The Conductor [Kindle Edition]

Sarah Quigley's 'The Conductor' is a rather remarkable novel, combining fact with fiction, set during the siege of Leningrad which begins in 1941. The story follows three main characters: the composer, Shostakovich, the conductor, Karl Eliasberg, and a fictional character, a musician, Nikolai Nikolayev. As Nazi troops surround the city of Leningrad with the intention of bombarding and then starving the city into submission, many of the cultural elite is evacuated, but Shostakovich decides to stay and fight by using his own brand of courage and musical genius. In the midst of the Nazi aerial and artillery attacks, he uses this genius in the composition of the 'Leningrad Symphony', a defiant and haunting new piece, which will be relayed by loudspeakers to the front line to lift the spirits and to harden the determination of the citizens of Leningrad.

The conductor of the symphony is Karl Eliasberg, a driven individual who manages to create an orchestra out of the musicians who have been able to survive despite the starvation and the terrible conditions imposed upon them. During one of the coldest winters ever, whilst the death toll rises, the musicians struggle to cope with week after week of rehearsals, barely strong enough to hold their instruments, some dropping to the floor through hunger and exhaustion. As time goes on they, and we, begin to wonder whether these brave musicians will actually survive to see the day of the concert.

This is a challenging story to tell, but Sarah Quigley has researched her subject well and through some wonderful writing has created a remarkable story of a city that is brought to its knees but will not surrender. Without undue sentimentality, the author conveys to the reader the atmosphere of Leningrad during the grip of a brutal and punishing winter, where the citizens are reduced to eating boiled shoe leather to survive and are forced to watch whilst weaker members of their family slowly starve and freeze to death. A testament to the human spirit and to the power of music, this is a heart-rending and affecting story, and one that ultimately impresses and inspires.

5 Stars.

Like several other reviewers, I expected to really enjoy this book, devour it at a sitting and be hit by its emotional force. But, for some reason, none of this happened and I finally finished it last week, having started it back in September.

All the ingredients for a great story are there - city under siege, artist creating a masterpiece under inhuman conditions but somehow it just did not come togetehr for me. As someone else has noted, I had the feeling of always being outside the story, watching characters doing things, rather than being involved and feelign that they were real people. I don't know if this perhaps the writer' intention, to create and unreal sense of alienation, perhaps akin to what Leningraders felt during the blockade? If so, it didn't work for me I'm afraid.

I got no sense of the city itself, not or of what the blokadniki went through and felt totally uninvolved in the events described. The writing just did not seem to come alive for me, although from other reviews here I can see that it did for some people.

Not a bad book, just disappointing for this reader.

I have read other books about the Siege of Leningrad and I won't say enjoyed them, such tragedy is not enjoyable, but I was impressed by them. What drew me to this book was the music. Shostakovich, Eliasberg and the tattered, starving, supposedly second rate Radio orchestra came alive for me, together with their families and friends and it was both painful and exhilarating to follow their progress from the early days of the Siege up until the performance of the Leningrad Symphony.
I agree with another reviewer that the sufferings of the city's general population seem to be viewed at a distance, but the lives of the main characters moved me intensely and I loved the music. I cannot see it as strange that the father of a missing daughter should not be prepared to give up her precious cello for a couple of tins of beans, or that Shostakovich put his composing of music before his family life. These people were artists and in the end it brought out the best in them. I felt for all of them and I loved this book. It is not overburdened with description and I feel it is all the better for that.