REVIEWS 325 Golding's Lord oftheFlies(I986),Stars inthe Morning Sk (I987),the adaptations fromAbramov's proseHouse (developed in I980) andBrothers andSisters (I988); Dostoevskii's TheDevils (I99I) andthe companyimprovised Gaudeamus (I990) andClaustrophobia (I994).The Maly'snewandcontroversial viewof Chekhov, includingTheCherry Orchard (I995),ThePlayWith NoName (Platonov) (I997)and TheSeagull (200I) has returnedthemto mainstream, classicRussiantheatre. Performances of UncleVanya (2004-05)whichcametoolateforinclusion inthis studyconfirmthistrend.Shevtsova mentionsbriefbutunsuccessful workon Three Sisters earlyon in the companyhistory.Is thisthe nextworkto come? Giventhebreadthof material andthecomplexity of touring,thebookwould benefitfroma detailedlist of datesand locationsof variousproductions to facilitate quickreference. Thereisa fascinating socialbackground ofRussiapost-glasnost inevidence. It is sketchedin sufficient detailforthe readerto graspjusthow muchof a strugglemaintaining theirworkhas been for the Maly,and it providesthe contextinwhichvarious productions haveevolvedandbeenaffected bysocial conditions. Overallthisbookis an informative studywhichtakesthecompanyhistory andtheatrical agendaupto 2003. Itis tobe hopedthatProfessor Shevtsova is ableto takehervaluableassociation withthe companyfurther, andmapout itscurrentdevelopment, seemingly asprecarious as ever,at somelaterdate. Department ofRussian andSlavonic Studies CYNTHIA MARSH University ofNottingham Gasparov,Boris. FiveOperas anda Symphony: Words andMusicinRussianCulture. RussianLiteratureand Thought. Yale UniversityPress,New Haven, CT and London, 2005. xxii + 268 pp. Musical examples. Notes. Index. /930.00. FivE OPERAS ANDASYMPHONY: WopDsAND Music Li RussiAvCULTURE is no conventional history of Russian music. Rather, in the words of its author, Boris Gasparov, it is 'a multidimensionalpanorama of Russian culture at different historicalmoments, viewed through the lens of national music' (p. xxi). Literary scholars,musicologistsand culturalhistoriansof all levels will all want to explore this passionate,ambitiousand thought-provokingbook, whose tone is set by the very opening line: 'Russianmusichas a characteristicsound'(p.xiii). Gasparovfirstsetshimselfthe taskof describingthat elusivesound, tracingsits roots in folksong and the church modes, yet generally avoiding any sense of nationalistessentialism.His other major theme as suggestedby the book's subtitle- is that of the decisiveinfluenceof 'Russianlogocentrism'(p. xx) on the composition and reception of works of music. Few people can be as well qualified as Gasparov to tackle such a project; each page radiates not only familiaritywith Russian literature, music and theatre (not to mention the extensive bibliographieson these subjectsin both Russian and English),but also generosityand imaginationregardingwhat it is to be a reader,a viewer or an artistat variouspoints in Russian history. 326 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 For Gasparov,the distinctivenessof Russian national music is to be found in what he dubs 'the Russianchorale'.Unlike Westernartmusicwith its tonicdominant harmony, Russianmusic is seen as somethingaltogethermore fluid and less teleological. Where Western music (or more precisely the AustroGermanic tradition) strives for the final resolution of harmonic tension, Russian music dissolves such tension by means of its modal inclinations. Gasparov's point has important historiographical and methodological implicationsnot only for the analysisof Russian music, but also for the study of European modernism.Where Arnold Schoenberg'sdodecaphonic method (which ultimately intensified the collapse of tonality presaged in Richard Wagner) was championed by Theodor Adorno and became the dominant trend in twentieth-centurymusic and musicology, Russian music notably Modest Musorgskiiand Igor' Stravinskii bequeathed a radicallydifferent aesthetic, discernible 'in the loosening of harmonic functions by Debussy, in the extendingof tonal harmoniesby Shostakovich,and perhapsmost radically in the tonal bricolageof Stravinsky's bitonality'(pp.7-8). Russianmusic'scontributionto European modernism here becomes almost messianic, and some readers may feel that at times Gasparov comes close to endorsing the very myths he examines, arguing as he does both for Russia's essential otherriess in the Europeancanon (atleast as seen from Bonn, Berlinor Vienna), and for its centralityin definingthe language of Europeanmodernism(particularlyin Paris).Whilstit is certainlytruethat the Western(particularly French)encounterwith both Russianmusic and orientalmusic took place at roughlythe same time, and both were put to similar use by Western composers (particularly Debussy), can one really argue for a fundamental similarity between the 'Russianchorale' andJavenese gamelan (an argument,moreover, redolent of the Eurasianistmovement, to which Gasparovdevotes attention)? Yet the musical argument never abstruse,always lucid is only one aspect of this book. Gasparovalso explores the intricaterelationshipbetween literatureand music, basing his observationson five canonical operas.Rightly noting that '[t]he dependence [...] of Russian music on national literature and literaryconsciousnessgave rise to a peculiar traditionof bemoaning the "desecration"of literary classics by composers' (p. xx), Gasparov usefully moves the debate on from questions of 'librettology'. The two chapters devoted to Petr Chaikovskiiare particularlywelcome and constitutea further development in the ongoing rehabilitationof the composer...