The Music Lived in the House. Shostakovich. Prokofiev. Richter

The book by philologist and translator Valentina Chamberji, daughter of composers Nikolai Chamberji and Zara Levina, consists of stories about musicians among whom she grew up and spent a large part of her life. The genre of the manuscript is... not memoirs, but rather sketches for portraits of music figures in the dramatic context of our country's history. On its pages appear not only the greatest composers, performers, and music critics—from Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Richter—but also worthy individuals unjustly doomed to oblivion. The author pays much attention to describing the era in which they lived and created. Part of the book consists of stories about the author's parents. It includes eventful pages from the early 20th-century diary entries and letters of Zara Levina.