We don't normally deal in or even mention ficton titles, but having done a post on the non-fiction account of the Leningrad siege by Michael Jones last August, we mention this for two particular reasons: first, it is by an NZ author and second, book guru Graham Beattie regards it as the best novel by a NZ author for 5 years.
The Conductor is set in Leningrad in 1941-1942 during the siege of that city by the Germans and features as protagonists two real people, the famous composer Shostakovich and the little known Eliasberg, the shy and often difficult conductor of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra. Both are stubbon, singleminded and obsessive although they are very different in almost every other aspect of their lives.
Hitler’s plan is to shell, bomb, and starve the city into submission. The siege lasted 900 days and over a million citizens of Leningrad perished.
At the beginning of the seige Shostakovich begins writing his famous Seventh Symphony popularly known as the Leningrad Symphony. Before he finishes it the Communist Government evacuate him (against his wishes because by day he has been digging ditches and fire-watching at night composing a new work) . Many other elite cultural figures, Stalin's favouites, are also evacuated. Leningrad was the cultural capital of the Soviet Union just as St. Petersburg is of Russia today.
Eliasburg is left behind to suffer a winter of incredible hardship during which time almost a million fellow citizens die from starvation or shelling. The authorities have set him the monumental task of conducting a performance of Shostakovich's now completed huge Seventh Symphony with his depeleted orchestra of starving and wounded musicians.The idea is that it will lift the spirits of its remaining emaciated populace.
Against all odds, their historic performance took place in August 1942, relayed by loudspeakers to the front lines as proof that Leningrad would never surrender.
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