Russian Music Since 1917 - (Proceedings of the British Academy) by Patrick Zuk & Marina Frolova-Walker (Hardcover)

About the Book

These essays bring into clearer focus the transformation in the study of Russian music that has occurred since glasnost. Concentrating on Russian music since 1917, the volume shows how censorship in the USSR hindered developments in scholarship, and explains some difficulties experienced by musicians and scholars in the post-soviet era.

Book Synopsis

This ground-breaking collection of essays, which arises from a unique collaboration between leading scholars based on either side of the former Iron Curtain, is the first attempt to appraise the current state of research on the development of Russian art music since the 1917 Revolution. Part I provides a comprehensive critical overview of recent research both in Russia itself and outside it, outlining the principal changes in approach and emphasis. The remaining essays engage with topics of key importance, including: the envisionings of music's place in Soviet and post-Soviet cultural life; the effects of state controls on musical creativity and performance; musical institutions; the Russian musical diaspora; and the transition to the post-Soviet period.

The contributions vividly illustrate the transformation of scholarship in the field since glasnost. In the USSR, scholarship had been seriously hindered by censorship, while in the West, Soviet music and musical life tended to be assessed from entrenched aesthetic and ideological standpoints engendered by the Cold War. The dramatically changed climate of the post-Soviet period has made possible a more objective and informed discussion of many issues, and has led scholars to question the validity of 'top-down' models of the interaction between musicians and the state that had previously been predominant.

The book will be not only be a valuable resource for university courses on Russian music at undergraduate and postgraduate level, but essential reading for all those interested in Soviet and post-Soviet culture.

Review Quotes

The aim of this ambitious book is to reassess the critical reception of Russian music over the last century...The editors deserve praise for producing a book of both professional and amateur interest, which is rich in details of fact and ideas, and should be welcomed by musicians, musicologists and enterprising music lovers alike.-- "Arnold McMillin, Slavonic and East European Studies"

To be presented with eighteen studies on Russian and Soviet music that avoid dramatic or romanticised language brings great hope for the future of the field. Frolova-Walker and Zuk are to be congratulated on the quality, detail, and accessibility of their volume, which marks a milestone in Russian and Soviet music studies, an area for which appraisal and reappraisal has been long overdue.-- "Madeline Roycroft, Context"

Zuk and Frolova-Walker have provided a valuable resource for scholars and educators. Their diverse selection of essays has something for everyone, specialist and non-specialist alike. While tone, approach, and quality vary, this volume will surely have staying power as a wide-ranging collection of contemporary work in Russian music studies and a portrait of this important transitional moment in the field.-- "Leah Goldman, The Russian Review"

About the Author

Patrick Zuk is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Durham. He is a specialist in twentieth-century Russian music and cultural history.

Marina Frolova-Walker FBA is Professor of Music History at the Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Clare College. She is the author of Russian Music and Nationalism from Glinka to Stalin (Yale, 2007), co-author (with Jonathan Walker) of Music and Soviet Power, 191732 (Boydell, 2012), and author of Stalin's Music Prize: Soviet Culture and Politics (Yale, 2016).