A History of Russian Music: From 'Kamarinskaya' to 'Babi Yar' by Francis s> Maes Arnold J. Pomerans , Erica Pomerans (review)
2003; Maney Publishing; Volume: 81; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/see.2003.0002
ISSN2222-4327
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Musicological Studies
Resumo334 SEER, 8 I, 2, 2003 from the 'otherworld'to Nabokov's view of this world, follows Nabokov into exile, switchesback to his Russian predecessors,and finallytraces his literary contemporariesup to his more recent successors.Although this collection will probably be used selectively by most readers, it would be a pity merely to browse through it, because the reader who can keep up with its pace will be rewardedwith a much more complex insight into the workshopof one of the greatestwritersof the twentiethcentury. Wozfson College S. FRANK University ofOxford Maes, Francis. A Historyof RussianMusic. From'Kamarinskaya' to 'BabiYar'. Translated by Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London, 2002. xiv + 427 PP.Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography.Index. [29.95. IT is a rareand happy event worthy of celebrationwhen a new scholarlybook trulyanswersa long feltneed. Such isthe casewith the translationinto English of FrancisMaes's excellent Geschiedenis vandeRussisclze muziek:VanKamarinskaja totBabiJfar(Nijmegen, I996). The last English-languagesurveyof the historyof Russian music was made by RichardAnthony Leonardas long ago as I957; hisworkislong out of print and, indeed, completely overtakenby modern musicalscholarship.In the field of Russian music since that time no one has done more than Richard Taruskin,and, doubtless, many people have wished that he himself might fill this gap (see, for instance, SEER, 76, I998, 2, P. 342). In the event Maes's book is a very Taruskinianwork, and none the worse for that. The author refers to him extensively and occasionally adopts the vigorously polemical tone of Taruskin'sown writing; he likewise shows a similar enthusiasm for tracing borrowings and other forms of inter-textuality. Strong though Taruskin'sinfluence is, it would be wrong to regardMaes's monograph in the way that many viewed Stravinskii'sFirebird: as a bird from a distinguished predecessor's(inthis case Rimskii-Korsakov's)egg. FrancisMaes, a practising musician himself, brings an individual, sometimes perhaps eccentric, but alwaysstimulatingflavourto his subject.The translationis on the whole very good with only occasional glimpsesof itsorigin. The book's range is from Glinka's Kamarinskaia, the acorn from which Chaikovskiiconsidered all Russian music to have grown, to Shostakovich's Thirteenth ('Babiiiar')Symphony, which, incidentally,Maes considersto be, like the Fourteenth,more of a song cycle than a symphony (p. 360). Many of the fourteen chapters are given colourful, even fancifultitles. Each is divided into subsectionswith individualnames. Afteran introductorychapterdevoted to questions of nationalism and orientalism, the firstmain chapter is entitled "'I'm Finished with Russian Music": Mikhail Glinka', beginning with a whirlwind review of earlier Russian music. Maes does not stint words in describingthe plots of the operas and balletshe discusses,but these discursive passages are interspersed with a plethora of detailed, sometimes technical, musicological insights. REVIEWS 335 The middle chaptersaredevoted to thefeudsand battlesof mid-nineteenthcentury Russian music; here the author refutes the received view (largely created by Stasov) of the Mighty Handful as a progressivegroup fighting the forces of conservativism. He points out that Balakirev,for example, despite his advocacy of programme music, continued to reflect the symphonic approach of the German tradition (p. 67). In Chapters 3 to 6, instead of a work by work account, Maes attempts to show the options open to different composers and to analyse their themes. Amongst the topics covered here are orientalism,harmonicexplorations,realism,andvocal lyricism.A particularly attractive aspect of this section and, indeed, of the book as a whole, is the author's skill in pointing out influence, borrowings and, in general, intertextuality . Here, to give but one example, Balakirev'sFirstSymphony is seen to anticipatethelate symphoniesof Sibelius(p. 69). In hislateryearsBalakirev is memorablydescribedas having 'become his own epigone' (p. I68). A section of Chapter 5, entitled 'Chaikovsky'sPersonal Path', anticipates some treatment of his early operas in the immediately following chapters, '"Truth in the Realm of the Pseudo":Russian Opera' and '"The MusicianHuman ": Pyotr Chaikovsky'.In the latter, after a review of the still unclear circumstancesof the composer's death, Maes, amongst other things, notes an interesting relationship between Chaikovskii'sballets and his church music. With such splitting of composers between chapters here and elsewhere the comprehensiveindex proves invaluable. Chapter 9 ('Imaginationand Renewal: The SilverAge') treats'an amalgam of divergentmovements:neonationalism, symbolism...
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