Russian music studies

xxiv, 823 p. : 24 cm

2 vols. set

This work is a complete translation of Nikolai Findeizen's Ocherki po istorii muzyki v Rossii, a pathbreaking two-volume opus which, in its scope and command of primary sources, and in its curiosity and generosity of scholarly inquiry, has remained a cornerstone for all subsequent studies of Russian music. Researched and written over a forty-year period dating back to tsarist times, Findeizen's Ocherki was published in 1928 and 1929 by the Soviet State Publishing House, close to the time of its author's death. Approaching the study of the origins and development of music in Russia within the context of Russian cultural and social history, Findeizen took as his major theme the divergence between the music of folk and public life and music connected with the court. Volume 1 details the development of musical culture in pre-Christian and Kievan Rus' and in Novgorod the Great; the activities of Russia's first folk musicians, the skomorokhi; the varieties and evolution of musical instruments, especially old Russian folk instruments; music in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Moscow; music in the monastery and in court life in the seventeenth century; and music and theater in the age of Peter the Great.

Here are views of Tchaikovsky by a wide range of his contemporaries - from all periods of his life. In letters, diaries, and interviews, they speak of little-known facets of the composer's life: foibles and manners, politics and tastes, prejudices and preferences (sexual and otherwise). Friends, relatives, musicians, journalists, and state officials show us both the public and the private figure: the student at the School of Jurisprudence, the conductor, the professor at the Conservatory, the philanthropist and promoter of talent, the loving brother and uncle, the intrepid traveler, and the man who impressed a range of people - from servants to members of the Russian Imperial family.