Shostakovich Studies 2

When Shostakovich Studies was published in 1995, archival research in the ex-Soviet Union was only just beginning. Since that time, research carried out in the Shostakovich Family Archive, founded by the composer's widow Irina Antonovna Shostakovich in 1975, and the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture has significantly raised the level of international Shostakovich studies. At the same time, scholarly understanding of Soviet society and culture has developed significantly since 1991, and this has also led to a more nuanced appreciation of Shostakovich's public and professional identity. Shostakovich Studies 2 reflects these changes, focusing on documentary research, manuscript sources, film studies and musical analysis informed by literary criticism and performance. Contributions in this volume include chapters on Orango, Shostakovich's diary, behind-the-scenes events following Pravda's criticisms of Shostakovich in 1936 and a new memoir of Shostakovich by the Soviet poet Evgeniy Dolmatovsky, as well as analytical studies from a range of perspectives.

Introduction; Part I. Archival Studies: 1. Interrupted masterpiece: Shostakovich's unfinished opera Orango Olga Digonskaya; 2. Notes from Shostakovich's diary Olga Dombrovskaya; 3. Mitya Shostakovich's first opus (dating the Scherzo Op. 1) Olga Digonskaya; Part II. Analysis and Interpretation: 4. Shostakovich and structural hearing David Fanning; 5. Socialist realism, modernism and Dmitriy Shostakovich's Odna (Alone, 1929–31) Joan Titus; 6. Shostakovich's politics of D minor and its neighbours, 1931–49 Patrick McCreless; 7. Shostakovich and 'polyphonic' creativity: the Fourteenth Symphony revisited Kristian Hibberd; 8. The poet's echo, the composer's voice: monologic verse or dialogic song? Philip Ross Bullock; Part III. Context: 9. 'Muddle instead of music' in 1936: cataclysm of musical administration Simo Mikkonen; 10. Shostakovich and Dolmatovsky: a last memoir Pauline Fairclough; 11. Shostakovich, Proletkul't and RAPM Levon Hakobian.

Reflecting the recent transformation in Shostakovich studies, an international team of scholars sheds new light on Dmitri Shostakovich's life and work. Essays range from detailed documentary studies of his private diary and his lost opera Orango to historical accounts of what really happened behind the scenes of the Composers' Union.

Pauline Fairclough is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Bristol, and a specialist in Russian and Soviet music. She is editor, with David Fanning, of The Cambridge Companion to Shostakovich and author of A Soviet Credo: Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. Together with Olga Digonskaya, Pauline chairs the International Musicological Society's study group 'Shostakovich and his Environment'.