Among the first of Gerald Abraham's many books were studies of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and his knowledge of Russian literature and culture has provided the key to his extensive research into the history of Slavonic music. Music, for Gerald Abraham, was never merely an artefact to be measured and described - he believed it should be considered in its cultural context. It is remarkable how he enlivens our view of the Russian scene without having lived there for a prolonged period. "Essays on Russian and East European Music" brings together eleven essays on Russian, Polish, and Czechoslovakian music published in various books and journals over a period of twenty years, and a previously unpublished essay on the operas of Moniuszko.
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.
Richard Wagner has arguably the greatest and most long-term influence on wider European culture of all nineteenth-century composers. And yet, among the copious English-language literature examining Wagner's works, influence, and character, research into the composer’s impact and role in Russia and Eastern European countries, and perceptions of him from within those countries, is noticeably sparse. Wagner in Russia, Poland and the Czech Lands aims to redress imbalance and stimulate further research in this rich area. The eight essays are divided in three parts - one each on Russia, the Czech lands and Poland - and cover a wide historical span, from the composer’s first contacts with and appearances in these regions, through to his later reception in the Communist era. The contributing authors examine his influences in a wide range of areas such as music, literary and epistolary heritage, politics, and the cultural histories of Russia, the Czech lands, and Poland, in an attempt to establish Wagner’s place in a part of Europe not commonly addressed in studies of the composer.
Nikolay Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov: A Research and Information Guide, Second Edition is an annotated bibliography of all substantial, relevant published resources relating to the Russian composer. First published in 1988, this revised and expanded volume incorporates new information about the composer appearing over the last two decades, including literary publications, articles and reviews. Other sections provide a brief biographical sketch, selective discography, chronology and list of Rimsky-Korsakov’s works.
Russian music today has a firm hold around the world in the repertoire of opera houses, ballet companies, and orchestras. The music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergey Rachmaninov, Sergey Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich is very much today’s lingua franca both in the concert hall and on the soundtracks of international blockbusters from Hollywood. Meanwhile, the innovations of Modest Musorgsky, Alexander Borodin, and Igor Stravinsky have played their crucial role in the development of Western music, influencing the work of virtually every notable composer of the past century. Historical Dictionary of Russian Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 600 cross-referenced entries for each of Russia’s major performing organizations and performance venues, and on specific genres such as ballet, film music, symphony and church music. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Russian Music.
The Late Romantic Era treats the period bounded by the 1848 revolutions and the outbreak of World War I. It examines several musical dimensions of the bourgeois cultural ascendancy of the second half of the 19th century - the growth of independent institutions of music-making, the consolidation of a standard classical repertory and the emergence of increasingly specific repertories of popular music, professional and amateur. Single chapters on particular countries or regions are framed by pairs of chapters on Vienna, Paris and the German cities. In an opening chapter Dr Samson places the later geographical surveys within a thematic context which embraces social and economic change, political ideology and the climate of ideas.
Modest Musorgsky was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century Russian music. Now, in this new volume in the Master Musicians series, David Brown gives us the first life-and-works study of Musorgsky to appear in English for over a half century. Indeed, this is the largest such study of Musorgsky to have appeared outside Russia. Brown shows how Musorgsky, though essentially an amateur with no systematic training in composition, emerged in his first opera, Boris Godunov, as a supreme musical dramatist. Indeed, in this opera, and in certain of his piano pieces in Pictures at an Exhibition, Musorgsky produced some of the most startlingly novel music of the whole nineteenth century. He was also one of the most original of all song composers, with a prodigious gift for uncovering the emotional content of a text. As Brown illuminates Musorgsky's work, he also paints a detailed portrait of the composer's life. He describes how, unlike the systematic and disciplined Tchaikovsky, Musorgsky was a fitful composer. When the inspiration was upon him, he could apply himself with superhuman intensity, as he did when composing the initial version of Boris Godunov. Sadly, Musorgsky deteriorated in his final years, suffering periods of inner turmoil, when his alcoholism would be out of control. Finally, unemployed and all but destitute, he died at age forty-two. His failure to complete his two remaining operas, Khovanshchina and Sorochintsy Fair, Brown concludes, is one of music's greatest tragedies. Written by one of the leading authorities on nineteenth-century Russian composers, Musorgsky is the finest available biography of this giant of Russian music.
