The Lost Pianos of Siberia

By: Sophy Roberts

Narrated by: Catherine Bailey

Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

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 19th 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 traveled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is a 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 Decembrist 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.

©2020 Sophy Roberts (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Interesting History; Boring Narration

Sophy Roberts' journey to find the lost pianos of Siberia is interesting. Her video is worth seeing. I saw an interview of her, which made me buy the book. The blend of Mongolian, Siberian and Russian history was unusual. Unfortunately, I wish I had bought the book and read it, rather than listen to it. The narrator read one sentence at a time, period. There was simply no flow to a story that should have been almost spellbinding in its breadth. I really wanted to like this book.

Russian history via pianos and people

This is good read that presents the horror of Russian history juxtaposed with the people’s love of music. It explains European influences with the harsh Russian history. Robert’s writes as a journalist not a historian or musician but brings keen insight to both.

Breathtaking

A stunning experience, narrated with engaging energy. The reader is smoothly transported along a path never taken by anyone but the adventurous author—and finishes tongue-tied to express just why this is a must-read. But it is. No one else could adequately convey this tale. Breathtaking.

Beyond expectation, even for a piano professional

Brava Sophy Roberts and Catherine Bailey. Enlightening, well-researched, inspired writing and delightful narration. Wish there would be 6 stars.

Louis Spencer-Smith
President
Senior Piano Technician
ALL ABOUT PIANOS INC

Could be a five…

The story is very intriguing. I enjoyed following Robert’s through space and time, and meeting some incredible people! My only criticism about the story is how little time she spends describing most interesting characters while providing unnecessarily lengthy descriptions of “side” encounters and experiences (the tiger, the Australian bird watcher, nice but dull description of the monastery choir, to name a few).
At times I sensed a patronizing tone. But it could be the narrator who is simply terrible. Catherine Bailey’s cold and mechanical reading of the text at times had a barking sounding quality. She butchered most people’s names and every geographical location she attempted to pronounce. A native Russian, I could not recognize names of cities and rivers. She was unprepared for the challenge. The narrator is so annoying, I almost gave this book three stars. But that would not be fair to the writer.

Narrator reads a little better than a monk

The narrator reads like a monk chanting scripture. Well, a little better. She ends every sentence with the same emphasis, descending pitch, as if things end there, and there's no transition to the next sentence. So things feel disconnected and you don't know when a new topic begins. In fact, she puts that emphasis on every name, place's name, and year, as if I'm gonna be quizzed on them in a history class, and every few random words. If there are 4 such names in a sentence, she emphasizes all of them and other words, so you can't even pick out what the point of the sentence is.

You don't feel like there's a story. It's just fact after fact after fact. I don't know if it's the book or the narrator. I've listened to many other nonfiction books, and nonfiction doesn't need to be this way. There can be a story and a quite interesting one.

Here, it feels like there's no definite chronological order. It goes from Katherine the Great to modern, then back to Decemberists then to modern, then back, etc. You don't know how to make sense of anything, how this book is supposed to be organized. I suppose she goes in the order of her trips, but the book doesn't sound like a memoir - there are too many facts to be that.

It's just not a very interesting listen that can sustain itself. I have to put it down after every half an hour or so because it gets boring and stupid.

Update:

I finished the book, little by little, given how other than the narrator's emotionless reading, I also can't stand her cut-glass accent that pronounces all the plural -es endings as "is" rather than "ees." I'm not reading period drama here. Other reviewers are probably right that she mispronounced many place names. She didn't even get Ulaanbaatar right, a country's capital, saying tar for the last syllable as opposed to tor. What do you expect? She doesn't seem even the least informed or interested in places other than England. It seems that like the author, the narrator never bothered to learn other people's language a little bit before embarking on a book.

As for the book itself, I feel the author under-appreciates the beauty of Siberia and the heritage therein, blindly searching for pianos, which don't even belong there and are only brought in by outsiders, when there's so much more that belongs locally to appreciate - the nature, the natives. Her comparison of her search for pianos to birds is shallow, the former an artificial man-made object out of place in places like Kamchatka and Commander Islands, and the latter a natural living organism that belong there and has centuries more history.

It would be less shallow if she drew deeper connections between nature's long history, the natives' resilience in this harsh nature, and the pianos' short history on the planet, and how they can coexist and benefit each other in different ways. But nope, she stuck to the surface and just wrote about appearances, what people said and did, and what happened. No insights or lessons drawn.

Also shallow is her showing no sign in her writing that she ever made an effort to learn the local tongue, and asking insensitive and rude questions because of her under-appreciation for the local heritage. These are very outsider and Western things to do in non-Western countries and places.

It makes sense that some locals didn't react well to her, when she goes in with this attitude. She thinks they think she's crazy. I think they think she's insensitive and doesn't care about what really matters to them. As a journalist, that is a failure.

Bottom line: if the story is shallow, the narration has only made it more so.