Ghostrider

Hi Clavis, I'm not sure if Shostakovich is underrated, I'm a big fan of his music and like you I respect him for being a voice of culture and hope and for producing great work under the most difficult conditions. There's a little history text in one of his symphonies, the 1905 I think, where he attends the premier of the work and afterwards Leonid Brezhnev asks..."How come you don't write happy joyful music? Of course the ruling party officials didn't realize that Dmitri was using his music to protest the internal struggle going on in his beloved Russia. He had many opportunities to defect to the west, but he always returned home to continue his composing, plus he was a true Russian patriot, so despite being at odds with the politicians he still cared for his people too much to abandon them completely. Anyway, he was very popular in the 50's and 60's but you may be right that not as many people value his great legacy today.