Throughout the book, translations from Russian are the author’s, unless otherwise indicated.
The transliteration system used in the main text of the book follows a simple phonetic system based on that suggested by the Library of Congress, which is easily read by the non-specialist. However, exceptions to this system remain throughout the text where they are traditionally established transliterations of well-known names such as Tchaikovsky and Rachmanninov.
In the List of Annotated Sources, the transliteration of the names and titles of all Russian sources corresponds more precisely to the original Russian lettering. Thus, while in the main text I have used Dmitri, Evgeni, Tanyeev, Lossky, Neuhaus, Vasilyevna, Fyodor, Lyubov, Sofia, Alexander and Maxim, in the List of Annotated Sources I have given the more precise transliterations: Dmitriy, Evgeniy, Taneev, Losskiy, Neigau, Vasil’evna, Alekhin, Fedor, Lyobov’, Sof’ya, Aleksandr, Maksim. This applies to all books, letters and articles originally published in Russian, but not to those published in English (Stravinsky, Vasili Shentalinsky, etc.).
For full titles and correct Russian transliteration of sources in the footnotes, the reader should refer to the List of Annotated Sources.
Since the first edition of this book appeared in 1994, many of the articles which I had commissioned as well as some of the unpublished sources to which I referred have subsequently seen publication in Russia or elsewhere. Where possible I have added information on recently published sources for the convenience of the reader.
My rule has been to refer to the Russian version of those books originally published in Russian, even if the material has subsequently been published in English translation. For example, for any references within the text to Isaak Glikman’s Letters to a Friend, I give footnotes with the page numbers of the Russian version and use my own translations rather than refer to the English edition published by Faber and Faber in Anthony Phillips’ translation. However, where reference is made to a book first published in English and only subsequently in Russian, such as Galina Vishnevskaya’s Galina: A Russian Story, I refer to page numbers and quote from the English version.
In regard to Shostakovich’s press articles and statements (published for the most part in newspapers and journals), source references can be found in the main text or in footnotes. However, the most important of these articles can also be found in the List of Annotated Sources.