On Russian Music
$39.95, £23.95 hardcover
978-0-520-24979-0
NYP--Due 12/08
380 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 20 music examples
December 2008, Available worldwide
Categories: Music; Classical Music; Composers; Musicology
December 2008, Available worldwide
Categories: Music; Classical Music; Composers; Musicology
Over the past four decades, Richard Taruskin's publications have redefined the field of Russian-music study. This volume gathers thirty-six essays on composers ranging from Bortnyansky in the eighteenth century to Tarnopolsky in the twenty-first, as well as all of the famous names in between. Some of these pieces, like the ones on Chaikovsky's alleged suicide and on the interpretation of Shostakovich's legacy, have won fame in their own right as decisive contributions to some of the most significant debates in contemporary musicology. An extensive introduction lays out the main issues and a justification of Taruskin's approach, seen both in the light of his intellectual development and in that of the changing intellectual environment, which has been particularly marked by the end of the cold war in Europe.
Introduction: Taking It Personally
1. Some Thoughts on the History and Historiography of Russian Music
2. For Ukraine, He's a Native Son, Regardless
3. "Classicism" à la russe
4. A Wonderful Beginning
5. Dargomïzhsky and His Stone Guest
6. Pathetic Symphonist: Chaikovsky, Russia, Sexuality, and the Study of Music
7. Chaikovsky and the Literary Folk: A Study in Misplaced Derision
8. The Great Symbolist Opera
9. Chaikovsky as Symphonist
10. Russian Originals, De- and Re-Edited
11. A New, New Boris?
12. Christian Themes in Russian Opera: A Millennial Essay
13. The Case for Rimsky-Korsakov
14. Kitezh: Religious Art of an Atheist
15. Sex and Race, Russian Style
16. Yevreyi and Zhidy: A Memoir, a Survey, and a Plea
17. The Antiliterary Man: Diaghilev and Music
18. From Fairy Tale to Opera in Four Moves
19. To Cross That Sacred Edge: Notes on a Fiery Angel
20. Prokofieff's Return
21. Tone, Style, and Form in Prokofieff's Soviet Operas
22. Great Artists Serving Stalin Like a Dog
23 Stalin Lives on in the Concert Hall, but Why?
24. The Last Symphony?
25. For Russian Music Mavens, a Fabled Beast Is Bagged
26. Restoring Comrade Roslavets
27. When Serious Music Mattered
28. Casting a Great Composer as a Fictional Hero
29. Shostakovich's Bach: A Pill to Purge Stalinism
30. Five Operas and a Symphony
31. Hearing Cycles
32. Of Mice and Mendelssohn
33. Current Chronicle: Molchanov's The Dawns Are Quiet Here
34. The Rising Soviet Mists Yield up Another Voice
35. Where Is Russia's New Music? Iowa, That's Where
36. North (Europe) by Northwest (America)
Index
1. Some Thoughts on the History and Historiography of Russian Music
2. For Ukraine, He's a Native Son, Regardless
3. "Classicism" à la russe
4. A Wonderful Beginning
5. Dargomïzhsky and His Stone Guest
6. Pathetic Symphonist: Chaikovsky, Russia, Sexuality, and the Study of Music
7. Chaikovsky and the Literary Folk: A Study in Misplaced Derision
8. The Great Symbolist Opera
9. Chaikovsky as Symphonist
10. Russian Originals, De- and Re-Edited
11. A New, New Boris?
12. Christian Themes in Russian Opera: A Millennial Essay
13. The Case for Rimsky-Korsakov
14. Kitezh: Religious Art of an Atheist
15. Sex and Race, Russian Style
16. Yevreyi and Zhidy: A Memoir, a Survey, and a Plea
17. The Antiliterary Man: Diaghilev and Music
18. From Fairy Tale to Opera in Four Moves
19. To Cross That Sacred Edge: Notes on a Fiery Angel
20. Prokofieff's Return
21. Tone, Style, and Form in Prokofieff's Soviet Operas
22. Great Artists Serving Stalin Like a Dog
23 Stalin Lives on in the Concert Hall, but Why?
24. The Last Symphony?
25. For Russian Music Mavens, a Fabled Beast Is Bagged
26. Restoring Comrade Roslavets
27. When Serious Music Mattered
28. Casting a Great Composer as a Fictional Hero
29. Shostakovich's Bach: A Pill to Purge Stalinism
30. Five Operas and a Symphony
31. Hearing Cycles
32. Of Mice and Mendelssohn
33. Current Chronicle: Molchanov's The Dawns Are Quiet Here
34. The Rising Soviet Mists Yield up Another Voice
35. Where Is Russia's New Music? Iowa, That's Where
36. North (Europe) by Northwest (America)
Index
The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays, by Richard Taruskin
Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra, Two-volume set, by Richard Taruskin
Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra, Two-volume set, by Richard Taruskin