July 21, 2026
Athens, GR 14 C
Expand search form
Blog

She turned down Shostakovich

She turned down Shostakovich

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

The first thing anyone learns about Galina Ustvolskaya is that her composition teacher, Dmitri Shostakovich, asked to marry her in the early 1950s. She rejected him, saying once that ‘he killed my best feelings’. He remembered her warmly enough, however, to quote a trio of hers in his fifth string quartet, and again in the late Michaelangelo Suite.

That was the closest Galina came to a fame she never sought…

Continues here.

The post She turned down Shostakovich appeared first on Slippedisc.

Previous Article

Comment of the day: On very old conductors

Next Article

New conductor on the Cape

You might be interested in …

Danish quartet win 0k

Danish quartet win $150k

Denmark’s highest musical honour, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize worth 133,000 Euros, has stayed close to home. The 2025 winner, announced today, is the Danish String Quartet. They say: ‘We are thankful and humbled. Denmark […]