Tchaikovsky and His Contemporaries: A Centennial Symposium by Alexandar s> Mihailovic (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 533 Mihailovic, Alexandar (ed.). Tchaikovsky andHis Contemporaries. A Centennial Symposium. Contributionsto the Study of Music and Dance, 49. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, and London, i999. xiv +4I8 pp. Index. Illustrations.Musical examples.Appendices. Notes. $75.00. CHAIKOVSKIIhas never gone completely out of fashion as Rakhmaninovonce did, but the volume under review shows that he is not only still one of the world'smost popular composers,but one also consideredworthy of scholarly attention. None the less, as Samuel Lipman shows in his mischievouslytitled article'Tchaikovsky:The Love That Dare Not SpeakItsName' (pp. 237-43), the snobberywhich flourishedin the firsthalf of the twentieth century is still alive, even among such luminaries as Robert Craft. This collection of essays derives from a conference which took place in October 1993 at Hofstra University, under whose auspicesit is published. It is divided into seven parts with two appendices, the latter being of musical examples, and of the conference programme which includes a map of the campus, amongst other more interesting illustrations, such as photographs. The seven main parts comprise: 'Changing Perspectiveson the Composer'; 'Tchaikovskyand His Musical Contemporaries';'TheOprichnik: Tchaikovsky's"Lost"Opera'; 'The Mature Operatic Composer';'Tchaikovsky,RussianOrthodoxy, and Nationalism '; 'Other Perspectives,Contemporaryand Modern'; and 'Round Table Discussions'. After an introduction by the editor, 'Tchaikovskyas Our Contemporary', the firstzection opens with a wide-ranging and thought-provokingpiece by Richard Taruskin,alreadysubstantiallyfamiliarfrom his 1997 Defining Russia Musicalyl: Historical andHermeneutical Essays(SEER,76, I998, 2, pp. 339-42) in which, beginningwith a planned opera on a storyby George Eliot, he goes on to challenge received views on 'classicalmusic' and 'classicism'as they relate to Chaikovskii'swork.In the same section Malcolm HamrickBrowndiscusses the latter in Anglo-American criticism from the i89os to the I950s, and Alexander Poznansky reassesses some of the myths that surround the composer. In the second section Rosamund Bartlett reassesses the influence of Wagner's music on Chaikovskii's symphonic writing, Joseph Kraus finds interestingcomparablerhythmicpatternsin Schumann and Chaikovskii,and Leslie Kearney makes an analyticalcomparison of the settingsby Musorgskii and Chaikovskiiof two poems, by Heine and Aleksei Tolstoi. The two essays on TheOprichnik by SusanEggarsandAnne Swartzbringnew insights,as does TrumanBullard'stracingof musicallinksbetween Tat'ianaand Lenskii. In the fifth section two essays, by Olga Dolskaya and Vladimir Morosan, aredevotedto Chaikovskii'schurchmusic,and a third,byWilliamH. Parsons, relatesUvarov's political trinityto the 1812 Overture, assessingthe latter'sfate over the lastdecade or so. In the followingsection, thereare essayson Modest Chaikovskii'splay TheSymphony by Stephany Gould and on Ken Russell'sfilm 7heMusicLovers by James Krukones, as well as the already mentioned piece by Samuel Lipman. The three round-table discussionswere devoted to biographical issues in Chaikovskii scholarship, to the place of the composer in American and 534 SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 Russian musical education, and on the interpretationand performanceof his ballets. These appear to have been reproduced verbatim, and convey the impression of a lively debate involving members of the audience, including one Ukrainian who was provoked into saying, 'So much of what I've heard today is the absolute distortion of the truth' (p. 3II). Solomon Volkov, apparentlyas lively in discussionas in his disputed memoir of Shostakovich, Testimony, seems to have been uncharacteristicallyequivocalwhen challenged about his reference to Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrinas 'great Russian writers [. . .] who disliked ballet as a genre, as an art', responding to the question, 'Those aregreatRussianwriters?'with 'Yeah,well . . .' (p. 306). The impressiongained from reading this handsomely produced volume is that the conference from which it arose must have been a stimulatingand, in places, groundbreaking occasion. It is good that so much of it has been perpetuated in print, and the book should be of great interestto those whose minds arenot closed to the workof a much wronged and yet eternallypopular composer. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN University College London Laiiryk,Juras. Bie1arusk#ja kniznyja paznakiu zborach Biblijateki imiaF. Skaryny u Londanie. The FrancisSkarynaBelarusianLibrary,London, 2001. 58 pp. Notes. Illustrations.L4.oo: $6.oo. THE FRANCIS SKARYNA BELARUSIAN LIBRARY has existed in its present form forthirtyyears.Basedon theprivatecollectionsof FrLeu Haroskaand Bishop Ceslai Sipovic, it has expanded greatly over the years, and now comprises a collection of books, periodicals and manuscriptsunrivalledin the West, with several items which are not to be found even...