Patrick Zuk and Marina Frolova-Walker (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This volume of essays provides an overview of the transformation that the study of Russian music since 1917 has undergone since glasnost’, both in Russia itself and outside it. Prior to this, ...
More
This volume of essays provides an overview of the transformation that the study of Russian music since 1917 has undergone since glasnost’, both in Russia itself and outside it. Prior to this, scholars on both sides of the Iron Curtain confronted formidable practical difficulties. In the USSR, the operation of strict censorship and ideological constraints seriously hindered the development of scholarship. In the West, ideological perspectives engendered by the Cold War hindered an objective appraisal of many aspects of Soviet cultural life. The changed climate of the post-Soviet period has obviated many of these difficulties, and acted as a powerful stimulus to the development and expansion of the discipline. The seventeen chapters are grouped under six thematic headings. Those in Part I explore the most conspicuous trends and changes in emphasis in recent scholarship, as well as assessing the extent to which pre-glasnost’ ideological perspectives continue to hinder progress. Part II focuses on reappraisals of Socialist Realism and other important topics pertaining to music and musical life of the Stalinist era. Part III examines the damaging effects of censorship on Soviet musicology, and Part IV on recent developments in Shostakovich studies, an area which has been the locus of particularly fierce controversies. Part V focuses on the Russian musical diaspora. The three essays in Part V are concerned with the ways in which the difficult transition to the post-Soviet era has affected Russian compositional activity.Less
This volume of essays provides an overview of the transformation that the study of Russian music since 1917 has undergone since glasnost’, both in Russia itself and outside it. Prior to this, scholars on both sides of the Iron Curtain confronted formidable practical difficulties. In the USSR, the operation of strict censorship and ideological constraints seriously hindered the development of scholarship. In the West, ideological perspectives engendered by the Cold War hindered an objective appraisal of many aspects of Soviet cultural life. The changed climate of the post-Soviet period has obviated many of these difficulties, and acted as a powerful stimulus to the development and expansion of the discipline. The seventeen chapters are grouped under six thematic headings. Those in Part I explore the most conspicuous trends and changes in emphasis in recent scholarship, as well as assessing the extent to which pre-glasnost’ ideological perspectives continue to hinder progress. Part II focuses on reappraisals of Socialist Realism and other important topics pertaining to music and musical life of the Stalinist era. Part III examines the damaging effects of censorship on Soviet musicology, and Part IV on recent developments in Shostakovich studies, an area which has been the locus of particularly fierce controversies. Part V focuses on the Russian musical diaspora. The three essays in Part V are concerned with the ways in which the difficult transition to the post-Soviet era has affected Russian compositional activity.
Richard Taruskin
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520249790
- eISBN:
- 9780520942806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520249790.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter highlights general understanding and interpretation of Russia's emergence as a producer of art music, and the cultural evaluation of the music. It is extremely mendacious and tendentious ...
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This chapter highlights general understanding and interpretation of Russia's emergence as a producer of art music, and the cultural evaluation of the music. It is extremely mendacious and tendentious historiography that emanates from the U.S.S.R. Russian music, above all, in terms of its Russianness, has ingrained many prejudices and lazy habits of thought. It is often taken for granted that everything which happened in Russian music has a direct relationship, positive or negative, to the national question, which is often very reductively construed in terms of “sources in folk song and church chant.” This in turn can, and often does, become a normative criterion: an overtly quotational national character is taken as a mark of value or authenticity; and its absence, conversely, as a mark of valuelessness.Less
This chapter highlights general understanding and interpretation of Russia's emergence as a producer of art music, and the cultural evaluation of the music. It is extremely mendacious and tendentious historiography that emanates from the U.S.S.R. Russian music, above all, in terms of its Russianness, has ingrained many prejudices and lazy habits of thought. It is often taken for granted that everything which happened in Russian music has a direct relationship, positive or negative, to the national question, which is often very reductively construed in terms of “sources in folk song and church chant.” This in turn can, and often does, become a normative criterion: an overtly quotational national character is taken as a mark of value or authenticity; and its absence, conversely, as a mark of valuelessness.
Patrick Zuk and Marina Frolova-Walker
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The Introduction outlines the rationale for the volume, and its pioneering status in attempting to represent a broad cross-spectrum of recent research by Russian and Western scholars working on ...
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The Introduction outlines the rationale for the volume, and its pioneering status in attempting to represent a broad cross-spectrum of recent research by Russian and Western scholars working on Russian music since 1917 that illustrates how the field has transformed since glasnost’. It opens with a brief overview of the development of the research domain, indicating the principal changes in emphasis and approach, and the intellectual issues that have come to the fore. It proceeds to summarise the themes of the essays in the volume’s six parts, explaining their significance in relation to the wider domain of Russian cultural studies.Less
The Introduction outlines the rationale for the volume, and its pioneering status in attempting to represent a broad cross-spectrum of recent research by Russian and Western scholars working on Russian music since 1917 that illustrates how the field has transformed since glasnost’. It opens with a brief overview of the development of the research domain, indicating the principal changes in emphasis and approach, and the intellectual issues that have come to the fore. It proceeds to summarise the themes of the essays in the volume’s six parts, explaining their significance in relation to the wider domain of Russian cultural studies.
Marina Rakhmanova
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
In the last two decades, the discipline of Russian music studies in Russia has undergone a profound transformation. The lifting of restrictions on access to hitherto inaccessible archival materials ...
More
In the last two decades, the discipline of Russian music studies in Russia has undergone a profound transformation. The lifting of restrictions on access to hitherto inaccessible archival materials has made a wealth of new information available, and, in conjunction with the accompanying relaxation of censorship and increased contact with the West, has had far-reaching implications for scholarship. Open discussion of many aspects of the country’s musical past which were hitherto erased from standard Soviet accounts became possible, enabling the distortions and mendacities of Soviet scholarship to be corrected. The present chapter details some of the most significant achievements of Russian musicology in recent years, as well as the problems created by the challenging material conditions in which research on Russian music has to take place.Less
In the last two decades, the discipline of Russian music studies in Russia has undergone a profound transformation. The lifting of restrictions on access to hitherto inaccessible archival materials has made a wealth of new information available, and, in conjunction with the accompanying relaxation of censorship and increased contact with the West, has had far-reaching implications for scholarship. Open discussion of many aspects of the country’s musical past which were hitherto erased from standard Soviet accounts became possible, enabling the distortions and mendacities of Soviet scholarship to be corrected. The present chapter details some of the most significant achievements of Russian musicology in recent years, as well as the problems created by the challenging material conditions in which research on Russian music has to take place.
James Loeffler
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300137132
- eISBN:
- 9780300162943
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300137132.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
This chapter examines the contribution of composer Joel Engel to Russian Jewish music at the turn of the century. It explains that Engel pioneered the scholarly study of Jewish music and the idea of ...
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This chapter examines the contribution of composer Joel Engel to Russian Jewish music at the turn of the century. It explains that Engel pioneered the scholarly study of Jewish music and the idea of Jewish national art music, and that his twin search for an art and science of Jewish music fused the German science of Judaism and Russian musical ethnography. The chapter also discusses Engel's discovery that the actual voices of the Jewish people threatened to collapse his whole folkloric model of Russian Jewish music.Less
This chapter examines the contribution of composer Joel Engel to Russian Jewish music at the turn of the century. It explains that Engel pioneered the scholarly study of Jewish music and the idea of Jewish national art music, and that his twin search for an art and science of Jewish music fused the German science of Judaism and Russian musical ethnography. The chapter also discusses Engel's discovery that the actual voices of the Jewish people threatened to collapse his whole folkloric model of Russian Jewish music.
Elena Dubinets
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0015
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This article explores how the Russian émigré composers, no longer required to nurture the nation-constituting loyalties, forge, negotiate and sustain multi-stranded individual relationships both with ...
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This article explores how the Russian émigré composers, no longer required to nurture the nation-constituting loyalties, forge, negotiate and sustain multi-stranded individual relationships both with the transnational powers and with their native country, reclaiming cultural rather than territorial attachments which grow from psychological constructs rather than social conditions. It is revealing to observe that most of them continue to remain culturally tied to their country of origin and to long for its aesthetic values, while at the same time building civic attachments and hybrid identities in the globalised world. Based on empirical studies, this chapter considers how the reflections of post-Soviet identity shape these composers’ creative output and how the composers form relationships with their old and new neighbours.Less
This article explores how the Russian émigré composers, no longer required to nurture the nation-constituting loyalties, forge, negotiate and sustain multi-stranded individual relationships both with the transnational powers and with their native country, reclaiming cultural rather than territorial attachments which grow from psychological constructs rather than social conditions. It is revealing to observe that most of them continue to remain culturally tied to their country of origin and to long for its aesthetic values, while at the same time building civic attachments and hybrid identities in the globalised world. Based on empirical studies, this chapter considers how the reflections of post-Soviet identity shape these composers’ creative output and how the composers form relationships with their old and new neighbours.
William Quillen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0017
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines evocations of the early Soviet avant-garde in new compositions of the post-Soviet period, investigating how contemporary Russian composers imagine the modernist culture of the ...
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This chapter examines evocations of the early Soviet avant-garde in new compositions of the post-Soviet period, investigating how contemporary Russian composers imagine the modernist culture of the pre-Stalinist past and its significance. It is based upon interviews conducted by the author with contemporary Russian composers and analyses of recent musical works. As we will see, composers relate to the early Soviet avant-garde in a variety of ways. Importantly, attitudes to the 1920s are not merely celebratory: even some of the individuals today most interested in the early Soviet avant-garde see a dark side to its legacy, finding within modernist art of the Soviet 1920s disturbing messages about Russia’s fate or the course of the twentieth century, or even more sinister prophecies of larger tragedies to come.Less
This chapter examines evocations of the early Soviet avant-garde in new compositions of the post-Soviet period, investigating how contemporary Russian composers imagine the modernist culture of the pre-Stalinist past and its significance. It is based upon interviews conducted by the author with contemporary Russian composers and analyses of recent musical works. As we will see, composers relate to the early Soviet avant-garde in a variety of ways. Importantly, attitudes to the 1920s are not merely celebratory: even some of the individuals today most interested in the early Soviet avant-garde see a dark side to its legacy, finding within modernist art of the Soviet 1920s disturbing messages about Russia’s fate or the course of the twentieth century, or even more sinister prophecies of larger tragedies to come.
Patrick Zuk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter offers an overview of the principal developments in scholarship on Soviet music over the last two decades, highlighting notable achievements and the opening up of important new areas of ...
More
This chapter offers an overview of the principal developments in scholarship on Soviet music over the last two decades, highlighting notable achievements and the opening up of important new areas of study, in addition to assessing the extent to which perspectives on the period have undergone considerable change. It concludes with a discussion of the sizeable lacunae in knowledge that remain, and attempts to suggest potentially fruitful areas for further enquiry.Less
This chapter offers an overview of the principal developments in scholarship on Soviet music over the last two decades, highlighting notable achievements and the opening up of important new areas of study, in addition to assessing the extent to which perspectives on the period have undergone considerable change. It concludes with a discussion of the sizeable lacunae in knowledge that remain, and attempts to suggest potentially fruitful areas for further enquiry.
Lidia Ader
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0018
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter offers an account of the circumstances in which contemporary composers have had to operate since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the attendant diminution in state support for the ...
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This chapter offers an account of the circumstances in which contemporary composers have had to operate since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the attendant diminution in state support for the arts which had been provided under the Communist regime. In addition to assessing the implications of these changes in practical terms, it also analyses the cultural, social, and historical factors which have caused new music to remain at the margins of general awareness. The second part of the chapter surveys the ways in which the principal stylistic tendencies evident in Russian new music today evince a lingering ambivalence in attitudes towards the West.Less
This chapter offers an account of the circumstances in which contemporary composers have had to operate since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the attendant diminution in state support for the arts which had been provided under the Communist regime. In addition to assessing the implications of these changes in practical terms, it also analyses the cultural, social, and historical factors which have caused new music to remain at the margins of general awareness. The second part of the chapter surveys the ways in which the principal stylistic tendencies evident in Russian new music today evince a lingering ambivalence in attitudes towards the West.
Richard Taruskin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520288089
- eISBN:
- 9780520963153
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520288089.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
A reconsideration of the habit of classifying Russian music according to a crude binary (nationalist/non-nationalist) that is more the product of its foreign reception than its domestic significance. ...
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A reconsideration of the habit of classifying Russian music according to a crude binary (nationalist/non-nationalist) that is more the product of its foreign reception than its domestic significance. The contributions of two of its most active early publicists, Vladimir Stasov at home (and atypical) and Rosa Newmarch abroad (and typical), are given a detailed assessment, particularly as regards their treatment of Tchaikovsky.Less
A reconsideration of the habit of classifying Russian music according to a crude binary (nationalist/non-nationalist) that is more the product of its foreign reception than its domestic significance. The contributions of two of its most active early publicists, Vladimir Stasov at home (and atypical) and Rosa Newmarch abroad (and typical), are given a detailed assessment, particularly as regards their treatment of Tchaikovsky.
