In Stravinsky's Orbit: Responses to Modernism in Russian ParisThe Bolsheviks’ 1917 political coup caused a seismic disruption in Russian culture. Carried by the first wave of emigrants, Russian culture migrated West, transforming itself as it interacted with the new cultural environment and clashed with exported Soviet trends. In this book, Klára Móricz explores the transnational emigrant space of Russian composers Igor Stravinsky, Vladimir Dukelsky, Sergey Prokofiev, Nicolas Nabokov, and Arthur Lourié in interwar Paris. Their music reflected the conflict between a modernist narrative demanding innovation and a narrative of exile wedded to the preservation of prerevolutionary Russian culture. The emigrants’ and the Bolsheviks’ contrasting visions of Russia and its past collided frequently in the French capital, where the Soviets displayed their political and artistic products. Russian composers in Paris also had to reckon with Stravinsky’s disproportionate influence: if they succumbed to fashions dictated by their famous compatriot, they risked becoming epigones; if they kept to their old ways, they quickly became irrelevant. Although Stravinsky’s neoclassicism provided a seemingly neutral middle ground between innovation and nostalgia, it was also marked by the exilic experience. Móricz offers this unexplored context for Stravinsky’s neoclassicism, shedding new light on this infinitely elusive term. |
Contents
1 | 24 |
Soviet méchanique or the Bolshevik Temptation | 58 |
Neoclassicism ŕ la russe 1 or Reclaiming the Eighteenth Century | 97 |
in Nabokovs | 106 |
Neoclassicism ŕ la russe 2 or Stravinskys Version of Similia | 123 |
A Feast in Time of Plague | 189 |
Epilogue or Firebird to Phoenix | 207 |
Index | 225 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Alexander André André Levinson Apollo Arthur Lourié artistic Ballets Russes bass Bolshevik Boris Bronze Horseman choreographer chorus classical concert critic d'acier dance dancers Diaghilev Diary entry Duke Coll Dukelsky Dukelsky's emigratsii émigré End of St essay Eurasianist exhibition exile Feast February French ibid Igor Stravinsky January June Kochno Koussevitzky Leonid Sabaneyev Letters of Prokofiev London Lourie's Massine melody Miaskovsky Modern Moscow movement musique neoclassical neoclassicism Nicolas Nabokov Nikolai nostalgia opera opera-ballet oratorio ostinato Oxford Passport to Paris performance Petersburg Petersburg Text piano Plague played poem poet political premiere Prokofiev Diaries Pushkin quoted rehearsal Revolution Revue musicale Richard Taruskin Russia Abroad Russian composers Russian culture Russian emigrants Russian music Sabaneyev scenario scene Schloezer Serge Lifar Sergey Sergey Prokofiev song Soviet Russia Soviet Union Stravin strophe Suvchinsky Symphony Tchelitchew tion trans Translated Tsvetayeva University Press Vernon Duke Vladimir Vospominaniya Vozrozhdeniye write wrote Yakulov York