Playing with Fire: The Story of Maria Yudina, Pianist in Stalin's Russia
Elizabeth WilsonMaria Yudina was no ordinary musician. An incredibly popular pianist, she lived on the fringes of Soviet society & had close friendships with such towering figures as Boris Pasternak, Pavel Florensky, & Mikhail Bakhtin. Legend has it that she was Stalin's favorite pianist.
Yudina was at the height of her fame during WWII, broadcasting almost daily on the radio, playing concerts for the wounded & troops in hospitals & on submarines, & performing for the inhabitants of besieged Leningrad. By the last years of her life, she had been dismissed for ideological reasons from the three institutions where she taught. And yet according to Shostakovich, Yudina remained "a special case. . . . The ocean was only knee-deep for her."
In this engaging biography, Elizabeth Wilson sets Yudina's extraordinary life within the context of her times, where her musical career is measured against the intense intellectual & religious ferment of the post-revolutionary period & the ensuing years of Soviet repression.
Elizabeth Wilson is a performer, teacher, & writer. She studied cello at the Moscow Conservatoire with Mstislav Rostropovich & is the author of biographies of Dmitri Shostakovich, Jacqueline du Pré, & Mstislav Rostropovich.