"Russian folk songs are a living history of the Russian people, rich, vivid and truthful, revealing their entire life," wrote the great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Russian folk songs have always played an essential part in Russian life, culture, and music. They have played an important part in the work of many great Russian composers including Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Tchaikovsky, Prokoviev, and Stravinsky. In this new study, Vadim Prokhorov provides a historical survey and a description of the musical and poetic characteristics of Russian folk song. The songs themselves are classified into several categories: calendar songs, lyric songs, work songs, epic songs, historical songs, and the urban songs that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. Prokhorov provides a basis for understanding the ethnomusicological principles of Russian folk song. In addition to his discussion of the various categories, he includes a generous selection of songs arranged for voice and piano, together with texts and translations of the song texts. Anyone interested in this rich repertory of folk song, whether as teacher, singer, or music lover, will find this a rewarding collection.

Excerpt from The National Music of Russia Musorgsky and Scriabin The Russian School resembles no other, either in history or in character. It suddenly blossomed forth in the middle of the nineteenth century, after a germinative period whose history can only be traced back with difficulty, but whose fruit ripened almost as soon as it appeared. Before the school was even fifty years old, it constituted a quite independent, homogeneous and extensive art. The case is so rare as to be at first disconcerting. It is not only the rapidity of growth which astonishes us, but also and especially the general excellence and the distinctive qualities which are common to nearly all the works exemplifying this school. Nationalism has often been put forward as a drawback to Russian music, and the claim of Glinka, Balakireff and Rimsky-Korsakoff, to have enriched their art-language by the inclusion of folk-songs, has been treated by some critics merely in a humorous light. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The National Music of Russia Musorgsky and Scriabin What did this movement mean, and what were the innovations which these Russian masters introduced into music? The answer is found in their works their music is distinguishable from all others, more by the characteristic materials than by'the spirit which animates it. But to describe these particular features in words is difficult. We can say with certainty that in their works, the melody, the tonality with the harmonic super-structures, the rhythms, are all as free as in the folk-songs them selves-a music which had existed before their age. And the fact that it is impossible to find such a freedom or any equivalent richness in the productions of those modern schools which are further removed from popular art, allows us to recognise the felicitous influence of this folk ele ment. But innovations of a tangible order are few in comparison with the value of the new Spirit which the Five were the first to assert. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Introduces the general public to the scholarly debate that has revolutionized Russian music history over the past two decades. Summarizes the new view of Russian music and provides an overview of the relationships between artistic movements and political ideas.