Born in St Petersburg, Russia, in a family of professional musicians with a Jewish and Polish background, pianist prodigy, he amazes his professors Nicolaïev, Steinberg and Glazounov, at the Leningrad (today known once again as St Petersburg) conservatory. Famous at only 20 years old, he would become despite himself « the » Soviet composer, enduring honors and disgraces according to Stalin's will (with who he maintains a paranoid relationship that inspired more than one playwright) and the daily newspaper "Pravda" (that reproaches him periodically his submission to the bourgeois decadence.) Close friend with Marechal Toukhatchevski (sentenced to death on June 11, 1937 after a typical Stalinist trial) and Rostropovitch (himself highly suspected of deviationism), he taught at the Leningrad and Moscow conservatories. Suffering of arthritis – but deeply happy to have survived the dictator, he died of the after-effect of a heart attack following a last trip to the United States of America.

>>Message of Dimitri CHOSTAKOVITCH, World Theatre Day 1970

>>Message in French

>>Message in Spanish