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, ...
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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.
Daniel Karlin
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198792352
- eISBN:
- 9780191834363
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198792352.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, World Literature
Chapter 1 begins with a primal myth transposed to the city. William Wordsworth’s ‘Power of Music’ represents street music as an unqualified blessing: in proclaiming his fiddler ‘An Orpheus!’, the ...
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Chapter 1 begins with a primal myth transposed to the city. William Wordsworth’s ‘Power of Music’ represents street music as an unqualified blessing: in proclaiming his fiddler ‘An Orpheus!’, the poet summons the miraculous and sacred power of music and song, but any allusion to Orpheus is shadowed by his tragic fate. Wordsworth’s poem recalls, by inversion, William Hogarth’s famous print, ‘The Enrag’d Musician’ (1741), in which a mob of urban noise-makers (including rival and degraded forms of street music and song) advance on the ‘classical’ violinist, himself a bathetic version of divine harmony. Hogarth’s urban ‘soundscape’ reappears in James Clarence Mangan’s poem ‘Khidder’ (1845), which likewise brings the fate of Orpheus, rather than his power, into focus. The violence with which street singers are faced is evident in George Gissing’s The Nether World (1889), whose title indicates that Orpheus will descend in vain into the hell of the city.Less
Chapter 1 begins with a primal myth transposed to the city. William Wordsworth’s ‘Power of Music’ represents street music as an unqualified blessing: in proclaiming his fiddler ‘An Orpheus!’, the poet summons the miraculous and sacred power of music and song, but any allusion to Orpheus is shadowed by his tragic fate. Wordsworth’s poem recalls, by inversion, William Hogarth’s famous print, ‘The Enrag’d Musician’ (1741), in which a mob of urban noise-makers (including rival and degraded forms of street music and song) advance on the ‘classical’ violinist, himself a bathetic version of divine harmony. Hogarth’s urban ‘soundscape’ reappears in James Clarence Mangan’s poem ‘Khidder’ (1845), which likewise brings the fate of Orpheus, rather than his power, into focus. The violence with which street singers are faced is evident in George Gissing’s The Nether World (1889), whose title indicates that Orpheus will descend in vain into the hell of the city.
Katherine Kolb
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199391950
- eISBN:
- 9780199391981
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391950.003.0043
- Subject:
- Music, Opera, History, Western
Much sooner than Berlioz had predicted, the workers’ chorus founded a year earlier has given its first concert. In reviewing it, he falls into some of the quasi-religious rhetoric of the ...
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Much sooner than Berlioz had predicted, the workers’ chorus founded a year earlier has given its first concert. In reviewing it, he falls into some of the quasi-religious rhetoric of the proto-socialist Saint-Simonians, with whom he has sympathized. We learn that Mainzer’s chorus forms only one of several parts of the curriculum offered to workmen through the Polytechnical Association: there are classes in geometry, arithmetic, drawing, and other subjects. Music was added as a form of moral instruction: it was decided that the best way of directing popular education toward the Good was to cultivate an “artistic sensibility.” Berlioz’s generous critique of the choral concert resonates with his own deeply held belief in the civilizing power of music, a belief touchingly confirmed by the workers’ serenade for their choir director in the aftermath of the concert.Less
Much sooner than Berlioz had predicted, the workers’ chorus founded a year earlier has given its first concert. In reviewing it, he falls into some of the quasi-religious rhetoric of the proto-socialist Saint-Simonians, with whom he has sympathized. We learn that Mainzer’s chorus forms only one of several parts of the curriculum offered to workmen through the Polytechnical Association: there are classes in geometry, arithmetic, drawing, and other subjects. Music was added as a form of moral instruction: it was decided that the best way of directing popular education toward the Good was to cultivate an “artistic sensibility.” Berlioz’s generous critique of the choral concert resonates with his own deeply held belief in the civilizing power of music, a belief touchingly confirmed by the workers’ serenade for their choir director in the aftermath of the concert.
George Michael
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813033501
- eISBN:
- 9780813038698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813033501.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
Although it experienced moderate growth, by the early 1990s the church was in disarray and nearly collapsed after the death of Ben Klassen in 1993. This chapter covers these events. In the final ...
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Although it experienced moderate growth, by the early 1990s the church was in disarray and nearly collapsed after the death of Ben Klassen in 1993. This chapter covers these events. In the final years of his life, Klassen looked in earnest for a successor to replace him as Pontifex Maximus, the title he created to signify the leader of his church. His personal wealth attracted a number of unscrupulous individuals, who caused considerable dissension in the church. After many failures, Klassen thought he had found a suitable successor in Dr. Rick McCarty, a psychologist who practiced in Florida. Later, McCarty also faced mounting troubles aside from the death of Klassen. With Klassen's demise, the church entered a phase of rapid decline. However, a young Canadian would spread the message of Creativity to skinheads through the emerging genre of “white power” music.Less
Although it experienced moderate growth, by the early 1990s the church was in disarray and nearly collapsed after the death of Ben Klassen in 1993. This chapter covers these events. In the final years of his life, Klassen looked in earnest for a successor to replace him as Pontifex Maximus, the title he created to signify the leader of his church. His personal wealth attracted a number of unscrupulous individuals, who caused considerable dissension in the church. After many failures, Klassen thought he had found a suitable successor in Dr. Rick McCarty, a psychologist who practiced in Florida. Later, McCarty also faced mounting troubles aside from the death of Klassen. With Klassen's demise, the church entered a phase of rapid decline. However, a young Canadian would spread the message of Creativity to skinheads through the emerging genre of “white power” music.
Katherine Kolb
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199391950
- eISBN:
- 9780199391981
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391950.003.0042
- Subject:
- Music, Opera, History, Western
Berlioz’s dreams of making music on a grand scale, as in the great festivals of the Revolution of 1789, faced one great obstacle: the institutions undergirding those festivals, notably the church ...
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Berlioz’s dreams of making music on a grand scale, as in the great festivals of the Revolution of 1789, faced one great obstacle: the institutions undergirding those festivals, notably the church choir schools, had vanished. Yet the recent decree of universal primary-school education, and initiatives for military music and workers’ education, stirred his hopes. Before evoking visions of the future, he gives a wide-ranging analysis of the “barbarous” state of music as currently practiced. He then turns to the two impressive initiatives that occasion this article: the workers’ chorus founded by Mainzer; the efforts initiated by Aubéry du Boulley for musical education and performances in the provinces. There is a ring of Saint-Simonian fervor in the final call for a “great and beautiful revolution in our culture,” a call to educate the masses for the benefit of humanity and Berlioz’s own cherished art.Less
Berlioz’s dreams of making music on a grand scale, as in the great festivals of the Revolution of 1789, faced one great obstacle: the institutions undergirding those festivals, notably the church choir schools, had vanished. Yet the recent decree of universal primary-school education, and initiatives for military music and workers’ education, stirred his hopes. Before evoking visions of the future, he gives a wide-ranging analysis of the “barbarous” state of music as currently practiced. He then turns to the two impressive initiatives that occasion this article: the workers’ chorus founded by Mainzer; the efforts initiated by Aubéry du Boulley for musical education and performances in the provinces. There is a ring of Saint-Simonian fervor in the final call for a “great and beautiful revolution in our culture,” a call to educate the masses for the benefit of humanity and Berlioz’s own cherished art.
