Meihan Liu

“Shostakovich was the celebrity witness to the glories of Soviet culture, but the luxury accommodation was no recompense for the humiliation he suffered. At the official press conference, he stood up, his face a “bag of ticks and grimaces,” his eyes downcast behind thick wire-rimmed glasses, and read from a prepared statement, accusing Western “hatemongers” of “preparing world opinion for the transition from cold war to outright war.” In the audience was the Russian-born composer Nicolas Nabokov, who, like his first cousin Vladimir, had fled the revolution and taken U.S. citizenship. Nabokov watched”
― Nigel Cliff, Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War