Shostakovich, old believers and new minimalists

The chapter discusses ‘minimalist’ elements of Dmitri Shostakovich's style as embodiments/ expressions of traditional Russian expressive modes rooted in the idioms of old folk music and the music of the ‘old believers’ The collection volume comprises a selection of articles that, as a group, marks an important new stage in our understanding of Shostakovich and his working environment. The papers have in common a perspective that we believe offers the most fruitful route forward for Shostakovich studies today. All address aspects of the composer’s output in the context of his life and cultural milieu. They are thus illuminating from two directions: the uncovering of ‘outside’ stimuli allows us to perceive the motivations behind Shostakovich’s artistic choices, while at the same time the nature of those choices offers insights into the workings of the larger world—cultural, social, political—that he inhabited. Thus his often ostensibly quirky choices are revealed as responses—by turns sentimental, moving, sardonic and angry—to the particular conditions, with all their absurdities and contradictions, that he had to negotiate. The composer emerging from the role of tortured loner of older narratives into that of the gregarious and engaged member of his society that, for better and worse, characterized the everyday reality of his life

Symbols, Metaphors and Irrationalities in Twentieth-Century Music

A Chapter in the volume 'Mimesi, Verita e Fiction. Ripensare l'arte. Sulla scia della "Poetica" di Aristotele' ed. Rafael Jimenez Catano and Ignacio Yarza. Published as a part of the series 'Poetica e Christianesimo', volume 3. Rome: EDUSC, 2009, pp 69 - 88

Efficacy of cimetidin in the prevention of ulcer formation in the stomach during immobilization stress

The effect of stress on the formation of ulcers in the mucous membrane of the stomach, the increase in cyclic adenosine monophosphate level in the gastric tissues, and parietal cell structure alteration. Use of cimetidin prevents these effect

'Italiani in Russia: Presenza fisica e influenza virtuale sulla Musica' [ Italians in Russia: Physical Presence and Virtual Influence on Music], in Rinascimento e Antirinascimento, Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario G.P. Vieusseux. Studi, vol. 22, ed. Lucia Tonini. Firenze: Casa Editrice Leo S.Olschki, 2012, 209-218.

The volume offers a reflection on the relationship between Russian and western culture, represented by Florence as the ‘cradle of the Renaissance’. The authors, Italian and Russian, consider under different perspectives the meaning of this confrontation, accentuated between XIX and XX century. The term ‘Anti-Renaissance’ indicates here the coexistence of a sort of ‘demonizing’ interpretation of the Renaissance centrality of mankind for a Russian alternative, and an admired devotion for it. Italian music was well known in Russia since Catherine the Great. The creation and the development of Russian national opera was largely dependant on Italian influence in general and on physical presence of the composers from Italy. Period of professional operatic music, which started in the late 16th century in Florence in the works by the composers of La Camerata Fiorentina , laid foundation for at least four centuries of European music , including flourishing development of Russian Renaissance in the 19th century. Russian post-Soviet minimalist composers are still following La Camerata Fiorentina’s ideas related to the roots of meanings in music

‘Shostakovich. Second Cello Concerto.’ In D.D. Shostakovich, New Collected Works Critical Edition, vol. 49. Moscow: DSCH, 2012, 83–124.

The introductory article and the editorial commentary for the new critical edition of the Collected Works by Dmitri Shostakovich, including the description/discussion of numerous sketches in the D.D.Shostakovich Archives in Moscow, Russia

'Kod Schnittke' ['The Schnittke Code']. Al'fredu Schnittke posviashchaetsia [Dedicated to Alfred Schnittke: Schnittke Yearbook, 8], ed. Alla Bogdanova and Elena Dolinskaia. Moscow: Kompozitor, 2011: 13-24.

Schnittke and his music is not so much rooted in the Russian clulture of the twentieth-century or in German culture of the seventeenth century (with which he always felt a deep affinity), but in a much more remote era of early Christian mysticism. Schnittke, a deeply religious man, was a true follower of this tradition, going back to the Old and New Testament and early Byzantine literature. The article includes a detailed analysis of Schnittke's piece 'Klingende Buchstaben' dedicated to the author

Amerikanskii vzgliad na Sovetskuiu muzyku [American View on Soviet Music]

A review of recent American Publications on Soviet Musi

Stravinsky and Khrennikov: An Unlikely Alliance.

Stravinsky’s visit to Russia in 1962 helped to dramatically change the situation for new music in the USSR. Paradoxically, Khrennikov, Iarustovskii, Kabalevskii, and other reactionaries in the Soviet Composers’ Union used Stravinsky’s visit to draw a veil over their own previous activities and to give themselves an underserved “aura.” Khrennikov, who strongly criticized Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky, and who made life almost impossible for both Prokofiev and Shostakovich in the 1940s and 1950s, later claimed to love their music and made untrue statements about his friendship with all of them. Clearly, Stravinsky understood the situation well, and treated each of Khrennikov’s advances with due caution. His reaction provides a salutary example for researchers today, especially those intent on rewriting history through excessively literal interpretations of archival materials without proper consideration of their context

John Cage in Soviet Russia 'Tempo', 66 ( 266), 2013: 1- 10

John Cage’s music was little known in the Soviet Union until the late 1960s, as official communist cultural policy would not allow his music to be performed or researched. This makes it all the more surprising that the only visit by the composer to Soviet Russia had become possible by 1988. The Soviet officials were planning a large festival of contemporary music in St Petersburg in 1988. With the changing climate Tikhon Khrennikov, the secretary of the All Soviet Union League of Composers, appointed by Stalin in 1948, was keen to be seen as a progressive at the time of Gorbachev’s perestroika, and he approved the invitation for Cage to be present at the performances of his works in St Petersburg. This article includes interviews with the composer conducted by the author in 1987–1989, as well as recollections of the meetings with Cage at his home in New York City and in Moscow