Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue [Anglais] [Broché]

As one of the outstanding musical scholars of his generation, Taruskin is notable for his regular contributions to the Sunday New York Times as well as to many periodicals, includng the New Republic. His appeal outside the academy is easy to explain: Aside from the sheer brilliance and originality of many of his insights, his lucid and witty prose is a pleaure to read. Here, Taruskin turns his attention to the 19th-century Russian nationalist composer Modest Musorgsky, with particuar emphasis on his vocal music, and the result is a compelling revisionist view. In particular, the received notion of Musorgsky as a rebellious, antiestablishment figure (traceable to his first biographer and highly congenial to Soviet ideology) is shown to be false. Recommended for large music collections.
- E. Gaub, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

It takes a critic of Mr. Taruskin's wide sympathies and musical acumen to steer through such rocky artistic and philosophical straits. It is unlikely that this year will see the publication of a more engrossing or more valuable book about music.

The merit of Taruskin's essays lies in his clear, highly readable style, which constantly keeps the reader's interest.... A major achievement.

Richard Taruskin's ... book reaffirms his position as the preeminent American historian of Russian music. He is the scholar who pursues the `real Musorgsky' with beguiling zest, deep erudition, abiding philology, and thoroughly appropriate irreverence.

Richard Taruskin's . . . book reaffirms his position as the pre-eminent American historian of Russian music. He is the scholar who pursues the 'real Musorgsky' with beguiling zest, deep erudition, abiding philology, and thoroughly appropriate irreverence.

"It is [a] fully illuminated story that Richard Taruskin, in the path-breaking essays collected here, unfolds around Modest Musorgsky, Russia's greatest national composer.... [Taruskin's] tour de force comes with a frontal attack on all the Soviet-bred truisms that for a century have refashioned Musorgsky from what the evidence suggests he was--an aristocrat with an early clinical interest in true-to-life musical portraiture and a later penchant for drinking partners who were both folklore buffs and political reactionaries democrat."--From the foreword

Incorporating both new and now-classic essays, this book for the first time sets the vocal works of Modest Musorgsky in a fully detailed cultural, political, and historical context. From this perspective Richard Taruskin revises fundamentally the composer's historical and artistic image, in particular debunking the century-old dogmas of Vladimir Stasov, Musorgsky's first biographer. Here the author offers the most complete explanation of the revision of the opera Boris Godunov, compares it to contemporaneous operas by Chaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, advances a revisionary characterization of Khovanshchina as an aristocratic tragedy informed by a pessimistic view of history, discusses Musorgsky's use of folklore, and, focusing on Sorochintsi Fair, brings to a climax his refutation of Musorgsky as a protorevolutionary populist. The epilogue is a survey of revisionary productions of Musorgsky's works at home during the Gorbachev era.

Incorporating both new and now-classic essays, this book sets the vocal works of Modest Musorgsky in a fully detailed cultural, political, and historical context, elevating the composer's image over other biographers. Among the book's many offerings are the most complete explanation of the revision of the opera "Boris Godunov, " and a revisionary characterization of "Khovanshchina" as an aristocratic tragedy resulting from a pessimistic view of history. Includes 102 music examples.