th Century History