On Russian Music

by Richard Taruskin

Over the past four decades, Richard Taruskin's publications have redefined the field of Russian-music study. This volume 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, like the ones on Chaikovsky's alleged suicide and on the interpretation of Shostakovich's legacy, have won fame in their own right as decisive contributions to some of the most significant debates in contemporary musicology. An extensive introduction lays out the main issues and a justification of Taruskin'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.

Genres: Music, Russia, Nonfiction, Art, Classical Music, History

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

ON RUSSIAN MUSIC collects Richard Taruskin's articles on the subject, published in a variety of periodicals from 1975 to the early millennium. For this volume, the critic has written an ample introduction, and for many of the articles he adds postscripts that discuss the media fallout from his remarks.

One thing should be made clear: this collection really only covers Russian music up to Shostakovich. While fans of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Glazunov, Prokofiev, etc. will be quite happy with it, there is a noticeable lack of interest in the composers who came of age in the 1960s and beyond. There are two articles covering festivals of lesser-known Soviet and post-Soviet composers, but the remarks are quite general. Sofia Gubaidulina is only mentioned a couple of times, in lists of composers with no further details. The only time Alfred Schnittke substantially appears is for his comments on Prokofiev, not for his own music.

I must admit that I have little interest in the earliest composers that Taruskin treats, but when he discusses the early and middle Soviet era, I find his views enjoyable. Taruskin takes up many times the tendency for Western critics to claim that Soviet works they liked were secretly dissident, even when there is no evidence for it (and occasionally there's evidence to the contrary). Taruskin does ascribe a doubleness to Shostakovich, but notes that the covert element is self-pity and and self-consolation, not dissidence. The obsession with secret programmes in his music thus gets it wrong. As Taruskin writes, "To jump from such expressions of disaffection to blunt anticommunism (or pro-Westernism), as so many reviewers of the Glikman letters have done, is a gross misstep."

Another persistent theme is the responsibility of putting on overtly Stalinist material. Taruskin (in)famously believes Prokofiev to be a titan of 20th century music, but his music doesn't exist in a vacuum, and to uphold certain works without mentioning their context betrays Stalin's victims.

Like all critics, Taruskin has a few opinions that one won't agree with, that's fine. But there's the occasional misunderstanding. He speaks of "Karlheinz Stockhausen’s enviously admiring response to the destruction of the World Trade Center" when, as those who familiar with the composer's nutty personal cosmology would know, the response was neither envious nor admiring.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oppositely to another reviewer, I've only read the 19thC essays not the Soviet -- though I look forward to Shostakovich later.

In short time I have come to admire Richard Taruskin for sense, wit and insight, for intellectual grasp, width of attainment and humour. He is at his peak on Russians. He starts with an essay on their historiography, for Russian composers have suffered from the isolation factor and been exoticised as a result -- he won't have any of that. Taruskin's views on Tchaikovsky and Mussorsgky, just for two, are simply not to be missed.

I'm musically challenged ('I know what I like...' I like Russians as a matter of fact) but can read these as culture study, interpretation of art, and skip over the technical portions. If I read more Taruskin of course I'll get more educated.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a musician, I must admit that my introduction to musicology was not wholly positive. The author spends a lot of time explaining why other musicologists are wrong, and dabbles too much in explaining with 'Russianness' and 'Jewness', as if that somehow makes him more fit to judge this music.

However, later on the book becomes more interesting, with illuminating characterizations of the person behind several famous Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

3 stars.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Es ist der alte Bund.'

[Tiffany]

Read the chapter on Tchaikovsky while still in high school. Can't remember it, but would like to revisit at some point.

[Elameno]

I don't know anything about music except that I like to listen to it. I'm not sure what compelled me to read this. But it was interesting, and the academic smackdowns were pretty entertaining.