This volume gathers 36 essays by one of the leading scholars in the study of Russian music. 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.

Challenging what is widely regarded as the distinguishing feature of Russian music--its ineffable "Russianness"--Marina Frolova-Walker examines the history of Russian music from the premiere of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar in 1836 to the death of Stalin in 1953, the years in which musical nationalism was encouraged and endorsed by the Russian state and its Soviet successor. The author identifies and discusses two central myths that dominated Russian culture during this period--that art revealed the Russian soul, and that this nationalist artistic tradition was founded by Glinka and Pushkin. The author also offers a critical account of how the imperatives of nationalist thought affected individual composers. In this way Frolova-Walker provides a new perspective on the brilliant creativity, innovation, and eventual stagnation within the tradition of Russian nationalist music.

Claudia R. Jensen presents the first unified study of musical culture in the court and church of Muscovite Russia. Spanning the period from the installation of Patriarch Iov in 1589 to the beginning of Peter the Great's reign in 1694, her book offers detailed accounts of the celebratory musical performances for Russia's first patriarch -- events that were important displays of Russian piety and power. Jensen emphasizes music's varied roles in Muscovite society and the equally varied opinions and influences surrounding it. In an attempt to demystify what has previously been an enigma to Western readers, she paints a clear picture of the dazzling splendor of musical performances and the ways in which 17th-century Muscovites employed music for spiritual enlightenment as well as entertainment.

How did Ludwig van Beethoven help overthrow a tsarist regime? With the establishment of the Russian Musical Society and its affiliated branches throughout the empire, Beethoven's music reached substantially larger audiences at a time of increasing political instability. In addition, leading music critics of the regime began hearing Beethoven's dramatic works as nothing less than a call to revolution. Beethoven in Russia deftly explores the interface between music and politics in Russia by examining the reception of Beethoven's works from the late 18th century to the present. In part 1, Frederick W. Skinner's clear and sweeping review examines the role of Beethoven's more dramatic works in the revolutionary struggle that culminated in the Revolution of 1917. In part 2, Skinner reveals how this same power was again harnessed to promote Stalin's campaign of rapid industrialization. The appropriation of Beethoven and his music to serve the interests of the state remained the hallmark of Soviet Beethoven reception until the end of communist rule. With interdisciplinary appeal in the areas of history, music, literature, and political thought, Beethoven in Russia shows how Beethoven's music served as a call to action for citizens and weaponized state propaganda in the great political struggles that shaped modern Russian history.

Starting from an examination of the rich legacy of Russian music up to 1700, Marina Ritzarev explores the development of music over the course of the eighteenth century. The book focuses on what is characteristic and crucial to Russian music during this period, rather than seeking to provide a comprehensive survey. The musical culture of the time is discussed against the background of social, political and cultural life and the importance of previously marginalized sectors is highlighted. New light is also cast on the well-researched topic of Russian opera

This new collection views Russian music through the Greek triad ofÊÒthe Good, the True, and the BeautifulÓ to investigateÊhow the idea of "nation" embeds itself in the public discourse about music and other arts with results at times invigorating, at times corrupting. In our divided, postÐCold War, and now postÐ9/11 world, Russian music, formerly a quiet corner on the margins of musicology, has become a site of noisy contention. Richard Taruskin assesses the political and cultural stakes that attach to it in the era of Pussy Riot and renewed international tensions, before turning to individual cases from the nineteenth century to the present. Much ofÊthe volume is devoted to the resolutely cosmopolitan but inveterately Russian Igor Stravinsky, one of the major forces in the music of the twentieth century and subject of particular interest to composers and music theorists all over the world. Taruskin here revisits him for the first time since the 1990s, when everything changed for Russia and its cultural products. Other essays are devoted to the cultural and social policies of the Soviet Union and their effect on the music produced there as those policies swung away from Communist internationalism to traditional Russian nationalism; to the musicians of the Russian postrevolutionary diaspora; andÊto the tension between the compelling artistic quality of works such as StravinskyÕs Sacre du Printemps or ProkofieffÕs Zdravitsa and the antihumanistic or totalitarian messages they convey. Russian Music at Home and Abroad addresses these concerns in a personal and critical way, characteristically demonstrating TaruskinÕs authority and ability toÊbring living history out of the shadows.

Gregor Tassie describes Nikolay Myaskovsky as “one of the great enigmas of 20th-century Russian music.” Between the two world wars, the symphonies of Myaskovsky enjoyed great popularity and were performed by all major American and European orchestras; they were some of the most inspiring symphonic works of the last hundred years and prolonged the symphonic genre. But accusations of “formalism” at the 1948 USSR Composers Congress resulted in the purposeful neglect of his music until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Myaskovsky wrote some of the most inspiring symphonic works of the last hundred years and prolonged and extended the symphonic genre. In Nikolay Myaskovsky: The Conscience of Russian Music, Tassie gives readers the first modern English-language biography of this Russian composer since his death in 1950. Tassie draws together information from the composer’s diaries and letters, as well as the memoirs of friends and colleagues—even his secret police files—to chronicle Myaskovsky’s early life, subsequent far-reaching influence as a composer, teacher, and journalist, and his final persecution by the Soviet government. This biography will surely rekindle interest in Myaskovsky’s remarkable body of work and will interest aficionados, students, and scholars of the modern classical music tradition and history of the arts in Russia.

Introduces the general public to the scholarly debate that has revolutionized Russian music history over the past two decades. Summarizes the new view of Russian music and provides an overview of the relationships between artistic movements and political ideas.

Throughout his career as composer, conductor, and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) was an intensely private individual. When Bertensson and Leyda’s 1956 biography appeared, it lifted the veil of secrecy from several areas of Rachmaninoff’s life, especially concerning the genesis of his compositions and how their critical reception affected him. The authors consulted a number of people who knew Rachmaninoff, who worked with him, and who corresponded with him. Even with the availability of such sources and full access to the Rachmaninoff Archive at the Library of Congress, Bertensson and Leyda were tireless in their pursuit of privately held documents, particularly correspondence. The wonderfully engaging product of their labors masterfully incorporates primary materials into the narrative. Almost half a century after it first appeared, this volume remains essential reading. Sergei Bertensson, who knew Rachmaninoff, published other works on music and film, often with a documentary emphasis.

with an air of alterity--sensed, exploited, bemoaned, reveled in, traded on, and defended against both from within and from without." The author's goal is to explore this assumption of otherness in an all-encompassing work that re-creates the cultural contexts of the folksong anthologies of the 1700s, the operas, symphonies, and ballets of the 1800s, the modernist masterpieces of the 1900s, and the hugely fraught but ambiguous products of the Soviet period. Taruskin begins by showing how enlightened aristocrats, reactionary romantics, and the theorists and victims of totalitarianism have variously fashioned their vision of Russian society in musical terms. He then examines how Russia as a whole shaped its identity in contrast to an "East" during the age of its imperialist expansion, and in contrast to two different musical "Wests," Germany and Italy, during the formative years of its national consciousness.