{"product_id":"musorgsky-richard-taruskin-9780691016238","title":"Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"It is [a] fully illuminated story that Richard Taruskin, in the path-breaking essays collected here, unfolds around Modest Musorgsky, Russia's greatest national composer. . . . [Taruskin's] tour de force comes with a frontal attack on all the Soviet-bred truisms that for a century have refashioned Musorgsky from what the evidence suggests he was--an aristocrat with an early clinical interest in true-to-life musical portraiture and a later penchant for drinking partners who were both folklore buffs and political reactionaries democrat.\"--from the foreword \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIncorporating both new and now-classic essays, this book for the first time sets the vocal works of Modest Musorgsky in a fully detailed cultural, political, and historical context. From this perspective, Richard Taruskin revises fundamentally the composer's historical and artistic image, in particular debunking the century-old dogmas of Vladimir Stasov, Musorgsky's first biographer. Here the author offers the most complete explanation of the revision of the opera \u003ci\u003eBoris Godunov\u003c\/i\u003e, compares it to contemporaneous operas by Chaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, advances a revisionary characterization of \u003ci\u003eKhovanshchina\u003c\/i\u003e as an aristocratic tragedy informed by a pessimistic view of history, discusses Musorgsky's use of folklore, and, focusing on \u003ci\u003eSorochintsi Fair\u003c\/i\u003e, brings to a climax his refutation of Musorgsky as a protorevolutionary populist. The epilogue is a survey of revisionary productions of Musorgsky's works at home during the Gorbachev era.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Richard Taruskin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0691016232\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780691016238\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Princeton University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/27\/1997\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 449\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.40lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.23h x 6.10w x 1.14d","brand":"Richard Taruskin","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44059473510655,"sku":"9780691016238","price":63.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a4033166-252d-4b63-99e7-f3762e4e7799.jpg?v=1685058441","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/musorgsky-richard-taruskin-9780691016238","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}