Quigley’s Own Heroic Symphony

New Zealand author Sarah Quigley’s novel The Conductor is a “vivid evocation” of winter in Leningrad during the years 1941-42. “As the German army besieged the city, her citizens starved, corpses clogged the snowy streets; survivors ate pets – and worse,” Toronto Star reviewer Nancy Wigston describes. “Then Communist Party officials had a bright idea: a live broadcast of renowned composer Dimitri Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ symphony – completed amid the bombing in late ’41 – would lift spirits while showing the encircling Germans that Russia would never surrender. Classical music, wintry Russia, an inhuman siege: with these ingredients Quigley creates her own heroic symphony.”