Slonimsky Nicolas. Writings on Music. Vol 2. Russian and Soviet Music and Composers

Ed. by Electra Slonimsky Yourke. — London: Routledge, 2003. — 272 p. — ISBN-10: 0415968666; ISBN-13: 978-0415968669.Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995) was an influential and celebrated writer on music. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1894, in his 101 years he taught and coached music; conducted the premieres of several 20th-century masterpieces; composed works for piano and voice; and oversaw the 5th-8th editions of the classic Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Beginning in 1926, Slonimsky resided in the United States. From his arrival, he wrote provocative articles on contemporary music and musicians, many of whom were his personal friends. Working as a freelance author, he built a large file of review, articles, and even manuscripts for books that were never published.Selecting the articles for this volume has been harder than for the other volumes because of the profusion of writings available. Russian/Soviet music was, of course, one of Slonimsky's major subject areas. He was personally a product of the great Russian musical tradition—born in St. Petersburg, his family part of the cultural elite, and he attended the famous Conservatory there. His considerable talents gave him entrée to Russia’s musical world as a young man, even as it was shaken and overturned by war, revolution, and exile. The Russians who had the good luck to find exile in Paris constituted a core of musical life there, and he was part of that exalted group.Although he moved on to identify and promote American modern music in particular, he remained in a unique position to monitor the eventful tale of Soviet music as it unfolded from the late ‘20s. He was professionally in full throttle, especially qualified to read and interpret politically driven musical policies as they were first handed down, then reversed, conceived anew and re-promulgated, around and around. He maintained direct contact with musical sources as best he could, with due regard for his counterparts’ safety. He read Soviet bulletins, journals, and embassy publications, and he subscribed to the Daily Worker. He analyzed the effect the zigzagging policies had on individual composers’ works, and he reported on their public mea culpas when they found themselves a step behind the latest government dicta.A Note from the EditorThe Roots of Russian MusicRussian Music
Russian Folk Music
Russian Music in Art SongsSome Major ComposersNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Muscovy’s Musical Merlin
Alexander Glazunov: Keeper of Russian Tradition
Reinhold Glière
Alexander Scriabin
Nikolai Miaskovsky: The Man of Twenty-three Symphonies
Alexander Tcherepnin—Septuagenarian
Igor Stravinsky
Serge Prokofiev: His Status in Soviet Music
Dmitri Dmitrievitch Shostakovitch
Shostakovitch’s War Symphony
Shostakovitch after the SeventhAfter the RevolutionDevelopment of Soviet Music
The Soviet Opera
Soviet Composers in War and Revolution
Soviet Music at Quarter-Century Mark
The Changing Style of Soviet Music
A New Tune in Soviet Music
Schoenberg in the Soviet MirrorPersonal ExperiencesRussia Revisited
Stimulating Talks Reveal Extraordinary Paradoxes
Moscow: Musical Interlude
Cultural Explosion in the U.S.S.R.