In this monograph, Tatyana Naumenko, Doctor of Arts and a professor at Moscow’s Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, looks at modern Russian musicology through the prism of texts representing it. She mentions subjects addressed in musicological studies, names genres of music that scholars preference to explore, and describes modern methods of research and criteria of assessment, largely with the aim of overcoming Soviet-era dogmatism. Special consideration is given to the writing of academic degree dissertations on music in the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. The Annex lists dissertations approved between 1970 and 2013.

A collection of exercises for Oboe, composed by Wilhelm Ferling.

A collection of exercises, for Oboe, composed by Wilhelm Ferling.

A collection of exercises, for Oboe, composed by Wilhelm Ferling.

Southern Music

The oboe, including its earlier forms the shawm and the hautboy, is an instrument with a long and rich history. In this book two distinguished oboist-musicologists trace that history from its beginnings to the present time, discussing how and why the oboe evolved, what music was written for it, and which players were prominent. Geoffrey Burgess and Bruce Haynes begin by describing the oboe’s prehistory and subsequent development out of the shawm in the mid-seventeenth century. They then examine later stages of the instrument, from the classical hautboy to the transition to a keyed oboe and eventually the Conservatoire-system oboe. The authors consider the instrument’s place in Romantic and Modernist music and analyze traditional and avant-garde developments after World War II. Noting the oboe’s appearance in paintings and other iconography, as well as in distinctive musical contexts, they examine what this reveals about the instrument’s social function in different eras. Throughout the book they discuss the great performers, from the pioneers of the seventeenth century to the traveling virtuosi of the eighteenth, the masters of the romantic period and the legends of the twentieth century such as Gillet, Goossens, Tabuteau, and Holliger. With its extensive illustrations, useful technical appendices, and discography, this is a comprehensive and authoritative volume that will be the essential companion for every woodwind student and performer.