The Conductor

By: Sarah Quigley

Narrated by: Sean Barrett

June 1941: Nazi troops surround the city of Leningrad, planning to shell and starve the people into submission. Most of the cultural elite is evacuated, but the famous composer Shostakovich stays behind to defend his city. That winter, the bleakest in Russian history, the Party orders Karl Eliasberg, the shy, difficult conductor of a second-rate orchestra, to prepare for the task of a lifetime. He is to conduct a performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, a haunting, defiant new piece, which will be relayed by loudspeakers to the front lines.

Eliasberg’s musicians are starving, and scarcely have the strength to carry their instruments. But for five freezing months the conductor stubbornly drives on his musicians, depriving those who falter of their bread rations. Slowly the music begins to dissolve the nagging hunger, the exploding streets, the slow deaths...but at what cost?

Eliasberg’s relationships are strained, obsession takes hold, and his orchestra is growing weaker. Now, it’s a struggle not just to perform but to stay alive.

©2012 Sarah Quigley (P)2012 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"Deserves to be mentioned alongside Jane Smiley, Andrea Levy and Rose Tremai." (Sunday Herald)

"Extraordinary ... a symphony on the power of love - the love of music, home, family, city.... A triumph on every level." (New Zealand Herald)

"An extraordinary period of history brought into proximity by a daring novelist.... Superbly imagined and brilliantly realised." (Lloyd Jones)

Sad days in Leningrad

This beautifully narrated story, set in Leningrad during the siege in 1941 is a moving story of a conductor and of Shostakovich living in the increasingly dangerous and bombarded city of Leningrad, surrounded by the Nazis. Day by day conditions deteriorate, but despite this, the conductor pulls together the half starved orchestra to perform the 7th Symphony which Shostakovich writes while the city is under siege. The conductor's transition through the book to a character of such strength and honour, and the love story woven in, makes it a moving tribute to both the composer but also the very special conductor.