Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review. . . truly the cornerstone for the study of Russian music before the nineteenth century . . . a refreshingly balanced presentation of both sacred and secular music traditions that is truly remarkable in its breadth of scholarship and detail. . . . Findeizen's History deserves high praise and enthusiastic endorsement; it belongs on every post secondary-course reading list as the preeminent source for the study of Russia's musical heritage.April 2009
-- Gregory Myers * Port Moody, BC, Canada *
. . . Meticulously indexed, it includes relevant musical scores as appendices and is wonderfully illustrated with everything from images of instruments to skomorokhi. There are copious tables of little known musical terms, samples of chastushki, synopses of operas, lists of published works and famous musicians and composers. . . If it took place in Russia from 1 AD to the end of the 1800s and had to do with music, you are likely to find something in here about it. An invaluable reference work.July 2008
* Russian Life *
Copiously illustrated, comprehensive, and exhaustive . . . . a historical first. . . . deserves high praise and enthusiastic endorsement . . . as the preeminent source for the study of Russia's musical heritage.Vol. 68.2 April 2009
-- Gregory Myers * Port Moody, BC, Canada *
Certainly, there is still much to be learnt about Russian music before Glinka, and even for those working on the music of the nineteenth, twentieth and now twenty-first centuries, Findeizen and his editors are models for us all.Vol. 88, no. 4, October 2010
* Slavonic & East European Review *
Findeyzen's major work . . . remains the foundation-stone on which all later work on the history of Russian music before the 19th century has been built.
-- Gerald Abraham * The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians *
Findeizen's prose provides a fascinating narrative, and the translator, Samuel William Pring, has succeeded in conveying its original flavour. . . . I can attest that undertaking a translation and commentary that would meet present-day academic criteria must have seemed an almost impossible task. That is why I wish to emphasize that the completion of this project is one worth celebrating, and that the collective labour of those involved deserves the approbation of the wider musicological community.Vol. 6.2 2009
-- Marina Ritzarev * Eighteenth-Century Music *
Table of ContentsEditors' Introduction to Volume 1
Author's Preface
List of Abbreviations
1. Introduction. The Predecessors of the Slavs
2. Pagan Rus'
3. Kievan Rus'
4. Novgorod the Great
5. The Activities of the Skomorokhi in Russia
6. Music and Musical Instruments in Russian Miniatures, Woodcuts, and Glossaries
7. A Survey of Old Russian Folk Instruments
8. Music in Ancient Moscow (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries)
9. Music in the Monastery. Chashi (Toasts). Bell Ringing. Sacred Performances (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)
10. Music in Court Life in the Seventeenth Century
11. A Brief Survey of Singers, Composers, and Music Theorists of the Sixteenth and Seventeeth Centuries
12. Music and Theater in the Age of Peter the Great
Music Appendix
Notes
Volume 1 Bibliography
