- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press (March 19, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0300112734
- ISBN-13: 978-0300112733
Challenging
what is widely regarded as the distinguishing feature of Russian
music—its ineffable “Russianness”—Marina Frolova-Walker examines the
history of Russian music from the premiere of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar
in 1836 to the death of Stalin in 1953, the years in which musical
nationalism was encouraged and endorsed by the Russian state and its
Soviet successor.
The author
identifies and discusses two central myths that dominated Russian
culture during this period—that art revealed the Russian soul, and that
this nationalist artistic tradition was founded by Glinka and Pushkin.
The author also offers a critical account of how the imperatives of
nationalist thought affected individual composers. In this way
Frolova-Walker provides a new perspective on the brilliant creativity,
innovation, and eventual stagnation within the tradition of Russian
nationalist music.
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