Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement, Second Edition - Hardcover

Morrison, Simon A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520305469 ISBN 13: 9780520305465

Publisher: California University Press, 2019

Synopsis

Acclaimed for treading new ground in operatic studies of the period, Simon Morrison’s influential and now-classic text explores music and the occult during the Russian Symbolist movement. Including previously unavailable archival materials about Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, this wholly revised edition is both up to date and revelatory. Topics range from decadence to pantheism, musical devilry to narcotic-infused evocations of heaven, the influence of Wagner, and the significance of contemporaneous Russian literature. Symbolism tested boundaries and reached for extremes so as to imagine art uniting people, facilitating communion with nature, and ultimately transcending reality. Within this framework, Morrison examines four lesser-known works by canonical composers―Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Scriabin, and Sergey Prokofiev―and in this new edition also considers Alexandre Gretchaninoff’s Sister Beatrice and Alexander Kastalsky’s Klara Milich, while also making the case for reviving Vladimir Rebikov’s The Christmas Tree.

About this title

About the Author

Simon Morrison is Professor of Music and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. He is the author of Bolshoi Confidential, The People's Artist: Prokofiev’s Soviet Years, and Lina and Serge: The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev.

From the Back Cover

"This volume contains so much valuable material: the archival research, the subtle contextual connections, and countless insights, whether musical, poetic, historical, or biographical. The book's impact should extend well beyond musicology, and it deserves to be considered one of the magisterial studies of the Russian Silver Age."--Marina Frolova-Walker, author of Stalin's Music Prize: Soviet Culture and Politics

From the Inside Flap

&;This volume contains so much valuable material: the archival research, the subtle contextual connections, and countless insights, whether musical, poetic, historical, or biographical. The book&;s impact should extend well beyond musicology, and it deserves to be considered one of the magisterial studies of the Russian Silver Age.&;&;Marina Frolova-Walker, author of Stalin&;s Music Prize: Soviet Culture and Politics

Edition details

• Publisher: California University Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520305469
• ISBN 13: 9780520305465
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 328