Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSkinner's survey of Beethoven reception in Russia from the 1790s through 2010 is constructed from an astonishing compendium of details compiled over decades of research and reflection. The adoption of the heroic Beethoven for revolutionary and communist purposes—an adoption the West believes to be a perversion—makes sense not as abuse but as a logical outgrowth of the Romantic idealization of the composer. Ultimately, Skinner provokes us into re-examining our own 'Beethovens.'
-- William Meredith, emeritus director of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San José State University
Table of ContentsYouTube Playlist
Preface
Acknowledgments
Prelude: Music in the Tsar's Gulag
Part I: RUSSIA BEFORE 1917
1. Encountering Beethoven: Salon and Concert Hall
2. Engaging Beethoven: Writer and Critic
3. Evaluating Beethoven: From Freude to Freiheit
4. Embracing Beethoven: Concert Hall and Riverbank
Part II: RUSSIA AFTER 1917
5. Beethoven as Revolutionary: Red Star Rising
6. Beethoven as Icon: Cult and Canon
7. Beethoven as Beethoven: The End of Ideology
Postlude: Project Gulag 2010
Tables
Bibliography
Index
