Chekhov Stories Audio Book 2

The second audio book in the series of Chekhov's Short Stories featuring 5 new stories: Talent, Anyuta, The Helpmate, Ivan Matveyitch, Polinka. Read by Max Bollinger in English (unabridged). Several stories in this new 65-min audio book App are accompanied by occasional piano music based on original compositions by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, a distinguished Russian composer of Romantic era. The App comes with fully featured player and audio book content.

Stories in Audiobook 2

01 Talent
02 Anyuta
03 The Helpmate
04 Ivan Matveyitch
05 Polinka

About Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich, one of Russia's most cherished storyteller, playwright and one of the greatest dramatists of all time. Chekhov himself described his plays as comic satire: "All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!' The important thing is that people should realize that, for when they do, they will most certainly create another and better life for themselves. I will not live to see it, but I know that it will be quite different, quite unlike our present life.”

What the Critics Say About Anton Chekhov

His meticulous anatomies of complicated human impulse and response, his view of what's funny and poignant, his clear-eyed observance of life as lived - all somehow matches our experience. - Richard Ford

Anton Chekhov's late stories mark a pivotal moment in European fiction - the point where nineteenth-century realist conventions of the short story begin their transformation into the modern form. His psychological insight was profound and dynamic. Joyce may have more exactly captured the texture of human consciousness, but no short story writer has better expressed its often invisible complexities. - Dana Gioia

About The Music

Pyotr Ilyich Chaikovskiy (Пётр Ильич Чайковский) 1840 - 1893, Russian composer of the Romantic era. Chaikovskiy achieved worldwide recognition during his lifetime, was awarded an honorary doctorate at Cambridge University. In 1891 the Carnegie Hall program booklet proclaimed him to be one of the greatest living musicians. Music critics praised him as "a modern music lord". In Russia Chaikovskiy was considered a national treasure, and his music admired and adored by all. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his Piano Concertos, his Symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Reviews

Anton Chekhov was one of the early masters of the short story as well as a great playwright. As is typical of Chekhov’s stories, the five tracks here are carefully constructed slices of life, rich in portrait and moral ambiguity rather than dramatic experiences. Some listeners will find them a less familiar side of the author of UNCLE VANYA and THE CHERRY ORCHARD. Max Bollinger brings the authentic voice and soul of Russia to these classic Constance Garnett translations. While many of the issues in these stories are timeless, listeners will also get to visit, for a while, the old Russia of the czars.

- D.M.H. AudioFile Magazine, Portland (USA)

This is an audio book, and the narrator has a light Russian accent that lends creditability to the stories. Each of the stories -there are 5 on this second disc of "Short Stories by Anton Chekhov" is a picture for me. In fact, I liken each of them to a Monet painting in which you can see the individual strokes of the brush if you stand too close, but stepping back you see the whole picture at once and not the bits that created the whole. Masterpieces!

- Frayda Glass (MA, USA)