Intimate Voices Shostakovich To The Avant Garde Dmitri Shostakovich The String Quartets

Leading authorities explore, in direct and accessible language, chamber-music masterpieces by twenty-one prominent composers since 1900.

Aan de hand van vijftien door hem gecomponeerde kwartetten wordt een beeld geschetst van de persoonlijke, politieke en professionele gebeurtenissen in het leven van de Russische componist (1906-1975).

A thorough examination of Shostakovich's string quartets is long overdue. Although they can justifiably lay claim to being the most significant and frequently performed twentieth-century oeuvre for that ensemble, there has been no systematic English-language study of the entire cycle. Judith Kuhn's book begins such a study, undertaken with the belief that, despite a growing awareness of the universality of Shostakovich's music, much remains to be learned from the historical context and an examination of the music's language. Much of the controversy about Shostakovich's music has been related to questions of meaning. The conflicting interpretations put forth by scholars during the musicological 'Shostakovich wars' have shown the impossibility of fixing a single meaning in the composer's music. Commentators have often heard the quartets as political in nature, although there have been contradictory views as to whether Shostakovich was a loyal communist or a dissident. The works are also often described as vivid narratives, perhaps a confessional autobiography or a chronicle of the composer's times. The cycle has also been heard to examine major philosophical issues posed by the composer's life and times, including war, death, love, the conflict of good and evil, the nature of subjectivity, the power of creativity and the place of the individual - and particularly the artist - in society. Soviet commentaries on the quartets typically describe the works through the lens of Socialist-Realist mythological master narratives. Recent Western commentaries see Shostakovich's quartets as expressions of broader twentieth-century subjectivity, filled with ruptures and uncertainty. What musical features enable these diverse interpretations? Kuhn examines each quartet in turn, looking first at its historical and biographical context, with special attention to the cultural questions being discussed at the time of its writing. She then surveys the work's reception history, and

Singing Soviet Stagnation: Vocal Cycles from the USSR, 1964–1985 explores the ways in which the aftershock of an apparent crisis in Soviet identity after the death of Stalin in 1953 can be detected in selected musical- literary works of what has become known as the ‘Stagnation’ era (1964–1985). Richard Louis Gillies traces the cultural impact of this shift through the intersection between music, poetry, and identity, presenting close readings of three substantial musical-literary works by three of the period’s most prominent composers of songs and vocal cycles: • Seven Poems of Aleksandr Blok, Op. 127 (1966– 1967) by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) • Russia Cast Adrift (1977) by Georgy Sviridov (1915–1998) • Stupeni (1981–1982; 1997) by Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937). The study elaborates an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of musicalliterary artworks that does not rely on existing models of musical analysis or on established modes of literary criticism, thereby avoiding privileging one discipline over the other. It will be of particular signifi cance for scholars, students, and performers with an interest in Russian and Soviet music, the intersection between music and poetry, and the history of Russian and East European culture, politics, and identity during the twentieth century.

For forty years, this widely acclaimed classic has remained unsurpassed as an introduction to art in the Western world, boasting the matchless credibility of the Janson name. This newest update features a more contemporary, more colorful design and vast array of extraordinarily produced illustrations that have become the Janson hallmark. A narrative voice makes this book a truly enjoyable read, and carefully reviewed and revised updates to this edition offer the utmost clarity in contributions based on recent scholarship. Extensive captions for the book’s incredible art program offer profound insight through the eyes of twentieth-century art historians speaking about specific pieces of art featured throughout. Significantly changed in this edition is the chapter on “The Late Renaissance,” in which Janson offers a new perspective on the subject, tracing in detail the religious art tied to the Catholic Reform movement, whose early history is little known to many readers of art history. Janson has also rearranged early Renaissance art according to genres instead of time sequence, and he has followed the reinterpretation of Etruscan art begun in recent years by German and English art historians. With a truly humanist approach, this book gives written and visual meaning to the captivating story of what artists have tried to express—and why—for more than 30,000 years.

Spotlighting the four women of the Lafayette Quartet, a leading Canadian ensemble, Rounds offers both a comprehensive history of the beloved instrumental form and an inside view of the complex world of professional quartet players, revealing the exultation and heatache that are the performing artists' daily fare. A treat for every music lover, whether player, listener or composer.