The book also contained comments on his own music by indicating that it was intended as veiled criticism of the Soviet authorities and support for the dissident movement.

After Harper and Row photocopied it, they returned it to Volkov, who kept it in a Swiss bank until it was "sold to an anonymous private collector" in the late 1990s.

Harper and Row made several changes to the published version, and illicitly circulating typescripts reflect various intermediate stages of the editorial process.

Assuming that Volkov signed a standard contract, he would have no say whatsoever in whether an edition in this or that language appears; such decisions would be made by his publisher.

At the same time the number of interested in the question is incomparably greater than those who have access to these centers of culture...

She found that passages at the beginning of eight of the chapters duplicate almost verbatim material from articles published as Shostakovich's between 1932 and 1974.

First, they assert Shostakovich's profound musical memory allowed him to recite long passages verbatim.

However, when Henry Orlov examined the original manuscript in August, 1979, he stated that all the signatures were in the first pages of the chapters:[6] Significantly enough that, except for the inscription by his hand at the head of the eight chapters, the manuscript bears no traces of his handwriting, no alterations or even slight corrections.Fay did not examine the original typescript but probably an edited copy distributed illicitly by the Finnish translator of Testimony, Seppo Heikinheimo.

"[8] Thus, even if we accept that Shostakovich had a photographic memory, we are still left with the notion that Volkov transcribed the composer's memories in personal shorthand, shuffled and re-shuffled these "penciled scribbles" (Volkov's term), and managed to reproduce entire paragraphs of previously published material verbatim, right down to the original typography and layout.

In 1979, a letter condemning the book was signed by six of the composer's acquaintances: Veniamin Basner, Kara Karayev, Yury Levitin, Karen Khachaturian, Boris Tishchenko and Mieczysław Weinberg.

[12] Initially, the book was also criticised by the composer's son, Maxim,[3] but later he and his sister Galina have become supporters of Volkov.

They point to endorsements of the book by emigres and after the fall of the Soviet Union, including Maxim and Galina Shostakovich.

[15] Others who endorse the book are not necessarily even aware of the questions about Shostakovich's signatures raised by Laurel Fay (vide supra, Recycled material) and therefore their competence in judging the book's authenticity as Shostakovich's memoirs (as opposed to its factual authenticity) is in question.

According to Heikinheimo, Mstislav Rostropovich (in 1979) considered that Testimony is authentic, as did Rudolf Barshai, Kirill Kondrashin, Yuri Lyubimov, Gidon Kremer, Emil Gilels, and Sviatoslav Richter.