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Episode Notes
Facing the Music by Karl O'Neill
with John Kavanagh as Dmitri Shostakovich
The foremost composer of the Soviet era had to stave off Stalin, his psychopathic patron whose mood-swings murdered millions. Dmitri Shostakovich survived, at least statistically, as a gibbering genius whose music, written out of writhing and the wreckage of his culture, managed a miracle that its atheist author would dispute.
John Kavanagh, a life-long admirer of the work and of the man, performs Karl O'Neill's monologue FACING THE MUSIC, which traces the night-terrors of the 1930s purges as Shostakovich awaits arrest in his Moscow apartment.
With Kathy-Rose O'Brien as Shostakovich's sweetheart Sonya. Deirdre Monaghan and actor/playwright Karl O'Neill feature as the phantom voices.
Production by Aidan Mathews.
Duration 40 minutes 13 seconds
1st TX Sunday 4th August 2019