Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia (review)

This unusual and fascinating book was written by an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech who is also a trained musician. Thoroughly documented, with 940 footnotes, the volume truly represents a labor of love.

Beginning with the 1917 Revolution and civil war period, the author takes her readers into the world of Red Army and "proletarian" culture, where everything is programmed by communist authorities. During those years, there were no opportunities for debate or diversity. The New Economic Policy, however, seemed to spawn relaxation, which in turn gave rise to the "new music." By the mid-1920s, prerevolutionary themes had reappeared. However, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians soon condemned this period of relaxation.

A purge of music professors followed, and attempts were made to give preference to workers, civil war veterans, and communists for admission to the conservatory. The year 1927, that is, the tenth anniversary of the revolution, triggered the establishment of the Central Arts Administration. One of the striking accomplishments of revolutionary experimentation evolved into a "conductorless" orchestra, a utopia in miniature.

The years 1930 and 1931 represented the first phase of the cultural revolution. Attempts to cleanse popular culture from its "degenerate, petit bourgeois past" had failed. Tchaikovsky, Bach, and Chopin returned to the recital halls. Music of the 1930s included parts of the gypsy tradition as well as folk songs. All of this traditional music survived the Stalinist period through World War II and postwar reconstruction.

This survey of music in Russia represents a tribute to the composers and indeed to the population at large, which survived attempts to enslave not only bodies but also souls.

Unfortunately, this is a book for the specialist or at least a layperson who loves music. The author, perhaps unconsciously, may have assumed that most readers would have her own superb qualifications. This is not meant as criticism, but rather as an acknowledgement of this reviewer's limitations with regard to assessing adequately what is a truly magisterial effort to portray the development of Russian music during the early Soviet period.