When Stalin came to power making music in Russia became dangerous. Composers now had to create
work that served the socialist state and all artistic production was scrutinized for potential
subversion. In The Sound of Utopia Michel Krielaars vividly depicts Soviet musicians and
composers struggling to create art in a climate of risk suspicion and fear. Some successfully
toed the ideological line diluting their work in the process others ended up facing the Gulag
or even death. While some like Sergei Prokofiev achieved lasting fame others were consigned
to oblivion their work still hard to find. As Krielaars traces the twists and turns of these
artists' fortunes he paints a fascinating and disturbing portrait of the absurdity of Soviet
musical life - and of the people who crafted sublime melodies under the darkest circumstances.
