Soviet Émigrés and the Introduction of Twentieth-century Russian Music in British Symphony Orchestras' Programmes

DOI

10.2991/icassee-19.2019.163How to use a DOI?

Keywords

symphony orchestras; orchestral canon; twentieth-century Russian music; Shostakovich; Prokofiev; Rostropovich; Gergiev

Abstract

Twentieth-century Russian music, such as Prokofiev's and Shostakovich's works, has become a core repertoire for British orchestras. Canonisation of this repertoire mostly occurred during the Cold War with exiled or touring Soviet musicians and conductors. This paper explores how the cultural persona built on Soviet musicians by the press and concert programmes facilitated the stable canonisation of twentieth-century Russian music in Britain. The first generation of émigrés, including Rostropovich, gained symbolic capital from the tensed geopolitical world situation and therefore power of influence to introduce new music in British orchestras' programmes. Primary symbolic capital passed through the following generations of Russian musicians secured a strong place for Shostakovich and Prokofiev on the British musical scene up to today's performances.

Copyright

© 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ingrid Bols
PY  - 2019/11
DA  - 2019/11
TI  - Soviet Émigrés and the Introduction of Twentieth-century Russian Music in British Symphony Orchestras' Programmes
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 777
EP  - 780
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icassee-19.2019.163
DO  - 10.2991/icassee-19.2019.163
ID  - Bols2019/11
ER  -