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The Lost Pianos of Siberia
From acclaimed journalist Sophy Roberts, a journey through one of the harshest landscapes on earth — where music reveals the deep humanity and the rich history of Siberia
Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell.
Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos — grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble, Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood.
How these pianos travelled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decemberist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia is largely a story of music in this fascinating place, following Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of different instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful — and peppered with pianos.
Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell.
Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos — grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble, Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood.
How these pianos travelled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decemberist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia is largely a story of music in this fascinating place, following Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of different instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful — and peppered with pianos.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published February 6, 2020
About the author
Sophy Roberts
1 book50 followersSophy Roberts is an award-winning writer based in England. She began her career assisting the writer Jessica Mitford, and trained in journalism at Columbia University in New York. She has worked as Editor-at-Large of Condé Nast Traveller, and held the same role at the US edition of Departures magazine from 2003 to 2015. She wrote a column for 10 years with The Financial Times called How To Spend It, and now writes across a wide range of international titles. Sophy has also worked a columnist and special correspondent for the US edition of Condé Nast Traveler, and travel editor of 1843 Magazine, published by The Economist.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 328 reviews
June 15, 2020
Lost pianos, who'd have thought?
So OK, I decided to read this purely on the romantic view I had in my head. The title just grabbed me. I envisioned a swathe of wonderful pianos populating Dr Zhivago like scenes, sweeping across vast snowy tracts, the endless Steppes, deep in dark forests, draped in interesting places, hinting at lost pasts. Maybe some one slightly referencing Kate Busch dancing across and around in a Cathy Come Home sort of way.
But this book turned out to be not my dream.
This is Sophy Roberts searching out the importance of music to the Russian soul, the lost masterfully made pianos left over from before the Revolution are the focus of her pilgrimage into knowing Russia and its music, her obsession. As she states, "There is a covert charm to Siberia." That charm draws her in. Roberts is, "captivated by how marvellous it would be to find one of Siberia’s lost pianos in a country such as this. What if I could track down a Bechstein in a cabin far out in the wilds? There was enough evidence in Siberia’s musical story to know instruments had penetrated this far, but what had survived?"
I found it hard to be upbeat about the Gulag excerpts, given the massive deprivation and dehumanizing that occurred here. Still Sophy's enthusiasm injected music into the dark night of its soul.
In some ways this is a brave and creatively romantic lens through which to view the Russian landscape, it's triumphs and flaws.
Whichever it is, this is a fascinating and very different journey.
A Grove Atlantic ARC via NetGalley
So OK, I decided to read this purely on the romantic view I had in my head. The title just grabbed me. I envisioned a swathe of wonderful pianos populating Dr Zhivago like scenes, sweeping across vast snowy tracts, the endless Steppes, deep in dark forests, draped in interesting places, hinting at lost pasts. Maybe some one slightly referencing Kate Busch dancing across and around in a Cathy Come Home sort of way.
But this book turned out to be not my dream.
This is Sophy Roberts searching out the importance of music to the Russian soul, the lost masterfully made pianos left over from before the Revolution are the focus of her pilgrimage into knowing Russia and its music, her obsession. As she states, "There is a covert charm to Siberia." That charm draws her in. Roberts is, "captivated by how marvellous it would be to find one of Siberia’s lost pianos in a country such as this. What if I could track down a Bechstein in a cabin far out in the wilds? There was enough evidence in Siberia’s musical story to know instruments had penetrated this far, but what had survived?"
I found it hard to be upbeat about the Gulag excerpts, given the massive deprivation and dehumanizing that occurred here. Still Sophy's enthusiasm injected music into the dark night of its soul.
In some ways this is a brave and creatively romantic lens through which to view the Russian landscape, it's triumphs and flaws.
Whichever it is, this is a fascinating and very different journey.
A Grove Atlantic ARC via NetGalley
May 23, 2020
It’s not often, for me at least, that I finish a book and then could happily open it again to any page and start reading again. This was beautifully, lyrically written, managed to say something new about some already familiar stories and bits of history, and introduced so many other stories and figures and places that were astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and wonderful to learn about. Honestly, the pianos were the least of it. She mentions several times that you start chasing one thing but it leads you to discover something completely different, and that was definitely the case here. The photos were just the best too.
January 25, 2021
This book is an interesting mixture of travel writing, Russian history, and music as the author travels across Siberia ostensibly to locate different pianos -once highly fashionable and popular in Russia - that have now disappeared. Along the way, she gives the history of the regions of Siberia to which she's traveling - some of these areas (notably Yekaterinburg) are very historically significant - and tells the stories of how music (particularly piano music) influenced these regions and Russia as a whole.
Let me reveal my bias right away, especially for anyone who doesn't know me or my background: Russia is kind of my "thing." I studied Russia extensively in college, I briefly traveled there, and I've continued my "studies" through lots and lots of reading. Given that interest, of course I was into a lot of the information in this book. But that also reveals something quite important about this book: it's about Russia far more than it is about music. Depending on who you are and what you're looking to get out of the book, I think that'll have an impact on how much you end up enjoying it.
Biases aside, the execution of the book is wanting organization. The sections are organized by region and generally move chronologically throughout Russian history, starting with how piano music got hot in the cold climates, then moving toward how the arts were received by the new Soviet regime. As I got further into the book, I completely forgot what the author's central purpose was - the one she stated at the start of the book: to find some of these lost pianos. She would mention it here and there, but there was so much peripheral information that the central goal was lost in the drift.
The main issue with this book is one I've been seeing a lot of as I've allowed more recently-released nonfiction to dominate my reading over the past couple of years: this story would have made for a fabulous extended article in a magazine (probably a travel magazine), but the added information padded onto it to make it the length of a book muddled the core purpose.
Let me reveal my bias right away, especially for anyone who doesn't know me or my background: Russia is kind of my "thing." I studied Russia extensively in college, I briefly traveled there, and I've continued my "studies" through lots and lots of reading. Given that interest, of course I was into a lot of the information in this book. But that also reveals something quite important about this book: it's about Russia far more than it is about music. Depending on who you are and what you're looking to get out of the book, I think that'll have an impact on how much you end up enjoying it.
Biases aside, the execution of the book is wanting organization. The sections are organized by region and generally move chronologically throughout Russian history, starting with how piano music got hot in the cold climates, then moving toward how the arts were received by the new Soviet regime. As I got further into the book, I completely forgot what the author's central purpose was - the one she stated at the start of the book: to find some of these lost pianos. She would mention it here and there, but there was so much peripheral information that the central goal was lost in the drift.
The main issue with this book is one I've been seeing a lot of as I've allowed more recently-released nonfiction to dominate my reading over the past couple of years: this story would have made for a fabulous extended article in a magazine (probably a travel magazine), but the added information padded onto it to make it the length of a book muddled the core purpose.
May 22, 2020
Here we are in Siberia. It looks like an abstract painting. Now for some notes on Kandinsky for those who did not know he was an abstract artist. Long digression on Kandinsky with a mention of his connection between music and painting. (A complex subject). Oh, and yes, Kandinsky had a piano too. This book has more loops than Spaghetti Junction and resembes Where's Wally - the reader has to find the word piano amid snowy pages of print. One of the few books I have given up on: life seems too critical at the moment to waste energy.
June 6, 2021
A search for pianos in Siberia? This raised eyebrows of visa issuing officials and aroused the skepticism of the FSB. You learn this at the end of the book and realize that adding to the rigors of the climate, the insects and the language gulf was another element of this search requiring bravery.
This is an engaging and wide ranging report.
Each chapter begins with a clear map of Siberia, showing known landmarks and the location to be explored. These geographical chapters are somewhat chronological in the history of how pianos came to Siberia.
The earliest came in the time of Catherine the Great in her attempt to spread culture throughout Russia. A major impact came when the Decembrists of 1825 were exiled and the families who went with the nobles brought their pianos. With Franz Liszt's 1842 Russian performance, Lisztomania spread throughout the country. Factories in Moscow sprang up to fill demand, and through various means, pianos were sold and delivered to the far reaches of the empire.
So – where did these pianos go? Sophy Roberts tracks them and presents her findings, not just of the pianos, but the role of music is Russian life. She writes beautifully of how music eased the suffering through the revolution, civil wars, WWII and the harsh life in this cold region.
The content is wide ranging supported by many b & w photos. These stand outs, better than a review, show the sweep of this book:
p. 35 photos of family/ancestors of Odgerel Sampilnorov, a contemporary Mongolian pianist
p. 85 An 1831 illustration of a Siberian “drawing room” of a (fortunate) Decembrist convict.
p. 106 a 2016 photo of a 1874 Bechstein (made in Germany) piano, that survived a pre-railroad delivery to Kiakhta which may have crossed Lake Baikal on a sledge (maybe 5 days) and traveled through muddy rutted roads, now a museum piece.
p. 125 a photo of a Bechstein in a contemporary home.
p. 133,137 photos depict unusual (to most readers) elements of the prison environment of the places visited
p. 154 the text covers the disappearance of the piano that traveled with the Romanov family in exile. Of the several (non-piano related) photos, this showing the imprisoned Romanov family “taking fresh air” is the most stirring.
p. 186 a 2017 photo of Leonid Kaloshin of Ust-Koksa.who represents many of the unsung individuals bringing music to Siberia. He is a former Aeroflot navigator, living on a “sparse pension”; He bought a piano for a local boy and is building a concert hall for the community.
p. 226 US Vice President Henry Wallace visiting “Gulag prisoners” – actually the prisoners are starving and ill – so members of the Communist Youth Organization are dressed as mine workers.
p.231 – 1940’s Vadim Kozin performs for Gulag prisoners. The hungry, cold and deprived prisoners cry and mourn. Kozin (who is on a “prison tour”) attempts to hang himself after the performance.
p.246 Vladimr Biryukov, President of the Siberian Piano Tuners Association, with a Steinway grand that he believes was played by the Leningrad Philharmonic in exile.
P. 263 Tombstone of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko, a gifted pianist, whose story has to be read for itself.
p. 286 Contrasting images of music in 1992 – glasnost – in Russia
p.292 – two photos 1994/5 The first is Checkens playing a piano. The second, taken one month later is of the Russians, who took over their village, playing the same piano.
I agree with the reviewers who have criticized the organization of the book and I agree it tends to wander. The final chapters are more travel log than piano hunt and the piano chapters cover bits of nature and history. I typically lose patience with books that don’t stick to their mission or stray from their thesis in sound bites, but the content here is stirring that I cannot fault its delivery.
The substance and most of the descriptive writing (nature, people, historical episodes), for me, override my other tastes. Roberts has recorded history and personal stories that without her trip and narrative would be lost. She further won my respect when, at the end of the book, you realize the governmental obstacles in her way.
This is an engaging and wide ranging report.
Each chapter begins with a clear map of Siberia, showing known landmarks and the location to be explored. These geographical chapters are somewhat chronological in the history of how pianos came to Siberia.
The earliest came in the time of Catherine the Great in her attempt to spread culture throughout Russia. A major impact came when the Decembrists of 1825 were exiled and the families who went with the nobles brought their pianos. With Franz Liszt's 1842 Russian performance, Lisztomania spread throughout the country. Factories in Moscow sprang up to fill demand, and through various means, pianos were sold and delivered to the far reaches of the empire.
So – where did these pianos go? Sophy Roberts tracks them and presents her findings, not just of the pianos, but the role of music is Russian life. She writes beautifully of how music eased the suffering through the revolution, civil wars, WWII and the harsh life in this cold region.
The content is wide ranging supported by many b & w photos. These stand outs, better than a review, show the sweep of this book:
p. 35 photos of family/ancestors of Odgerel Sampilnorov, a contemporary Mongolian pianist
p. 85 An 1831 illustration of a Siberian “drawing room” of a (fortunate) Decembrist convict.
p. 106 a 2016 photo of a 1874 Bechstein (made in Germany) piano, that survived a pre-railroad delivery to Kiakhta which may have crossed Lake Baikal on a sledge (maybe 5 days) and traveled through muddy rutted roads, now a museum piece.
p. 125 a photo of a Bechstein in a contemporary home.
p. 133,137 photos depict unusual (to most readers) elements of the prison environment of the places visited
p. 154 the text covers the disappearance of the piano that traveled with the Romanov family in exile. Of the several (non-piano related) photos, this showing the imprisoned Romanov family “taking fresh air” is the most stirring.
p. 186 a 2017 photo of Leonid Kaloshin of Ust-Koksa.who represents many of the unsung individuals bringing music to Siberia. He is a former Aeroflot navigator, living on a “sparse pension”; He bought a piano for a local boy and is building a concert hall for the community.
p. 226 US Vice President Henry Wallace visiting “Gulag prisoners” – actually the prisoners are starving and ill – so members of the Communist Youth Organization are dressed as mine workers.
p.231 – 1940’s Vadim Kozin performs for Gulag prisoners. The hungry, cold and deprived prisoners cry and mourn. Kozin (who is on a “prison tour”) attempts to hang himself after the performance.
p.246 Vladimr Biryukov, President of the Siberian Piano Tuners Association, with a Steinway grand that he believes was played by the Leningrad Philharmonic in exile.
P. 263 Tombstone of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko, a gifted pianist, whose story has to be read for itself.
p. 286 Contrasting images of music in 1992 – glasnost – in Russia
p.292 – two photos 1994/5 The first is Checkens playing a piano. The second, taken one month later is of the Russians, who took over their village, playing the same piano.
I agree with the reviewers who have criticized the organization of the book and I agree it tends to wander. The final chapters are more travel log than piano hunt and the piano chapters cover bits of nature and history. I typically lose patience with books that don’t stick to their mission or stray from their thesis in sound bites, but the content here is stirring that I cannot fault its delivery.
The substance and most of the descriptive writing (nature, people, historical episodes), for me, override my other tastes. Roberts has recorded history and personal stories that without her trip and narrative would be lost. She further won my respect when, at the end of the book, you realize the governmental obstacles in her way.
April 25, 2020
What a marvellous, marvellous book!!!
It’s a wonderful mix (with perfect balance) of travel, nature, anthropology, history and music(ology). I am not a classic music lover, nor I’m particularly interested in the history of pianos, but there was something about the title that drew me in.
I’ve read some books of the great travel writers that had given this book high ratings. I also (realised later) have read quiet a few books from Roberts’ bibliography that I really enjoyed, so I presumed I’d be “in good company”.
I did travel through Mongolia and Russia on the Trans Siberian train back in 2008 and this book brought so many beautiful images to life.
But even if you haven’t been to Siberia, you will enjoy the places your imagination, and Roberts will take you to.
I haven’t been bored for a minute while reading this book. In fact, I never wanted it to end. I’ve learnt so much about the often brutal and sad history and magical geology of Siberia, rather unknown native animals, the tragedy and triumphs of its people (indigenous as well as contemporary), and obviously about those grand musical instruments.
5*
It’s a wonderful mix (with perfect balance) of travel, nature, anthropology, history and music(ology). I am not a classic music lover, nor I’m particularly interested in the history of pianos, but there was something about the title that drew me in.
I’ve read some books of the great travel writers that had given this book high ratings. I also (realised later) have read quiet a few books from Roberts’ bibliography that I really enjoyed, so I presumed I’d be “in good company”.
I did travel through Mongolia and Russia on the Trans Siberian train back in 2008 and this book brought so many beautiful images to life.
But even if you haven’t been to Siberia, you will enjoy the places your imagination, and Roberts will take you to.
I haven’t been bored for a minute while reading this book. In fact, I never wanted it to end. I’ve learnt so much about the often brutal and sad history and magical geology of Siberia, rather unknown native animals, the tragedy and triumphs of its people (indigenous as well as contemporary), and obviously about those grand musical instruments.
5*
July 24, 2022
“ Os objectos foram sempre transportados, vendidos, trocados, roubados e perdidos. As pessoas sempre deram presentes. O que importa é a forma como uma pessoa conta as suas histórias “ - Edmund de wall “ A lebre com olhos de âmbar “
Abarcando o período entre 1762 e os dias de hoje , é um livro fascinante sobre um lugar que apenas conhecia como de exilados , gulags, frio intenso e sofrimento e que agora descobri ser também povoada de literatura, de música e de cultura .
Cada capítulo é precedido de um mapa que nos ajuda a situar nessa vastidão que é a Rússia e a Sibéria, e tem boas fotografias de locais e pessoas que são centrais na narrativa.
Os pianos são um pretexto para outras histórias, como foram os netsukes para a história da família Ephrussi e quem gostou desse livro, certamente, gostará deste.
Abarcando o período entre 1762 e os dias de hoje , é um livro fascinante sobre um lugar que apenas conhecia como de exilados , gulags, frio intenso e sofrimento e que agora descobri ser também povoada de literatura, de música e de cultura .
Cada capítulo é precedido de um mapa que nos ajuda a situar nessa vastidão que é a Rússia e a Sibéria, e tem boas fotografias de locais e pessoas que são centrais na narrativa.
Os pianos são um pretexto para outras histórias, como foram os netsukes para a história da família Ephrussi e quem gostou desse livro, certamente, gostará deste.
June 13, 2020
3.5 stars. This wasn't quite what I had been expecting, and I think some of my disappointment stems from that. I was hoping for an exploration of Russian musical history. Roberts admits she is not musical herself and honestly her purpose, to find lost pianos in Siberia, is easy to forget about at times. Although there are a few interesting musical stories, I found Roberts' writing much more engaging when she was writing about nature. As a wildlife journalist, who's original reason for travelling to Russia was to find tigers, she perhaps would have been more comfortable with that as a topic? It was an entertaining travel memoir, just not as musical as I was hoping it would be.
January 16, 2021
My perfect non-fiction narrative comes from a place of insatiable curiosity, openness and wonder. A book where-in trying to discover one thing, you end up discovering a multitude. A process via which looking for lost classical pianos in Siberia can only be answered by telling the history of Siberia, and therefore Russia, and also a history of pianos, and musicians in Siberia, and Russo-Japanese/Chinese/US relations and....
So yes, I adored this, despite an initial scepticism about its genesis (the author being told that a Mongolian pianist would sound better on a Siberia piano is thin but works). But Sophy Roberts is a very infectious travel companion, lightly laying on the realities of her process (translators, fixers and an aside about the horrific mosquitoes explaining the mostly winter tone of the book). And for something with seemingly such a niche appeal, the three years of travel and research (which I hope was buoyed by plenty of other work) deserves to be read by as many people as possible. I thought I had a fair assessment of Russian history, but it is interesting how when seen through art and luxury commodities how much more real that history becomes. Pianos became popular due to Catherine The Great, and musical superiority and equality was also something that the communists kept up. But this is Siberia, a land of exiles and state imprisonment so even though she knows how it will affect her story, Roberts also knows these terrible stories of Gulag orchestras and the like must be told too.
Structured beautifully, the history is broadly chronological, as befits the size of the place the geography is all over the shop. So we go from (and across) the Mongolian border, to the Urals to the tiny dotted Pacific islands south of Vladivostock which are all still part of Siberia. She manages an emotional narrative too, even when the story is of lost pianos, lost and killed families and the cruelty of various regimes, she leaves us with two stories of hope. Getting the piano to its final destination is almost an afterthought, which admittedly she predicted at the the start, but that's OK. She's gone through hundreds of years of history, over the largest landmasses in the world, and been closed down by the Russian security forces (she deadpans that UK/Russia relations were not at their best in 2018). On the way she made me listen to Shostakovich, Liszt, watch four movies set in Siberia and order three books on her bibliography, and listen to the final performance on one of those pianos mentioned in the text on the associated website. And incredible debut and one of the best bits of non-fiction I've ever read.
So yes, I adored this, despite an initial scepticism about its genesis (the author being told that a Mongolian pianist would sound better on a Siberia piano is thin but works). But Sophy Roberts is a very infectious travel companion, lightly laying on the realities of her process (translators, fixers and an aside about the horrific mosquitoes explaining the mostly winter tone of the book). And for something with seemingly such a niche appeal, the three years of travel and research (which I hope was buoyed by plenty of other work) deserves to be read by as many people as possible. I thought I had a fair assessment of Russian history, but it is interesting how when seen through art and luxury commodities how much more real that history becomes. Pianos became popular due to Catherine The Great, and musical superiority and equality was also something that the communists kept up. But this is Siberia, a land of exiles and state imprisonment so even though she knows how it will affect her story, Roberts also knows these terrible stories of Gulag orchestras and the like must be told too.
Structured beautifully, the history is broadly chronological, as befits the size of the place the geography is all over the shop. So we go from (and across) the Mongolian border, to the Urals to the tiny dotted Pacific islands south of Vladivostock which are all still part of Siberia. She manages an emotional narrative too, even when the story is of lost pianos, lost and killed families and the cruelty of various regimes, she leaves us with two stories of hope. Getting the piano to its final destination is almost an afterthought, which admittedly she predicted at the the start, but that's OK. She's gone through hundreds of years of history, over the largest landmasses in the world, and been closed down by the Russian security forces (she deadpans that UK/Russia relations were not at their best in 2018). On the way she made me listen to Shostakovich, Liszt, watch four movies set in Siberia and order three books on her bibliography, and listen to the final performance on one of those pianos mentioned in the text on the associated website. And incredible debut and one of the best bits of non-fiction I've ever read.
January 7, 2021
Siberia is a vast place, in fact, 13 million square kilometres of bitterly cold tundra and has the briefest of summers. It has fifteen mountain ranges but is best known as the place where Russia has banished its people who for whatever reason didn’t fit the current political climate. It is a bleak and uncompromising landscape and has a grim history with what seems like almost countless deaths.
Even though the Soviets tried to eliminate the indigenous peoples some survived and people do choose to live there. Those that were banished to the Gulags never returned home to their home cities and brought some of their cultures with them. Sophy Rogers first came to realise that traces of their culture that they bought with them still existed in homes all over the landscape after a conversation with a talented pianist in a tent in Mongolia who didn’t have an instrument to play.
Until then, it hadn’t crossed her mind that people would have had the time or energy to play music, but it is something that runs deep in the Russian culture. She began looking for these pianos, and treks back and forwards across the continent from Khabarovsk to Sakhalin Island, Kamchatka to the Yamal Peninsula and even into the Siberian part of China
Some of these pianos have been long abandoned other which are still treasured possessions of their owners. The earliest pianos date back to the late 1700s and there are other more recent Russian made examples that she finds. Each of them has a story to tell, some about how they ended up in that part of the world, some about the people that first bought them there and other modern-day stories of their current owners, or perhaps custodians is the right word.
Some of the books that I have read about Siberia have been pretty tough going, one called the Road of Bones, in particular. This book has some of those stories, it has to really, the tragic loss of life permeates the landscape, but this is mostly about the people that tried to bright a little light, life and music to this place. What I liked the most about it was her tracing the stories of the people that made the very best of what they had there and how music can take away from some of the stresses. She has split her search into pre- Soviet, Soviet and post Soviet instruments. Even though it was written as a one-off trip, in actuality, it was a series of trips there and it felt a little disjointed at times.
Even though the Soviets tried to eliminate the indigenous peoples some survived and people do choose to live there. Those that were banished to the Gulags never returned home to their home cities and brought some of their cultures with them. Sophy Rogers first came to realise that traces of their culture that they bought with them still existed in homes all over the landscape after a conversation with a talented pianist in a tent in Mongolia who didn’t have an instrument to play.
Until then, it hadn’t crossed her mind that people would have had the time or energy to play music, but it is something that runs deep in the Russian culture. She began looking for these pianos, and treks back and forwards across the continent from Khabarovsk to Sakhalin Island, Kamchatka to the Yamal Peninsula and even into the Siberian part of China
Some of these pianos have been long abandoned other which are still treasured possessions of their owners. The earliest pianos date back to the late 1700s and there are other more recent Russian made examples that she finds. Each of them has a story to tell, some about how they ended up in that part of the world, some about the people that first bought them there and other modern-day stories of their current owners, or perhaps custodians is the right word.
Some of the books that I have read about Siberia have been pretty tough going, one called the Road of Bones, in particular. This book has some of those stories, it has to really, the tragic loss of life permeates the landscape, but this is mostly about the people that tried to bright a little light, life and music to this place. What I liked the most about it was her tracing the stories of the people that made the very best of what they had there and how music can take away from some of the stresses. She has split her search into pre- Soviet, Soviet and post Soviet instruments. Even though it was written as a one-off trip, in actuality, it was a series of trips there and it felt a little disjointed at times.
February 7, 2020
Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley
There is something about Siberia that does stir the imagination. The ice, the snow, the tigers – all of the above, you know. Perhaps it is the survival of people who survive in such a place. Roberts book, despite its title is more about Siberia than about pianos. But that is okay.
The book is framed by the idea of quest for a piano, though at times it is very easy to forget that this quest. While the book does discuss the lost pianos, the book details more the inhabitants and prisoners of the land.
Roberts travels around Siberia include not only a hunt to view the famous tigers but also a visit to the location of the death of the Romanovs. The writing is more powerful when she is dealing with nature. The chapter about the tigers, for instance, contains some of the most beautiful writing about the big cats. When the pianos come back in, strangely the book seems to lag a bit.
But there is something engaging about Roberts style nonetheless. The joy of her trek and travel infuses the book and it is impossible not to get caught up in the excitement and joy. Perhaps because she finally has achieved a trip to Siberia (and perhaps this is why the request feels secondary). It was a good read.
There is something about Siberia that does stir the imagination. The ice, the snow, the tigers – all of the above, you know. Perhaps it is the survival of people who survive in such a place. Roberts book, despite its title is more about Siberia than about pianos. But that is okay.
The book is framed by the idea of quest for a piano, though at times it is very easy to forget that this quest. While the book does discuss the lost pianos, the book details more the inhabitants and prisoners of the land.
Roberts travels around Siberia include not only a hunt to view the famous tigers but also a visit to the location of the death of the Romanovs. The writing is more powerful when she is dealing with nature. The chapter about the tigers, for instance, contains some of the most beautiful writing about the big cats. When the pianos come back in, strangely the book seems to lag a bit.
But there is something engaging about Roberts style nonetheless. The joy of her trek and travel infuses the book and it is impossible not to get caught up in the excitement and joy. Perhaps because she finally has achieved a trip to Siberia (and perhaps this is why the request feels secondary). It was a good read.
June 11, 2022
Having set off across Siberia to find pianos, I must say the writing did capture me, giving me a great deal of pleasure as the journey began. Settling in, as the prose invited me to, feeling warmed by a cosy seat in a classy carriage of the Trans-Siberian Railway, I look out the window and take in the great and rugged splendour of the Ural mountains and the vast wilderness of the Siberian plain as I travel east, where I find ...
... a jumble of historical facts that do seem to lack a little chronology. I wander off, this way then the other chatting to folk about the life and the land; and, on occasion, I come across the odd piano and at times an attempt to describe how it happens to be where it is.
Shortlisted for the 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year prize; should I have picked up on that factoid before I bought this?
It may well be a good travel book, but I didn't buy a travel book - I bought a book about lost pianos. I'm miffed with myself more that anything: I don't do piano playing, I don't do music really. I just felt drawn to a book about a bit of amateur detective work in a far-off land.
This is a travel book of Siberia, with a bit of the history thrown in, ohh and do keep your eyes open for pianos, you might bump into one along the way.
... a jumble of historical facts that do seem to lack a little chronology. I wander off, this way then the other chatting to folk about the life and the land; and, on occasion, I come across the odd piano and at times an attempt to describe how it happens to be where it is.
Shortlisted for the 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year prize; should I have picked up on that factoid before I bought this?
It may well be a good travel book, but I didn't buy a travel book - I bought a book about lost pianos. I'm miffed with myself more that anything: I don't do piano playing, I don't do music really. I just felt drawn to a book about a bit of amateur detective work in a far-off land.
This is a travel book of Siberia, with a bit of the history thrown in, ohh and do keep your eyes open for pianos, you might bump into one along the way.
March 30, 2021
I really wanted to enjoy this book - I was so drawn to the premise that I bought it completely on spec, which I rarely do. But to be blunt, it was a slog for me.
I want to say up front that I don’t doubt the considerable work that Sophy Roberts put into The Lost Pianos of Siberia. I respect the dedication involved in making multiple trips, over the course of a few years, to a region not known for its accessibility or comfort for travellers. And her passion and the sheer volume of research she has undertaken is also obvious - but this is also part of the problem. This is a 448 page book, which purports to be for ‘the general reader’ and around a quarter of it consists of appendices, including source notes, quote & photo attributions and a large ‘selected’(!) bibliography - this should tell you something. It feels laden with information, in the worst sense of the word, and ultimately like a collection of manuscripts in search of a narrative - the piano search is a framing device, at best. Throughout it all, Roberts seems desperate to show her (undoubtedly significant) working, with reams of anecdotes, quotes, segues and dense historiography - at some cost to both her narrative and her own voice. In trying to tie all her experiences and research into one book, she’s created a text that feels simultaneously bloated and insubstantial.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia could have been 3 separate books, and not just because of the sheer density of secondary information within. To be fair, Roberts herself highlights a certain artifice in the loose ‘chronological’ structure of the book in her author’s note, but there is a palpable episodic feeling to various sections, where connections to previous chapters feel forced or vague. The purported piano quest intermingles with half-realised adventures (a search for Siberian tigers, unrealised trips to the Russian Arctic territories) and meandering historical context which, while often interesting, feels like it belongs to another book. I appreciate her desire for academic rigour, but Roberts’ writing often becomes dense and overly reliant on quoting famous sources when relaying historical information. The magazine article origins of other chapters (Roberts is a practicing journalist and some trips to Siberia were undertaken in this role) are betrayed by brisk, surface level colour-commentary and tidy conclusions, which feel at odds with the more academic swathes of quotations, historical anecdotes and genealogy that surround them. And at times, Roberts also adopts a slightly breathless, lyrical approach - particularly during interviews with Siberian residents and in her description of landscape and fauna. Her passion for the region and its residents is clear, and at times infectious, but also rather undercut by a tendency to try and find poetic and thematic meaning in nearly every vista and interaction - helpfully summarised at the end of the chapter, of course! There seems to me to be a contradiction in the way that Roberts continually emphasises the breadth, variety and ‘otherness’ of Siberia while also ascribing a certain homogeneous sense of universality to its culture and the ‘spirit’ of the people. She is refreshingly open in admitting that she is writing from a western perspective (this admission of inherent bias is often rare in travel writing), but by classing Siberia as basically everything east of the Urals, it feels like a missed opportunity to explore a racially, culturally and socially complex region with more nuance.
TLDR: I found it too unfocused to work as a history of Russia, or Russia’s relationship with pianos and piano music; too dense and episodic to work as a satisfying travel narrative; and too affected to work as a meaningful reflection on Siberia and its inhabitants.
I want to say up front that I don’t doubt the considerable work that Sophy Roberts put into The Lost Pianos of Siberia. I respect the dedication involved in making multiple trips, over the course of a few years, to a region not known for its accessibility or comfort for travellers. And her passion and the sheer volume of research she has undertaken is also obvious - but this is also part of the problem. This is a 448 page book, which purports to be for ‘the general reader’ and around a quarter of it consists of appendices, including source notes, quote & photo attributions and a large ‘selected’(!) bibliography - this should tell you something. It feels laden with information, in the worst sense of the word, and ultimately like a collection of manuscripts in search of a narrative - the piano search is a framing device, at best. Throughout it all, Roberts seems desperate to show her (undoubtedly significant) working, with reams of anecdotes, quotes, segues and dense historiography - at some cost to both her narrative and her own voice. In trying to tie all her experiences and research into one book, she’s created a text that feels simultaneously bloated and insubstantial.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia could have been 3 separate books, and not just because of the sheer density of secondary information within. To be fair, Roberts herself highlights a certain artifice in the loose ‘chronological’ structure of the book in her author’s note, but there is a palpable episodic feeling to various sections, where connections to previous chapters feel forced or vague. The purported piano quest intermingles with half-realised adventures (a search for Siberian tigers, unrealised trips to the Russian Arctic territories) and meandering historical context which, while often interesting, feels like it belongs to another book. I appreciate her desire for academic rigour, but Roberts’ writing often becomes dense and overly reliant on quoting famous sources when relaying historical information. The magazine article origins of other chapters (Roberts is a practicing journalist and some trips to Siberia were undertaken in this role) are betrayed by brisk, surface level colour-commentary and tidy conclusions, which feel at odds with the more academic swathes of quotations, historical anecdotes and genealogy that surround them. And at times, Roberts also adopts a slightly breathless, lyrical approach - particularly during interviews with Siberian residents and in her description of landscape and fauna. Her passion for the region and its residents is clear, and at times infectious, but also rather undercut by a tendency to try and find poetic and thematic meaning in nearly every vista and interaction - helpfully summarised at the end of the chapter, of course! There seems to me to be a contradiction in the way that Roberts continually emphasises the breadth, variety and ‘otherness’ of Siberia while also ascribing a certain homogeneous sense of universality to its culture and the ‘spirit’ of the people. She is refreshingly open in admitting that she is writing from a western perspective (this admission of inherent bias is often rare in travel writing), but by classing Siberia as basically everything east of the Urals, it feels like a missed opportunity to explore a racially, culturally and socially complex region with more nuance.
TLDR: I found it too unfocused to work as a history of Russia, or Russia’s relationship with pianos and piano music; too dense and episodic to work as a satisfying travel narrative; and too affected to work as a meaningful reflection on Siberia and its inhabitants.
July 3, 2023
How do I categorise this book? Well it is non fiction, a sort of travelogue, partially a history, and about a personal obsession.
It concerns the author’s attempts to trace old pianos across Siberia and to find a good one to take to a friend, a musician living in a ger in Mongolia. But this story is almost a veneer for the description of the journey across and around Siberia, interlaced with stories from the region’s often terrible history and fabulous nature.
It is mostly beautifully written and rather easy to read, although at times I found the bits on pianos a little tedious. But you can’t fault it for originality. If you like something a bit different in your non-fiction, well worth a go. I shall look out for future books by the author.
It concerns the author’s attempts to trace old pianos across Siberia and to find a good one to take to a friend, a musician living in a ger in Mongolia. But this story is almost a veneer for the description of the journey across and around Siberia, interlaced with stories from the region’s often terrible history and fabulous nature.
It is mostly beautifully written and rather easy to read, although at times I found the bits on pianos a little tedious. But you can’t fault it for originality. If you like something a bit different in your non-fiction, well worth a go. I shall look out for future books by the author.
November 5, 2019
Absolutely intoxicating. Such vivid detail, rich atmosphere, and heartbreak. Some cherished and some neglected, these pianos tell of the musical colonization of a continent, and their stories sing.
January 17, 2020
(3.5) RTC.
Roberts is a travel writer whose work has been published in the FT and in Condé Nast Traveler; this is her first book, and takes the form of a quest. On her travels, she has met a world-class pianist in, all of places, the Mongolian steppe, but this musician lacks an instrument equal to her powers. Roberts determines to find her one, and to do so by looking in Siberia, generally known as a land of unforgiving conditions, prison camps, black bread, greasy soup, exile, and misery. But—partly indeed because of the Tsarist, and later the Soviet, exile system—it also contains a surprising amount of culture, left over from times when highly educated and accomplished men and women were sent to the steppe for life. There are many pianos in Siberia. There are concert halls; there are opera houses; there is a ballet company. There are pianos brought for virtuosi to play and abandoned after one or two performances; there are pianos shipped overland by the determined wives of commissars and high-ranking Decembrist exiles; there are pianos in sitting rooms and music schools, played by children and old people and students and housewives. Siberia, it turns out, is intensely musical. There is great charm in Roberts’s descriptions of the landscape, the people, and the history. I personally tend to struggle with books of this nature because their composition seems so patently artificial: there’s a note right at the start of the text to inform us that Roberts has conflated and combined details of three long research trips to make her narrative, and while I understand why a writer might do that, something about it makes me automatically wary of all the detail that comes after. She also hasn’t quite managed to integrate herself into the text in a way that feels…how shall I put this? Generous? It’s hard to describe, but every time Roberts mentions her own reactions to something, you get the sense that the piano hunt is a proxy; what she wants, really, is an excuse to find Siberia. But there is never any acknowledgment of this, even though leads on pianos sometimes disappear for pages at a time. Hard to sum up, then, this book, though it’s also hard not to fall under its spell.
Roberts is a travel writer whose work has been published in the FT and in Condé Nast Traveler; this is her first book, and takes the form of a quest. On her travels, she has met a world-class pianist in, all of places, the Mongolian steppe, but this musician lacks an instrument equal to her powers. Roberts determines to find her one, and to do so by looking in Siberia, generally known as a land of unforgiving conditions, prison camps, black bread, greasy soup, exile, and misery. But—partly indeed because of the Tsarist, and later the Soviet, exile system—it also contains a surprising amount of culture, left over from times when highly educated and accomplished men and women were sent to the steppe for life. There are many pianos in Siberia. There are concert halls; there are opera houses; there is a ballet company. There are pianos brought for virtuosi to play and abandoned after one or two performances; there are pianos shipped overland by the determined wives of commissars and high-ranking Decembrist exiles; there are pianos in sitting rooms and music schools, played by children and old people and students and housewives. Siberia, it turns out, is intensely musical. There is great charm in Roberts’s descriptions of the landscape, the people, and the history. I personally tend to struggle with books of this nature because their composition seems so patently artificial: there’s a note right at the start of the text to inform us that Roberts has conflated and combined details of three long research trips to make her narrative, and while I understand why a writer might do that, something about it makes me automatically wary of all the detail that comes after. She also hasn’t quite managed to integrate herself into the text in a way that feels…how shall I put this? Generous? It’s hard to describe, but every time Roberts mentions her own reactions to something, you get the sense that the piano hunt is a proxy; what she wants, really, is an excuse to find Siberia. But there is never any acknowledgment of this, even though leads on pianos sometimes disappear for pages at a time. Hard to sum up, then, this book, though it’s also hard not to fall under its spell.
September 4, 2021
My boyfriend gave me this book because the theme relates to what happened to my ancestors. They were Russian aristocrats who run away from Russia to Brazil, after having spent some time in a concentration camp in Siberia. They were highly educated, including a woman agronomic engineer. My great-grandfather's sister took her piano to Brazil. There they were taken into a large farm in the middle of nowhere and made into slaves. They were able to run away, and left the piano behind in that farm.
This book is extremely personal, which is what makes it so special. I do feel emotionally attached to some of the people Sophy Roberts interviewed. The stories that she tells make me feel that I can almost touch the past, with little insights of what people did. Tragedy is present in many of these stories, but also the love for music. Once I started reading the book I felt inspired to learn more about Russia and my family's past. I feel that this reading experience has opened new horizons and made me richer.
This book is extremely personal, which is what makes it so special. I do feel emotionally attached to some of the people Sophy Roberts interviewed. The stories that she tells make me feel that I can almost touch the past, with little insights of what people did. Tragedy is present in many of these stories, but also the love for music. Once I started reading the book I felt inspired to learn more about Russia and my family's past. I feel that this reading experience has opened new horizons and made me richer.
June 15, 2020
One of those books that leaves you feeling bereft when you finish it. A surprisingly captivating book, that is beautifully written.
March 28, 2021
flīģeļi un, kā jau ne vietējiem, - vietējo cilvēku eksotizēšana. koncepts šķita lielāks par paveikto darbu. kaut gan - ja grāmatas uzdevums bija iekapsulēt sirsnīgas sarunas un liecības par laikiem, kas nemaz varbūt nav datēti - tad tas ir izdevies.
May 28, 2021
Een boek dat je zeker bevalt indien je meer wilt weten over de geschiedenis, cultuur, natuur,...van Siberië. Mooi geschreven, maar ik miste een ‘verhaal’.
August 28, 2022
Al snel besefte ik dat wat verdwenen is soms meer over de geschiedenis van een land vertelt dan wat is gebleven. (p. 42)
Dat je helemaal niet op reis hoeft te gaan (al lijkt Rusland dezer dagen geen evidente en ideale bestemming), noch van piano's en pianomuziek hoeft te houden om een reisverslag naar waarde te schatten of te appreciëren, bewijst dit boek van Sophie Roberts. Beide elementen uit de titel die de schrijfster hier samenbrengt, interesseren mij minder, maar bleken toch voldoende om meer dan 300 pagina's (meestal ) mijn aandacht en interesse vast te houden. Zeker omdat ze die linkt aan de cultuur en geschiedenis van één van de meest barre en onherbergzame gebieden op onze planeet, waar zoveel elementen hun best doen om de mens duidelijk te maken dat hij daar niet thuishoort.
Siberië doet mij alvast in eerste instantie denken aan strafkampen, deportatie, verbanning en ontelbare doden: de Goelag archipel. Weliswaar een andere Archipel dan die mijn recente lectuur van Auke Hulsts Slaap zacht, Johnny Idaho, zonder de beide echter te kunnen of mogen vergelijken. Veel van wat Roberts schrijft en vertelt is mijn vreemd, maar zelfs zonder raakpunten of enige affiniteit met het onderwerp, toch is het aanstekelijke en boeiende lectuur. Ze legt hier en daar de link met wat anderen over Siberië schreven, of het nu minder bekende auteurs, componisten of Russische meesters betreft, het is toegevoegde waarde aan de sfeer van de verhalen.
Een paar hoofdstukken wisten mij meer te raken dan andere, zoals bijvoorbeeld "Het Parijs van Siberië: Irkoetsk" en "Het geluid van Chopins Polin: Tomsk". Ook hoofdstuk 8, "De piano van de laatste tsaar: de Oeral" bleef hangen. Onmiddellijk na dit hoofdstuk heb ik de Radio 1 Podcast "In het spoor van de laatste tsaar" (van de hand van Ward Bogaert en Johan de Boose) beluister, de perfecte soundtrack bij de reconstructie van de laatste dagen van de Russische tsarenfamilie. Ook al is het een luisterdocumentaire, plastischer wordt het niet, zeker als je de paar foto's uit het boek van Roberts in gedachten houdt.
Bovendien verwijst ze voor haar (beknopt) historisch overzicht naar de mooi ontworpen website die het boek vergezelt (www.lostpianosofsiberia.com) en die meer foto's toont en extra info geeft over wat ze schrijft in haar reisverslag. De moeite alvast om te bekijken, na de lectuur weliswaar.
Dat je helemaal niet op reis hoeft te gaan (al lijkt Rusland dezer dagen geen evidente en ideale bestemming), noch van piano's en pianomuziek hoeft te houden om een reisverslag naar waarde te schatten of te appreciëren, bewijst dit boek van Sophie Roberts. Beide elementen uit de titel die de schrijfster hier samenbrengt, interesseren mij minder, maar bleken toch voldoende om meer dan 300 pagina's (meestal ) mijn aandacht en interesse vast te houden. Zeker omdat ze die linkt aan de cultuur en geschiedenis van één van de meest barre en onherbergzame gebieden op onze planeet, waar zoveel elementen hun best doen om de mens duidelijk te maken dat hij daar niet thuishoort.
Siberië doet mij alvast in eerste instantie denken aan strafkampen, deportatie, verbanning en ontelbare doden: de Goelag archipel. Weliswaar een andere Archipel dan die mijn recente lectuur van Auke Hulsts Slaap zacht, Johnny Idaho, zonder de beide echter te kunnen of mogen vergelijken. Veel van wat Roberts schrijft en vertelt is mijn vreemd, maar zelfs zonder raakpunten of enige affiniteit met het onderwerp, toch is het aanstekelijke en boeiende lectuur. Ze legt hier en daar de link met wat anderen over Siberië schreven, of het nu minder bekende auteurs, componisten of Russische meesters betreft, het is toegevoegde waarde aan de sfeer van de verhalen.
Een paar hoofdstukken wisten mij meer te raken dan andere, zoals bijvoorbeeld "Het Parijs van Siberië: Irkoetsk" en "Het geluid van Chopins Polin: Tomsk". Ook hoofdstuk 8, "De piano van de laatste tsaar: de Oeral" bleef hangen. Onmiddellijk na dit hoofdstuk heb ik de Radio 1 Podcast "In het spoor van de laatste tsaar" (van de hand van Ward Bogaert en Johan de Boose) beluister, de perfecte soundtrack bij de reconstructie van de laatste dagen van de Russische tsarenfamilie. Ook al is het een luisterdocumentaire, plastischer wordt het niet, zeker als je de paar foto's uit het boek van Roberts in gedachten houdt.
Bovendien verwijst ze voor haar (beknopt) historisch overzicht naar de mooi ontworpen website die het boek vergezelt (www.lostpianosofsiberia.com) en die meer foto's toont en extra info geeft over wat ze schrijft in haar reisverslag. De moeite alvast om te bekijken, na de lectuur weliswaar.
April 7, 2021
"Sophy Roberts es una experimentada reportera de viajes. Los últimos pianos de Siberia es su primer libro y no podría ser mejor carta de presentación. Roberts realiza numerosos viajes por toda Siberia siguiendo la pista de antiguos pianos, de sus dueños y sus historias. Se reúne con músicos, coleccionistas, afinadores, conservadores y con todo aquel que pueda ayudarle en la búsqueda y entrelaza sus relatos con los hechos más destacados de la historia rusa. Combina la intimidad y el calor de la memoria individual con la historia de este territorio, fuertemente marcada por la brutalidad, y ayuda a desmontar la visión más gris que se suele tener de él.
Roberts va marcando su recorrido sobre el mapa a medida que va abriendo las ventanas de la historia y cultura siberiana y rusa. A través de sus páginas nos habla de música y de literatura, de viaje, de naturaleza, de memoria y tradiciones, fruto de un gran trabajo de investigación.
Capítulo tras capítulo se dibuja el paisaje siberiano en toda su riqueza, mostrando su belleza y complejidad. El paisaje actúa como gran condicionador de los acontecimientos en un libro que hace real aquello de viajar sin salir de casa, justo ahora que parece más necesario que nunca." María Sánchez Escribano
Roberts va marcando su recorrido sobre el mapa a medida que va abriendo las ventanas de la historia y cultura siberiana y rusa. A través de sus páginas nos habla de música y de literatura, de viaje, de naturaleza, de memoria y tradiciones, fruto de un gran trabajo de investigación.
Capítulo tras capítulo se dibuja el paisaje siberiano en toda su riqueza, mostrando su belleza y complejidad. El paisaje actúa como gran condicionador de los acontecimientos en un libro que hace real aquello de viajar sin salir de casa, justo ahora que parece más necesario que nunca." María Sánchez Escribano
December 24, 2021
"Art belongs to the people. It must leave its deepest roots in the very thick of the working masses. It should be understood for the masses and loved by them. It must unite the feelings, thoughts and the will of the masses and raise them. It should awaken artists in them and develop them"- Vladimir Lenin
I enjoyed this history of music through the lens of Russian history, from 1762 to present day. In tracing several pianos, the instruments truly are a metaphor for the resilience of people living in this harsh area of the world. I will likely be rereading this in the future, as I'd love to know more about Russian history to see more parallels between it and its music!
I enjoyed this history of music through the lens of Russian history, from 1762 to present day. In tracing several pianos, the instruments truly are a metaphor for the resilience of people living in this harsh area of the world. I will likely be rereading this in the future, as I'd love to know more about Russian history to see more parallels between it and its music!
October 21, 2021
This book was the most amazing book that I had never heard of outside of publishing journals. The book is about exactly what the title says: pianos lost around the area that is generally accepted to be Siberia. I'm talking Catherine the Great, artsy Decembrist exiles, the Tsarina's piano in the House of Special Purpose, the Nazi invasion pushing Russian cultural treasures further and further East, the siege of Leningrad & the Leningrad Philharmonic, the Gulag orchestras, and the general Soviet affect on music, specially the piano.
Sophy Roberts does not always find the coveted pianos, but the history is still fascinating. I knew quite a bit about the story of Shostakovich Symphony Number 7 from M.T. Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad (recommended reading if you haven't already), but it was great to learn more about other events I did not know as much about. Anyone who likes both Russian history and music will rip through this one with joy.
Sophy Roberts does not always find the coveted pianos, but the history is still fascinating. I knew quite a bit about the story of Shostakovich Symphony Number 7 from M.T. Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad (recommended reading if you haven't already), but it was great to learn more about other events I did not know as much about. Anyone who likes both Russian history and music will rip through this one with joy.
July 12, 2020
A heartfelt, contemplative odyssey - rich detail and deeply evocative. Yet it felt somewhat fragmented.
June 4, 2020
I knew the entire endeavour had been inflected with a measure of madness.~from The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts
I was intrigued. Pianos and Siberia--what a strange combination.
I love piano music. I have played (poorly) since I was eight years old. I love the piano music of Rubinstein and Rachmaninoff. I love Russian composers, from Tchaikovsky to Rimsky-Korsakov to Stravinsky to Prokofiev to Shostakovich.
But--Pianos in Siberia? The far land of exile and punishment for millions known as The Prison Without a Roof?
Just the kind of book for me.
Sophy Roberts spent several years traveling across the breadth of Siberia tracing an unlikely, but rich, musical heritage. Her book The Lost Pianos of Siberia is part travelogue and part Russian history, filtered through the impact of music.
Franz Liszt's Russian tour "turned the Russian love of the instrument into a fever in the 1840s," Roberts writes.
The diversity of Siberia's people, from the indigenous people who underwent repression, to prisoners including serfs and the Romanov family, fill the pages as Roberts sought the rumored, legendary pianos, including the piano Empress Alexandra played while held prisoner.
The book is also a compressed Russian history, especially of the 20th c. revolutions, and a history of the piano, including the rise of Russian factories.
It felt about as far from home as I could get while remaining on this planet. ~from The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts
In the far-flung communities of Siberia, Roberts discovers the universal love of music. It is incredible to read about herders gathering to hear a brilliant pianist play a baby grand in a Mongolian gert.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia is a unique and mesmerizing read.
The publisher gave me a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
I was intrigued. Pianos and Siberia--what a strange combination.
I love piano music. I have played (poorly) since I was eight years old. I love the piano music of Rubinstein and Rachmaninoff. I love Russian composers, from Tchaikovsky to Rimsky-Korsakov to Stravinsky to Prokofiev to Shostakovich.
But--Pianos in Siberia? The far land of exile and punishment for millions known as The Prison Without a Roof?
Just the kind of book for me.
Sophy Roberts spent several years traveling across the breadth of Siberia tracing an unlikely, but rich, musical heritage. Her book The Lost Pianos of Siberia is part travelogue and part Russian history, filtered through the impact of music.
Franz Liszt's Russian tour "turned the Russian love of the instrument into a fever in the 1840s," Roberts writes.
The diversity of Siberia's people, from the indigenous people who underwent repression, to prisoners including serfs and the Romanov family, fill the pages as Roberts sought the rumored, legendary pianos, including the piano Empress Alexandra played while held prisoner.
The book is also a compressed Russian history, especially of the 20th c. revolutions, and a history of the piano, including the rise of Russian factories.
It felt about as far from home as I could get while remaining on this planet. ~from The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts
In the far-flung communities of Siberia, Roberts discovers the universal love of music. It is incredible to read about herders gathering to hear a brilliant pianist play a baby grand in a Mongolian gert.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia is a unique and mesmerizing read.
The publisher gave me a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
June 17, 2021
Een geschiedenis van Siberië, en bij uitbreiding Rusland, opgehangen aan een zoektocht naar een piano.
De geschiedenis en de verhalen verbonden aan verschillende piano's boeiden me. Maar de auteur verloor zich soms, in al haar enthousiasme voor het land, in te veel details die mijn aandacht niet konden vasthouden.
De geschiedenis en de verhalen verbonden aan verschillende piano's boeiden me. Maar de auteur verloor zich soms, in al haar enthousiasme voor het land, in te veel details die mijn aandacht niet konden vasthouden.
September 10, 2020
dnf halfway. title is solely for romantic/exoticist appeal; the piano quest is just a gimmick employed to provide the illusion of structure/cohesion to repetitive episodes of too-detailed local histories of every settlement in siberia.
January 8, 2024
I have troubles starting this review because there are so many things I want to say. I immensely enjoyed reading this book. I found it on a sale in my favourite Rahvaraamat in Tallinn. The book took me on a journey through Siberia, its history and the history of Pianos. I really like travel literature and while I imagine it is becoming more and more difficult for writers to find a "gap" or an unknown destination, Sophy Roberts managed to fill a gap I didn't even know existed. Her writing style is amazing, the stories and people she introduces are interesting. While reading this book. I googled her and stumbled upon the book's webpage and found amazing videos that document her journeys. I sat there, somewhere in the country side of Estonia, but for a few minutes I felt like I was in Siberia during the winter time. I can only recommend the book to everyone who is interested in history and travels and wants to read an incredibly written book. I think I took enough notes to write another book. I am truly excited for her next book, I am a fangirl now!
Quotes:
- “‘We made our plans in this way: If we could do it, it would be good, and a good story. And if we couldn’t do it, we would have s story, too, the story of not being able to do it.’ this is how John Steinbeck described his trip to the USSR in the aftermath of the Second World War with the photographer Robert Capa. Steinbeck’s approach appealed to me. So did Anton Chekhov’s, who declared his intention to travel across Siberia in a letter to his publisher in 1890: ‘Even assuming my excursion is an utter triviality, a piece of obstinacy and caprice, yet just you consider and then tell me what I’m losing by going. Time? Money? Will I undergo hardships? My time costs nothing. I never have any money anyway.’” (p. 36-37)
- “The contemporary American author Ian Franzier recounts a story about Westerners flattering the seventeenth-century Tsars with the idea that their territory ‘exceeded the size of the surface of the full moon.’ It didn’t matter that this was potentially untrue: ‘To say that Russia was larger than the full moon sounded impressive, and had an echo of poetry, and poetry creates empires.’” (p. 38-39)
- “In 1770, Catherine the Great complained to the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire: ‘When this nation becomes better known in Europe, people will recover from the many errors and prejudices that they have about Russia.’” (p.41)
- “Overland travel became easier when the Great Siberian Trakt opened during the reign of Catherine the Great. This was the main post road that ran from the brink of Siberia in the Ural Mountains to the city of Irkutsk, located close to Lake Baikal. The journey was infamous- a bumpy highway covered with slack beams of wood. The discomfort of traversing the road’s length by sledge recalled the sensation of a finger being dragged across all the keys of a piano, even the black notes, remarked a nineteenth-century Russian prince, who served as an officer in Siberia.” (p. 69)
- “At one of the most southerly points of Siberia, where the border crumples up against Central Asia’s great belt of mountains, four countries converge: Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, close to a plateau which locals call ‘the End of Everything.’” (P. 176) (this local phrase is a translation of ‘Ukok’)
- “We crossed high-altitude plains and zigzagged down switchbacks - in Russian, nicknamed’a mother-in-law’s tongue.” (P. 183)
- “‘But this place is so remote,’ I remarked, feeling the tables turn: Leonid was asking me to find him a piano, rather than the other way around. ‘The world is very remote,’ he said, his grey eyes alight: ‘We are at the centre.’” (p. 189).
- Room 101: “‘“You asked me once,” said O’Brien, “what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.” …”The worst thing in the world,” said O’Brien, “varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.”’” (George Orwell, 1984), did this quote convince me to give the book another try?
- Operation Wunderland, a strategy by the Nazis to command Siberia’s Arctic sea lanes (p. 207)
- “‘Our music is like cell memory. We have many words for snow and wind, but nothing for physics.’” (a woman about the Nenets language, p. 215)
- “We anchored off Medny first. Darkly alluring, this is about as far as you can go in Russia - the silent, final ellipsis at the end of this vast country’s turbulent story. It is Siberia’s last frontier, a tiny continental fragment where sea and land fight agains each other in a state of constant tension and unease.” (p. 306)
- “I tried explaining to Mary how Siberia’s humps of snow, like funerary barrows, conceal everything and nothing, how humble village houses hold stories no one will ever know. That was the part of me I had lost to Siberia - the distracting knowledge that there is always further to go. The nineteenth-century philosopher, writer and ecologist Henry David Thoreau criticized such esoteric adventuring in his private journal: ‘By another spring I may be a mail-carrier in Peru, or a South-African planter, or a Siberian exile… But what of all this? … Our limbs, indeed, have room enough, but is is our souls that rust in a corner Let us migrate interiorly without intermission’” (p. 309).
- “‘Exile is strangely compelling to think about but hireable to experience’” (Edward Said on p. 326).
Fun Facts:
- In Irkutsk, the Soviets had turned the oldest church, into a cobbler’s shop, and another into a film studio. Bogoyavlensky Cathedral wad used as a bakery, and the bell tower yo store salt. These were fates to he preferred over that suffered by Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Though now rebuilt, it was torn down under Stalin’s order snd turned into Russia’s largest open-air swimming pool. (p. 75)
- Liszt was some kind of Justin Bieber (women grabbed his hair, fans fought over his silk hankies, coffee dregs and cigarette butts) (p. 23)
- The Decembrists (a group of noblemen, gentlemen and soldiers who started a revolution) and their families were exiled to Siberia and they brought a lot of education and culture with them. They built a small academy in exile, “they set up carpentry blacksmith and bookbinding workshops, and ran lectures on on subjects from seamanship to anatomy, physics to fiscal theory. They established a library, which they filled with thousands of books sent by their relatives…Another building was turned into a music room for piano, flute and strings. Locals came to study, and to attend the Decembrists’ concerts and musical soirees.” Also the school they build during their exile educated hounders of siberian children (. 84-85).
- Whelbarrow-men of Sakhalin Island who were “chained to their wheelbarrows by their hands and feet for the rest of their sentence”, even when sleeping the wheelbarrow stood next to them in specially adapted bunks. In the rare event that one of them got released, he was so broken, he couldn’t hold a cup without slopping tea (p. 137-138).
- Due to Stalins Great Terror, Siberia’s population increased by 300 per cent in the 1930s (p. 204).
- During the Leningrad blockade (September 1941 - January 1944), Soviet authorities put hundreds of loudspeakers through the streets to play music as a way to keep people’s spirit up. They also broadcasted the tick-tock of a metronome, at first as a a signal for air raid, the pulse speeding up with the approaching enemy, later also to fill silences in programme intervals. “For Leningraders, it was a well-documented stage that the rhythm of the metronome took on the feeling of a heartbeat.” (p. 236).
To Check:
- siege of Leningrad when the Nazis starved the city in one of the darkest civilian catastrophes
- Progroms - the organised killing of Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe - were running out of control in the Pale of Settlement, a giant ghetto in Russia’s Western Provinces where Jews had been forced to live under discriminatory laws since Catherine the Great (p. 150).
Quotes:
- “‘We made our plans in this way: If we could do it, it would be good, and a good story. And if we couldn’t do it, we would have s story, too, the story of not being able to do it.’ this is how John Steinbeck described his trip to the USSR in the aftermath of the Second World War with the photographer Robert Capa. Steinbeck’s approach appealed to me. So did Anton Chekhov’s, who declared his intention to travel across Siberia in a letter to his publisher in 1890: ‘Even assuming my excursion is an utter triviality, a piece of obstinacy and caprice, yet just you consider and then tell me what I’m losing by going. Time? Money? Will I undergo hardships? My time costs nothing. I never have any money anyway.’” (p. 36-37)
- “The contemporary American author Ian Franzier recounts a story about Westerners flattering the seventeenth-century Tsars with the idea that their territory ‘exceeded the size of the surface of the full moon.’ It didn’t matter that this was potentially untrue: ‘To say that Russia was larger than the full moon sounded impressive, and had an echo of poetry, and poetry creates empires.’” (p. 38-39)
- “In 1770, Catherine the Great complained to the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire: ‘When this nation becomes better known in Europe, people will recover from the many errors and prejudices that they have about Russia.’” (p.41)
- “Overland travel became easier when the Great Siberian Trakt opened during the reign of Catherine the Great. This was the main post road that ran from the brink of Siberia in the Ural Mountains to the city of Irkutsk, located close to Lake Baikal. The journey was infamous- a bumpy highway covered with slack beams of wood. The discomfort of traversing the road’s length by sledge recalled the sensation of a finger being dragged across all the keys of a piano, even the black notes, remarked a nineteenth-century Russian prince, who served as an officer in Siberia.” (p. 69)
- “At one of the most southerly points of Siberia, where the border crumples up against Central Asia’s great belt of mountains, four countries converge: Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, close to a plateau which locals call ‘the End of Everything.’” (P. 176) (this local phrase is a translation of ‘Ukok’)
- “We crossed high-altitude plains and zigzagged down switchbacks - in Russian, nicknamed’a mother-in-law’s tongue.” (P. 183)
- “‘But this place is so remote,’ I remarked, feeling the tables turn: Leonid was asking me to find him a piano, rather than the other way around. ‘The world is very remote,’ he said, his grey eyes alight: ‘We are at the centre.’” (p. 189).
- Room 101: “‘“You asked me once,” said O’Brien, “what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.” …”The worst thing in the world,” said O’Brien, “varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.”’” (George Orwell, 1984), did this quote convince me to give the book another try?
- Operation Wunderland, a strategy by the Nazis to command Siberia’s Arctic sea lanes (p. 207)
- “‘Our music is like cell memory. We have many words for snow and wind, but nothing for physics.’” (a woman about the Nenets language, p. 215)
- “We anchored off Medny first. Darkly alluring, this is about as far as you can go in Russia - the silent, final ellipsis at the end of this vast country’s turbulent story. It is Siberia’s last frontier, a tiny continental fragment where sea and land fight agains each other in a state of constant tension and unease.” (p. 306)
- “I tried explaining to Mary how Siberia’s humps of snow, like funerary barrows, conceal everything and nothing, how humble village houses hold stories no one will ever know. That was the part of me I had lost to Siberia - the distracting knowledge that there is always further to go. The nineteenth-century philosopher, writer and ecologist Henry David Thoreau criticized such esoteric adventuring in his private journal: ‘By another spring I may be a mail-carrier in Peru, or a South-African planter, or a Siberian exile… But what of all this? … Our limbs, indeed, have room enough, but is is our souls that rust in a corner Let us migrate interiorly without intermission’” (p. 309).
- “‘Exile is strangely compelling to think about but hireable to experience’” (Edward Said on p. 326).
Fun Facts:
- In Irkutsk, the Soviets had turned the oldest church, into a cobbler’s shop, and another into a film studio. Bogoyavlensky Cathedral wad used as a bakery, and the bell tower yo store salt. These were fates to he preferred over that suffered by Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Though now rebuilt, it was torn down under Stalin’s order snd turned into Russia’s largest open-air swimming pool. (p. 75)
- Liszt was some kind of Justin Bieber (women grabbed his hair, fans fought over his silk hankies, coffee dregs and cigarette butts) (p. 23)
- The Decembrists (a group of noblemen, gentlemen and soldiers who started a revolution) and their families were exiled to Siberia and they brought a lot of education and culture with them. They built a small academy in exile, “they set up carpentry blacksmith and bookbinding workshops, and ran lectures on on subjects from seamanship to anatomy, physics to fiscal theory. They established a library, which they filled with thousands of books sent by their relatives…Another building was turned into a music room for piano, flute and strings. Locals came to study, and to attend the Decembrists’ concerts and musical soirees.” Also the school they build during their exile educated hounders of siberian children (. 84-85).
- Whelbarrow-men of Sakhalin Island who were “chained to their wheelbarrows by their hands and feet for the rest of their sentence”, even when sleeping the wheelbarrow stood next to them in specially adapted bunks. In the rare event that one of them got released, he was so broken, he couldn’t hold a cup without slopping tea (p. 137-138).
- Due to Stalins Great Terror, Siberia’s population increased by 300 per cent in the 1930s (p. 204).
- During the Leningrad blockade (September 1941 - January 1944), Soviet authorities put hundreds of loudspeakers through the streets to play music as a way to keep people’s spirit up. They also broadcasted the tick-tock of a metronome, at first as a a signal for air raid, the pulse speeding up with the approaching enemy, later also to fill silences in programme intervals. “For Leningraders, it was a well-documented stage that the rhythm of the metronome took on the feeling of a heartbeat.” (p. 236).
To Check:
- siege of Leningrad when the Nazis starved the city in one of the darkest civilian catastrophes
- Progroms - the organised killing of Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe - were running out of control in the Pale of Settlement, a giant ghetto in Russia’s Western Provinces where Jews had been forced to live under discriminatory laws since Catherine the Great (p. 150).
May 26, 2020
I enjoyed reading this book but agree with this review about its “gaping flaw” – in the beginning, the author says she is on the hunt for a piano on behalf of a musician friend who lives in Mongolia, a hop-skip-and-jump from Siberia by local standards. Eventually, she seemingly forgets about the nominal purpose of the journey in favor of just wandering very, very far and wide while contemplating the astonishing cruelty and suffering that is the history of Siberia. However, the book is still entertaining and informative, as Siberia is still a mostly vast and unexplored place and the people there, both ethnic Russians and members of the fast-disappearing ethnic minorities, are often very interesting, although, clearly, reading about them is much less grueling than experiencing them first-hand.
On the rare occasions when the author comes near a political opinion, ignore her. At one point (Kindle location 1460), she reports that she is attempting to “find in music a counterpoint in music… to the modern images of this country [Russia] reported by the anti-Putin media in the West.” Anti-Putin media? Is that the media reporting about the widespread corruption, brutal suppression of internal dissent, and dispatch of hit squads into other nations to poison political critics? That media? Yeah, so unfair, that media, reporting all those true stories that make the Kremlin look bad.
And then of course there's all those awful people who relentlessly dwell on the negative and overlook the achievements of Stalinism:
OK, sorry, maybe that's too harsh for three ill-advised sentences in a book of 400+ pages.
In the long stretches of the book which are unburdened by political apologetics, I enjoyed the book greatly, but reading books about someone else's difficult trip from the comfort of my bed is my idea of a simple inexpensive pandemic pleasure.
I was given a free electronic advanced review copy of this book via Netgalley. Thanks to Grove Press for the freebie.
On the rare occasions when the author comes near a political opinion, ignore her. At one point (Kindle location 1460), she reports that she is attempting to “find in music a counterpoint in music… to the modern images of this country [Russia] reported by the anti-Putin media in the West.” Anti-Putin media? Is that the media reporting about the widespread corruption, brutal suppression of internal dissent, and dispatch of hit squads into other nations to poison political critics? That media? Yeah, so unfair, that media, reporting all those true stories that make the Kremlin look bad.
And then of course there's all those awful people who relentlessly dwell on the negative and overlook the achievements of Stalinism:
The USSR of the thirties, while leading to better living standards and greater opportunities for the general population, also resulted in trauma on an unprecedented scale. (location 3028)and
The Gulag may have been filling up under Stalin at an appalling pace, but at the same time, literacy rates in the USSR nearly doubled by the end of the decade. (location 3374)It's a testament to how the memory of the USSR is receding that people can write such things and not receive the ridicule they deserve. Imagine the censure an author might receive for similar sentiments about Hitler's Germany.
OK, sorry, maybe that's too harsh for three ill-advised sentences in a book of 400+ pages.
In the long stretches of the book which are unburdened by political apologetics, I enjoyed the book greatly, but reading books about someone else's difficult trip from the comfort of my bed is my idea of a simple inexpensive pandemic pleasure.
I was given a free electronic advanced review copy of this book via Netgalley. Thanks to Grove Press for the freebie.
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