Simon Morrison
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195181678
- eISBN:
- 9780199870806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181678.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter chronicles Prokofiev's relocation to Moscow in the spring of 1936, his reaction to the denunciation of Shostakovich in Pravda; the composition of the ballet Romeo and Juliet and the ...
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This chapter chronicles Prokofiev's relocation to Moscow in the spring of 1936, his reaction to the denunciation of Shostakovich in Pravda; the composition of the ballet Romeo and Juliet and the Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of October; the censorship of those two works, and Prokofiev's service as a cultural representative for the Soviet regime during his last two trips abroad. The chapter addresses his collaborations with the director Sergey Radlov (who conceived a happy ending for Romeo and Juliet) and Nataliya Sats (who commissioned Peter and the Wolf for the Moscow Children's Theater), his fraught relationship with the Chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs Platon Kerzhentsev, and his speeches at the Union of Soviet Composers. The description of his last trip to the United States corrects inaccuracies in the historical record concerning his interest in Hollywood film composition. Prokofiev was monitored throughout the trip by Soviet officials working for the VOKS organization and the Embassies in London and Washington.Less
This chapter chronicles Prokofiev's relocation to Moscow in the spring of 1936, his reaction to the denunciation of Shostakovich in Pravda; the composition of the ballet Romeo and Juliet and the Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of October; the censorship of those two works, and Prokofiev's service as a cultural representative for the Soviet regime during his last two trips abroad. The chapter addresses his collaborations with the director Sergey Radlov (who conceived a happy ending for Romeo and Juliet) and Nataliya Sats (who commissioned Peter and the Wolf for the Moscow Children's Theater), his fraught relationship with the Chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs Platon Kerzhentsev, and his speeches at the Union of Soviet Composers. The description of his last trip to the United States corrects inaccuracies in the historical record concerning his interest in Hollywood film composition. Prokofiev was monitored throughout the trip by Soviet officials working for the VOKS organization and the Embassies in London and Washington.
Peter Kivy
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199562800
- eISBN:
- 9780191721298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199562800.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter argues that the logically proper way to see the spate of recent attempts to put narrative interpretations on the works of absolute music, accepted as such in the canon, is to see them as ...
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This chapter argues that the logically proper way to see the spate of recent attempts to put narrative interpretations on the works of absolute music, accepted as such in the canon, is to see them as attempts to demonstrate that these works are not works of absolute music at all but, in reality, programmatic works mistakenly taken to be works of absolute music. To do otherwise — in particular, to describe these interpretations as imparting narrative content to absolute music, as defined — is a logical howler. It is further argued that the bar for successful narrative interpretation of the absolute music canon — which is to say, the successful demonstration that an alleged work of absolute music is in reality program music a clef — must be raised.Less
This chapter argues that the logically proper way to see the spate of recent attempts to put narrative interpretations on the works of absolute music, accepted as such in the canon, is to see them as attempts to demonstrate that these works are not works of absolute music at all but, in reality, programmatic works mistakenly taken to be works of absolute music. To do otherwise — in particular, to describe these interpretations as imparting narrative content to absolute music, as defined — is a logical howler. It is further argued that the bar for successful narrative interpretation of the absolute music canon — which is to say, the successful demonstration that an alleged work of absolute music is in reality program music a clef — must be raised.
Liudmila Kovnatskaya
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0012
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter offers an account of a recently discovered exchange of letters dating from the 1920s between the young Shostakovich and his close friend Valeryan Bogdanov-Berezovsky (1903–1971), who ...
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This chapter offers an account of a recently discovered exchange of letters dating from the 1920s between the young Shostakovich and his close friend Valeryan Bogdanov-Berezovsky (1903–1971), who subsequently emerged as one of the leading Soviet musicologists and critics of his generation. The correspondence between the two men is of exceptional interest, as it offers a unique insight into Shostakovich’s character and artistic outlook at a crucial formative period. Unlike the composer’s later correspondence, in which he expressed himself with far greater circumspection, these letters are wholly free from self-censorship and reveal his innermost thoughts about life, love, and art with unusual frankness. The exuberant personality that they reveal stands in marked contrast to the ‘official’ public persona that Shostakovich adopted subsequently in his dealings with the outside world.Less
This chapter offers an account of a recently discovered exchange of letters dating from the 1920s between the young Shostakovich and his close friend Valeryan Bogdanov-Berezovsky (1903–1971), who subsequently emerged as one of the leading Soviet musicologists and critics of his generation. The correspondence between the two men is of exceptional interest, as it offers a unique insight into Shostakovich’s character and artistic outlook at a crucial formative period. Unlike the composer’s later correspondence, in which he expressed himself with far greater circumspection, these letters are wholly free from self-censorship and reveal his innermost thoughts about life, love, and art with unusual frankness. The exuberant personality that they reveal stands in marked contrast to the ‘official’ public persona that Shostakovich adopted subsequently in his dealings with the outside world.
Richard Taruskin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520288089
- eISBN:
- 9780520963153
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520288089.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Some of the perpetual follies of Russian music study-anxiety about Chaikovsky’s sexuality and unwarranted speculation about Stravinsky’s, the continued currency of Shostakovich’s faked memoirs, the ...
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Some of the perpetual follies of Russian music study-anxiety about Chaikovsky’s sexuality and unwarranted speculation about Stravinsky’s, the continued currency of Shostakovich’s faked memoirs, the pretense that Prokofieff’s fine music excuses the inhumanity of the texts he willingly set during his Soviet years-are revisited under the aegis of the triad of transcendental values advanced by the Greeks: the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Some parallel cases from outside the realm of Russian music are considered as well. The upshot: onlythe True is acceptable as a binding if unreachable goal for scholarship.Less
Some of the perpetual follies of Russian music study-anxiety about Chaikovsky’s sexuality and unwarranted speculation about Stravinsky’s, the continued currency of Shostakovich’s faked memoirs, the pretense that Prokofieff’s fine music excuses the inhumanity of the texts he willingly set during his Soviet years-are revisited under the aegis of the triad of transcendental values advanced by the Greeks: the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Some parallel cases from outside the realm of Russian music are considered as well. The upshot: onlythe True is acceptable as a binding if unreachable goal for scholarship.
Marina Frolova-Walker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300208849
- eISBN:
- 9780300215991
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300208849.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This book takes a new look at musical life in Iosif Stalin's Soviet Union. It focuses on the musicians and composers who received Stalin Prizes, awarded annually to artists whose work was thought to ...
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This book takes a new look at musical life in Iosif Stalin's Soviet Union. It focuses on the musicians and composers who received Stalin Prizes, awarded annually to artists whose work was thought to represent the best in Soviet culture. The book sheds new light on the Communist leader's personal tastes, the lives and careers of those honored, including multiple-recipients Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich, and the elusive artistic concept of ‘Socialist Realism’, offering the most comprehensive examination to date of the relationship between music and the Soviet state from 1940 through 1954. In discussing the various aspects of Soviet music during the period 1940–1954, the book looks at popular song composers, the Red Army choir, balalaika ensembles, and Kirghiz music dramas as well as musical genres that lie outside highbrow art music. The book describes the new environment in which the Stalin Prize Committee worked from the beginning of 1948 onwards and especially after Stalin's death.Less
This book takes a new look at musical life in Iosif Stalin's Soviet Union. It focuses on the musicians and composers who received Stalin Prizes, awarded annually to artists whose work was thought to represent the best in Soviet culture. The book sheds new light on the Communist leader's personal tastes, the lives and careers of those honored, including multiple-recipients Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich, and the elusive artistic concept of ‘Socialist Realism’, offering the most comprehensive examination to date of the relationship between music and the Soviet state from 1940 through 1954. In discussing the various aspects of Soviet music during the period 1940–1954, the book looks at popular song composers, the Red Army choir, balalaika ensembles, and Kirghiz music dramas as well as musical genres that lie outside highbrow art music. The book describes the new environment in which the Stalin Prize Committee worked from the beginning of 1948 onwards and especially after Stalin's death.
Olga Digonskaya
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266151
- eISBN:
- 9780191860034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.003.0013
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Although Dmitri Shostakovich repeatedly spoke at various points during his life of writing a musical work on the life and legacy of Lenin, it never materialised—leading some commentators to suggest ...
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Although Dmitri Shostakovich repeatedly spoke at various points during his life of writing a musical work on the life and legacy of Lenin, it never materialised—leading some commentators to suggest that this was merely a ruse adopted by the composer to placate the authorities. The present chapter draws on the author’s extensive archives researches in the Shostakovich Archive to demonstrate that the contrary appears to be the case—and that Shostakovich appears to have made several serious attempts to realise this project, including an abandoned version of the Twelfth Symphony. She also examines the veracity of the colourful memoirs by the Soviet composer Lev Lebedinsky, who claimed that Shostakovich had intended to write a satirical work about the Bolshevik leader.Less
Although Dmitri Shostakovich repeatedly spoke at various points during his life of writing a musical work on the life and legacy of Lenin, it never materialised—leading some commentators to suggest that this was merely a ruse adopted by the composer to placate the authorities. The present chapter draws on the author’s extensive archives researches in the Shostakovich Archive to demonstrate that the contrary appears to be the case—and that Shostakovich appears to have made several serious attempts to realise this project, including an abandoned version of the Twelfth Symphony. She also examines the veracity of the colourful memoirs by the Soviet composer Lev Lebedinsky, who claimed that Shostakovich had intended to write a satirical work about the Bolshevik leader.
Joan Titus
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199315147
- eISBN:
- 9780190456832
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199315147.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
In the late 1920s, Dmitry Shostakovich emerged as one of the first Soviet film composers. With his first score for the silent film New Babylon (1928–29) and the many sound scores that followed, he ...
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In the late 1920s, Dmitry Shostakovich emerged as one of the first Soviet film composers. With his first score for the silent film New Babylon (1928–29) and the many sound scores that followed, he was positioned to observe and participate in the changing politics of the film industry and to negotiate the role of the film composer. This book provides an examination of Shostakovich as a composer for early Soviet cinema, and the relationship between musical narration, audience, filmmaker, and composer. Six case studies selected from Shostakovich’s early film scores, from 1928 through 1936, are the primary focus, and each engages the construct of Soviet intelligibility, the filmmaking and film scoring processes, and the cultural politics of Soviet film music. These discussions are enriched by archival materials and recently discovered musical manuscripts that illuminate the collaborative processes of the film teams, studios, and composer. Audience and critical reception was integral to these processes, and informed the attempts to satisfy contemporaneous aesthetic demands. How audiences heard Shostakovich went beyond cinema and his death. The last chapter of the book muses on the connections between cinema, listener expression, and current audiovisual media.Less
In the late 1920s, Dmitry Shostakovich emerged as one of the first Soviet film composers. With his first score for the silent film New Babylon (1928–29) and the many sound scores that followed, he was positioned to observe and participate in the changing politics of the film industry and to negotiate the role of the film composer. This book provides an examination of Shostakovich as a composer for early Soviet cinema, and the relationship between musical narration, audience, filmmaker, and composer. Six case studies selected from Shostakovich’s early film scores, from 1928 through 1936, are the primary focus, and each engages the construct of Soviet intelligibility, the filmmaking and film scoring processes, and the cultural politics of Soviet film music. These discussions are enriched by archival materials and recently discovered musical manuscripts that illuminate the collaborative processes of the film teams, studios, and composer. Audience and critical reception was integral to these processes, and informed the attempts to satisfy contemporaneous aesthetic demands. How audiences heard Shostakovich went beyond cinema and his death. The last chapter of the book muses on the connections between cinema, listener expression, and current audiovisual media.
Lawrence Kramer
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520228245
- eISBN:
- 9780520928329
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520228245.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This book argues that humanistic, not just technical, meaning is a basic force in music history and an indispensable factor in how, where, and when music is heard. The book draws on a broad range of ...
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This book argues that humanistic, not just technical, meaning is a basic force in music history and an indispensable factor in how, where, and when music is heard. The book draws on a broad range of music and theory to show that the problem of musical meaning is not just an intellectual puzzle, but a musical phenomenon in its own right. How have romantic narratives involving Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata affected how we hear this famous piece, and what do they reveal about its music? How does John Coltrane's African American identity affect the way we hear him perform a relatively “white” pop standard like My Favorite Things? Why does music requiring great virtuosity have different cultural meanings to music that is not particularly virtuosic? Focusing on the classical repertoire from Beethoven to Shostakovich and also discussing jazz, popular music, and film and television music, the book uncovers the historical importance of asking about meaning in the lived experience of musical works, styles, and performances. The book demonstrates that thinking about music can become a vital means of thinking about general questions of meaning, subjectivity, and value.Less
This book argues that humanistic, not just technical, meaning is a basic force in music history and an indispensable factor in how, where, and when music is heard. The book draws on a broad range of music and theory to show that the problem of musical meaning is not just an intellectual puzzle, but a musical phenomenon in its own right. How have romantic narratives involving Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata affected how we hear this famous piece, and what do they reveal about its music? How does John Coltrane's African American identity affect the way we hear him perform a relatively “white” pop standard like My Favorite Things? Why does music requiring great virtuosity have different cultural meanings to music that is not particularly virtuosic? Focusing on the classical repertoire from Beethoven to Shostakovich and also discussing jazz, popular music, and film and television music, the book uncovers the historical importance of asking about meaning in the lived experience of musical works, styles, and performances. The book demonstrates that thinking about music can become a vital means of thinking about general questions of meaning, subjectivity, and value.
Richard Taruskin
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520249790
- eISBN:
- 9780520942806
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520249790.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book 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 ...
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This book 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, such as the ones on Chaikovsky's alleged suicide and on the interpretation of Shostakovich's legacy, have won fame in their own right as contributions to some of the most significant debates in contemporary musicology. An extensive introduction lays out the main issues and a justification of the author'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.Less
This book 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, such as the ones on Chaikovsky's alleged suicide and on the interpretation of Shostakovich's legacy, have won fame in their own right as contributions to some of the most significant debates in contemporary musicology. An extensive introduction lays out the main issues and a justification of the author'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.
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/9780520249790.003.0028
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter explores the works and achievement of the music composer Dmitry Shostakovich. The achievement was not his alone, but was the convolute result of the enormous talent that he was dealt, ...
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This chapter explores the works and achievement of the music composer Dmitry Shostakovich. The achievement was not his alone, but was the convolute result of the enormous talent that he was dealt, the all-too-interesting times in which he lived, the nature of the medium in which he worked, and his capacity for maintaining a poker face. The Historic Document, namely the famous and ominously unsigned editorial “Muddle Instead of Music,” ended the brilliant two-year career of his opera The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, during which time it had gone around the world. Until that point, Shostakovich had himself been a spoiled brat of sorts. His preeminence among the first generation of Soviet-educated composers was assured by the première of his First Symphony, when he was nineteen. Shostakovich's musical style during this period is often called satirical. Its satire arose out of a play of incongruities, a rhetorical doubleness that undermined eloquence and seriosity. In Shostakovich's early symphonies and concertos, the lyogkiy zhanr (light genre) itself became the incongruous marker, with or without wrong notes.Less
This chapter explores the works and achievement of the music composer Dmitry Shostakovich. The achievement was not his alone, but was the convolute result of the enormous talent that he was dealt, the all-too-interesting times in which he lived, the nature of the medium in which he worked, and his capacity for maintaining a poker face. The Historic Document, namely the famous and ominously unsigned editorial “Muddle Instead of Music,” ended the brilliant two-year career of his opera The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, during which time it had gone around the world. Until that point, Shostakovich had himself been a spoiled brat of sorts. His preeminence among the first generation of Soviet-educated composers was assured by the première of his First Symphony, when he was nineteen. Shostakovich's musical style during this period is often called satirical. Its satire arose out of a play of incongruities, a rhetorical doubleness that undermined eloquence and seriosity. In Shostakovich's early symphonies and concertos, the lyogkiy zhanr (light genre) itself became the incongruous marker, with or without wrong notes.
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/9780520249790.003.0029
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter portrays the great composer Dmitry Shostakovich as a fictional hero. The catastrophic loss of prestige since the 1960s has made it harder for composers of contemporary classical music to ...
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This chapter portrays the great composer Dmitry Shostakovich as a fictional hero. The catastrophic loss of prestige since the 1960s has made it harder for composers of contemporary classical music to indulge the old canard that serious artists live only in history, not in society. There is a new impulse to seek solidarity with listeners, and Shostakovich is suddenly a role model. The pact he forged with a great audience is what now impresses musicians and wins him new admirers, and music acutely resonated with the needs and aspirations of a public traumatized by autocracy and war. More importantly, however, more people began listening to a greater number of his works. The Fourth and Eighth Symphonies began appearing on as many concert programs as the Fifth and Seventh. The quartet cycles began. Recordings proliferated. Pretty much all of Shostakovich is now available. In 1960, by which time his international fame might have offered him a shield, Shostakovich gave in to pressure and joined the Communist Party.Less
This chapter portrays the great composer Dmitry Shostakovich as a fictional hero. The catastrophic loss of prestige since the 1960s has made it harder for composers of contemporary classical music to indulge the old canard that serious artists live only in history, not in society. There is a new impulse to seek solidarity with listeners, and Shostakovich is suddenly a role model. The pact he forged with a great audience is what now impresses musicians and wins him new admirers, and music acutely resonated with the needs and aspirations of a public traumatized by autocracy and war. More importantly, however, more people began listening to a greater number of his works. The Fourth and Eighth Symphonies began appearing on as many concert programs as the Fifth and Seventh. The quartet cycles began. Recordings proliferated. Pretty much all of Shostakovich is now available. In 1960, by which time his international fame might have offered him a shield, Shostakovich gave in to pressure and joined the Communist Party.
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/9780520249790.003.0030
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
In the ashes of world war and revolutionary terror, the Beethovenian art of profundity and power began to look more like an art of violence and psychopathology, and composers sought refuge in what ...
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In the ashes of world war and revolutionary terror, the Beethovenian art of profundity and power began to look more like an art of violence and psychopathology, and composers sought refuge in what seemed the saner, more orderly, world of Bach. This chapter explores the emergence of the musician Bach in Russian music. Bach became the new ecumenical patriarch, and for Stravinsky and the other Parisians, represented an art that wishes to be plain, brisk, nondescriptive, and even non-expressive, in the words of the composer Charles Koechlin. Embracing him meant above all renouncing the Romantic nationalism that had brought about the world disaster. Dmitry Shostakovich's imagined Bach was a consoling pastor who could lead him beside the still waters and restore his soul. Buffeted by the world in its games of power as no mere composer had ever been, Shostakovich was desperately seeking a neutral corner.Less
In the ashes of world war and revolutionary terror, the Beethovenian art of profundity and power began to look more like an art of violence and psychopathology, and composers sought refuge in what seemed the saner, more orderly, world of Bach. This chapter explores the emergence of the musician Bach in Russian music. Bach became the new ecumenical patriarch, and for Stravinsky and the other Parisians, represented an art that wishes to be plain, brisk, nondescriptive, and even non-expressive, in the words of the composer Charles Koechlin. Embracing him meant above all renouncing the Romantic nationalism that had brought about the world disaster. Dmitry Shostakovich's imagined Bach was a consoling pastor who could lead him beside the still waters and restore his soul. Buffeted by the world in its games of power as no mere composer had ever been, Shostakovich was desperately seeking a neutral corner.
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/9780520249790.003.0035
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter focuses on the Soviet composer of Jewish origin Mieczyslaw Weinberg and a recital of his music by cellist Yosif Feigelson. The recital included the U.S. première of Weinberg's ...
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This chapter focuses on the Soviet composer of Jewish origin Mieczyslaw Weinberg and a recital of his music by cellist Yosif Feigelson. The recital included the U.S. première of Weinberg's Twenty-four Preludes for Unaccompanied Cello (op. 100). Weinberg was born in a family of a Jewish violinist and theater composer in Warsaw, Poland and fled to Minsk, Soviet Russia in 1939, where he studied music. Later, he fled to Tashkent, where he composed a ballet called Fighting for the Fatherland, and also a symphony, which he dedicated to the Red Army. The chapter further offers information on the music career and life of the composer from the 1940s to the 1970s. By 1992, Weinberg was the author of seven operas, twenty-one symphonies, seventeen string quartets, a host of concertos, and much else besides. For most of his career, Weinberg, like most Soviet composers of his generation, remained hidden, as far as the West was concerned, in the colossal shadow of his friend, composer Dmitry Shostakovich.Less
This chapter focuses on the Soviet composer of Jewish origin Mieczyslaw Weinberg and a recital of his music by cellist Yosif Feigelson. The recital included the U.S. première of Weinberg's Twenty-four Preludes for Unaccompanied Cello (op. 100). Weinberg was born in a family of a Jewish violinist and theater composer in Warsaw, Poland and fled to Minsk, Soviet Russia in 1939, where he studied music. Later, he fled to Tashkent, where he composed a ballet called Fighting for the Fatherland, and also a symphony, which he dedicated to the Red Army. The chapter further offers information on the music career and life of the composer from the 1940s to the 1970s. By 1992, Weinberg was the author of seven operas, twenty-one symphonies, seventeen string quartets, a host of concertos, and much else besides. For most of his career, Weinberg, like most Soviet composers of his generation, remained hidden, as far as the West was concerned, in the colossal shadow of his friend, composer Dmitry Shostakovich.
Janice Ross
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300207637
- eISBN:
- 9780300210644
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300207637.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Everyone has heard of George Balanchine. Few outside Russia know of Leonid Yakobson, Balanchine's contemporary, who remained in Lenin's Russia and survived censorship during the darkest days of ...
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Everyone has heard of George Balanchine. Few outside Russia know of Leonid Yakobson, Balanchine's contemporary, who remained in Lenin's Russia and survived censorship during the darkest days of Stalin. Like Shostakovich, Yakobson suffered for his art and yet managed to create a singular body of revolutionary dances that spoke to the Soviet condition. His work was often considered so culturally explosive that it was described as “like a bomb going off.” Based on untapped archival collections of photographs, films, and writings about Yakobson's work in Moscow and St. Petersburg for the Bolshoi and Kirov ballets, as well as interviews with former dancers, family, and audience members, this biography examines a hidden history of artistic resistance in the USSR through this brave artist, who struggled against officially sanctioned anti-Semitism while offering a vista of hope.Less
Everyone has heard of George Balanchine. Few outside Russia know of Leonid Yakobson, Balanchine's contemporary, who remained in Lenin's Russia and survived censorship during the darkest days of Stalin. Like Shostakovich, Yakobson suffered for his art and yet managed to create a singular body of revolutionary dances that spoke to the Soviet condition. His work was often considered so culturally explosive that it was described as “like a bomb going off.” Based on untapped archival collections of photographs, films, and writings about Yakobson's work in Moscow and St. Petersburg for the Bolshoi and Kirov ballets, as well as interviews with former dancers, family, and audience members, this biography examines a hidden history of artistic resistance in the USSR through this brave artist, who struggled against officially sanctioned anti-Semitism while offering a vista of hope.
Marina Frolova-Walker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300208849
- eISBN:
- 9780300215991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300208849.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter focuses on Dmitry Shostakovich's behaviour as a member of the Stalin Prize Committee (KSP). Shostakovich started attending meetings of the Music Section in March 1947. When the plenary ...
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This chapter focuses on Dmitry Shostakovich's behaviour as a member of the Stalin Prize Committee (KSP). Shostakovich started attending meetings of the Music Section in March 1947. When the plenary sessions of the KSP began in April, Shostakovich and Nikolai Myaskovsky clashed over the latter's former student, Yevgeny Golubev, whose oratorio The Immortal Heroes (Geroi bessmertnï) was under discussion. This chapter first considers the conflicting accounts of Shostakovich's criticism of Golubev before discussing what his colleagues deemed to be Shostakovich's undiplomatic behaviour in various instances, including his stance regarding Anatoly Aleksandrov's opera Bela. It then examines Shostakovich's removal from the KSP in February 1948 and his reinstatement in December 1951. It argues that Shostakovich's interventions at the KSP reflect his fiery public temperament that went against professional etiquette or delicacy as well as hypocrisy or tedium.Less
This chapter focuses on Dmitry Shostakovich's behaviour as a member of the Stalin Prize Committee (KSP). Shostakovich started attending meetings of the Music Section in March 1947. When the plenary sessions of the KSP began in April, Shostakovich and Nikolai Myaskovsky clashed over the latter's former student, Yevgeny Golubev, whose oratorio The Immortal Heroes (Geroi bessmertnï) was under discussion. This chapter first considers the conflicting accounts of Shostakovich's criticism of Golubev before discussing what his colleagues deemed to be Shostakovich's undiplomatic behaviour in various instances, including his stance regarding Anatoly Aleksandrov's opera Bela. It then examines Shostakovich's removal from the KSP in February 1948 and his reinstatement in December 1951. It argues that Shostakovich's interventions at the KSP reflect his fiery public temperament that went against professional etiquette or delicacy as well as hypocrisy or tedium.
Kiril Tomoff
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801453120
- eISBN:
- 9781501701825
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801453120.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter examines the Soviet manipulation of international copyright law over an American film studio's fair use of music written by Soviet composers in an anti-Soviet film. At issue was the use ...
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This chapter examines the Soviet manipulation of international copyright law over an American film studio's fair use of music written by Soviet composers in an anti-Soviet film. At issue was the use of music written by Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, and Aram Khachaturian in what American film scholars consider the first Hollywood Cold War film, William Wellman's The Iron Curtain. Soviet objections to the use of the music in the film eventually resulted in two court fights, one in New York and the other in Paris. Though the Soviet effort to stop the film screening in the United States failed, a strategic adjustment that included assigning distribution rights to a French publisher resulted in a major Soviet victory when subsequent distribution in Europe ceased.Less
This chapter examines the Soviet manipulation of international copyright law over an American film studio's fair use of music written by Soviet composers in an anti-Soviet film. At issue was the use of music written by Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, and Aram Khachaturian in what American film scholars consider the first Hollywood Cold War film, William Wellman's The Iron Curtain. Soviet objections to the use of the music in the film eventually resulted in two court fights, one in New York and the other in Paris. Though the Soviet effort to stop the film screening in the United States failed, a strategic adjustment that included assigning distribution rights to a French publisher resulted in a major Soviet victory when subsequent distribution in Europe ceased.
Mark Mazullo
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300149432
- eISBN:
- 9780300149449
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300149432.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This is a book-length study of Shostakovich's Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano, Opus 87. It explains the cultural context in which Shostakovich composed, relates the cycle to piano works (by ...
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This is a book-length study of Shostakovich's Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano, Opus 87. It explains the cultural context in which Shostakovich composed, relates the cycle to piano works (by Bach, Hindemith, and others), and offers individual commentaries on each of the Preludes and Fugues.Less
This is a book-length study of Shostakovich's Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano, Opus 87. It explains the cultural context in which Shostakovich composed, relates the cycle to piano works (by Bach, Hindemith, and others), and offers individual commentaries on each of the Preludes and Fugues.
Phillip Deery
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823253685
- eISBN:
- 9780823261246
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823253685.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines the visit to New York of the Soviet composer, Dimitri Shostakovich, in 1949. At Stalin’s insistence he attended a peace conference held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and ...
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This chapter examines the visit to New York of the Soviet composer, Dimitri Shostakovich, in 1949. At Stalin’s insistence he attended a peace conference held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and experienced political humiliation and personal anguish. The Waldorf conference spawned the anti-Stalinist Americans for Intellectual Freedom, which prefigured the Congress for Cultural Freedom.Less
This chapter examines the visit to New York of the Soviet composer, Dimitri Shostakovich, in 1949. At Stalin’s insistence he attended a peace conference held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and experienced political humiliation and personal anguish. The Waldorf conference spawned the anti-Stalinist Americans for Intellectual Freedom, which prefigured the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
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/9780300137132.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the history of Jewish musicians in late Russian Empire. It considers the broader Jewish musical legacy in one of the most important ...
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This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the history of Jewish musicians in late Russian Empire. It considers the broader Jewish musical legacy in one of the most important Russian–Jewish cultural encounters of the twentieth century: the post-World War II friendship of composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Mieczyslaw Weinberg. The chapter also discusses the lives of actual Russian Jewish musicians who looked past conventional politics and religion to culture as the foundation of modern Jewish identity.Less
This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the history of Jewish musicians in late Russian Empire. It considers the broader Jewish musical legacy in one of the most important Russian–Jewish cultural encounters of the twentieth century: the post-World War II friendship of composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Mieczyslaw Weinberg. The chapter also discusses the lives of actual Russian Jewish musicians who looked past conventional politics and religion to culture as the foundation of modern Jewish identity.
Boris Berman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300114904
- eISBN:
- 9780300145007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300114904.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter focuses on the Ninth Sonata, which was not published until after Prokofiev's death. These unusual delays are indicative of the composer's changed political fortunes. In the campaign ...
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This chapter focuses on the Ninth Sonata, which was not published until after Prokofiev's death. These unusual delays are indicative of the composer's changed political fortunes. In the campaign against formalism launched by Communist Party officials in the early months of 1948, Prokofiev, along with Shostakovich, was implicated as one of the principal culprits. The Ninth Sonata is notable for the simplicity of its style, as well as for the conciseness and clarity of its structure. It lacks the dramatic conflicts, complexity, and energy of the preceding group of “War Sonatas.” The conservative musical language may be attributed partly to Prokofiev's premonition of the politically repressive times. The dramatic worsening of his health may also have contributed to the relative lack of sheer motoric energy so typical of his music.Less
This chapter focuses on the Ninth Sonata, which was not published until after Prokofiev's death. These unusual delays are indicative of the composer's changed political fortunes. In the campaign against formalism launched by Communist Party officials in the early months of 1948, Prokofiev, along with Shostakovich, was implicated as one of the principal culprits. The Ninth Sonata is notable for the simplicity of its style, as well as for the conciseness and clarity of its structure. It lacks the dramatic conflicts, complexity, and energy of the preceding group of “War Sonatas.” The conservative musical language may be attributed partly to Prokofiev's premonition of the politically repressive times. The dramatic worsening of his health may also have contributed to the relative lack of sheer motoric energy so typical of his music.
