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Opera: Russian Opera

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Perspectives

Musorgsky

Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a "no-holds-barred biography" and "a state-of-the-art guide to the composer's life and works," this superb volume in the Master Musicians series offers the first life-and-works study of this towering composer of nineteenth-century Russian music toappear in English for over a half century. David Brown shows how the largely untrained Modest Musorgsky emerged as a supreme musical dramatist in his first opera, Boris Godunov. Along with this impressive debut and his much-loved piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition, Musorgsky produced some ofthe most startlingly novel music of the nineteenth century. He also displayed a prodigious gift for uncovering the emotional content of a text in his highly original song compositions. While illuminating Musorgsky's work, Brown paints a detailed portrait of a fitful composer who could apply himselfwith superhuman intensity when the inspiration was upon him, but who deteriorated into alcoholism and died tragically young.

Prokofiev: a Biography

This book, the first in-depth biography of Prokofiev since 1987 and the most detailed yet written, is based on fresh discoveries and new archival material. Since 1991--the year that marked both the fall of the Soviet Union and the centenary of Sergey and birth--a new assessment of the renowned composer's life and work has become both possible and necessary.  In this engrossing book, David Nice draws on a remarkable range of previously unexamined sources to present that reassessment. The book follows Prokofiev's personal and musical progression from his childhood on a Ukrainian country estate to the years he spent traveling in America and Europe as an acclaimed interpreter of his own works.  Nice sheds new light on Prokofiev's early years at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, his departure from Russia in 1918 for what he thought would be a short tour of America, and his marriage and family relationships.  He considers the music of Prokofiev's years in the west (long dismissed by Soviet musicologists as decadent work weakened by the composer's absence from the motherland), moving from the lyricism of his St. Petersburg years to the fresh simplicity of his early Soviet scores.  Nice also examines the complex reasons which led Prokofiev to move his family to the Soviet Union in 1936.  A second volume will cover Prokofiev's life from this period to his death in 1952. 

Stravinsky and His World

A new look at one of the most important composers of the twentith century Stravinsky and His World brings together an international roster of scholars to explore fresh perspectives on the life and music of Igor Stravinsky. Situating Stravinsky in new intellectual and musical contexts, the essays in this volume shed valuable light on one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. Contributors examine Stravinsky's interaction with Spanish and Latin American modernism, rethink the stylistic label "neoclassicism" with a section on the ideological conflict over his lesser-known opera buffa Mavra, and reassess his connections to his homeland, paying special attention to Stravinsky's visit to the Soviet Union in 1962. The essays also explore Stravinsky's musical and religious differences with Arthur Lourié, delve into Stravinsky's collaboration with Pyotr Suvchinsky and Roland-Manuel in the genesis of his groundbreaking Poetics of Music, and look at how the movement within stasis evident in the scores of Stravinsky's Orpheus and Oedipus Rex reflected the composer's fierce belief in fate. Rare documents--including Spanish and Mexican interviews, Russian letters, articles by Arthur Lourié, and rarely seen French and Russian texts--supplement the volume, bringing to life Stravinsky's rich intellectual milieu and intense personal relationships. The contributors are Tatiana Baranova, Leon Botstein, Jonathan Cross, Valérie Dufour, Gretchen Horlacher, Tamara Levitz, Klára Móricz, Leonora Saavedra, and Svetlana Savenko.

The Uncensored Boris Godunov: the Case for Pushkin's Original Comedy, with Annotated Text and Translation

Persuasively argues for including the original, 1825 version of the play Boris Godunov (later eclipsed by the politically correct edition) in the canon of Pushkin s works. Includes the 1825 Russian text and the only English translation of that version."

Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor

This study is the first to consider all three of Rachmaninoff's careers in detail. After surveying his place in Russian musical history and his creative activity, the author examines, with musical examples, each working chronological order against the background of the composer's life. Among the the many subjects upon which new light is shed are the operas, the songs, and the religious music. Rachmaninoff's remarkable career as a pianist, his style of playing and repertoire are analysed along with his historically important contribution to the gramophone and his work for the reproducing piano. The book includes a survey of his activity as a conductor. There are extensive references to Russian sources and the first appearance of a complete Rachmaninoff disconography is included. This book is the only comprehensive study in any language of the three aspects of Rachmaninoff's musical career and is a stimulating read for music lovers everywhere.

MY MUSICAL LIFE

In June 1908, Rimsky-Korsakov was taken away from Russian music, while in full activity, his superb talent, some say his genius, had just been consecrated in Paris by the triumphal representation of the Snegurochka.

At the death of the late composer, by the pious hands of his widow, an expert musician, herself, the original memoirs of the late composer, under the title of My Musical Life and whose high interest attracted the attention of the Russian press and public, was published. In fact, in this in-folio of nearly 400 pages, information abounds, not only on the "musical life" of the author, but on the whole "new school" of which he was the most active representative and that the "Russian season" of the last springs revealed to Parisians with such unforeseen success....

Tchaikovsky

(Unlocking the Masters). Composer and author Daniel Felsenfeld takes the reader on a tour of some of the "Little Russian's" most beloved works, including The Nutcracker , Swan Lake , 1812 Overture , Romeo and Juliet , Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6, the Serenade for Strings, and his Violin Concerto. The book is a series of blow-by-blow listening sections matched to the music on two accompanying CDs, guiding the reader through these magical compositions, illuminating their edges and fine points.

Websites

"Boris Godunov"

Sacred Stage: The Mariinsky Theater

Famous Figures