Richard Taruskin

Taruskin in 2014

Richard Filler Taruskin (born 2 April 1945) is an American musicologist and music critic who is among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as musical analysis that combines sociological, cultural and political perspectives, has incited much discussion, debate and controversy. He has written on a wide variety of topics, but central to his research is Russian music of the 18th century to present day. Other subjects he engages with include the theory of performance, 15th-century music, 20th-century classical music, nationalism in music, the theory of modernism, and analysis. He is best known for his monumental survey of Western classical music, the 6 volume Oxford History of Western Music. In addition, he regularly writes music criticism for newspapers like The New York Times.

Early life and education

Born on 2 April 1945 in New York, Taruskin was raised in a musical family; his mother was a piano teacher and father an amateur violinist. He attended the High School of Music & Art, where he studied cello. Taruskin received his B.A. magna cum laude (1965), M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. in historical musicology (1976) from Columbia University. As a choral conductor he directed the Columbia University Collegium Musicum. He played the viola da gamba with the Aulos Ensemble from the late 1970s to the late 1980s.

Career

Taruskin's extensive 1996 study Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra shows that Igor Stravinsky drew more heavily on Russian folk material than has previously been recognized, and analyzes the historical trends that caused Stravinsky not to be forthcoming about some of these borrowings.

Taruskin has also written extensively for lay readers, including numerous articles in The New York Times, many of which have been collected in Text and Act (in which he is an influential critic of the premises of the "historically informed performance" movement in classical music), The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays, and On Russian Music. His writings have frequently taken up social, cultural, and political issues in connection with music—for example, the question of censorship. A specific instance was the debate over John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer.

On the faculty of Columbia University until 1986, he moved to California as a professor of musicology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he held the Class of 1955 Chair. He retired from Berkeley at the end of 2014.

Awards and honors

Taruskin has received numerous awards and honors for his scholarship. He received the Noah Greenberg Prize (1978) from the American Musicological Society (AMS); the Alfred Einstein Award (1980) from the AMS; and the Dent Medal (1987) from the Royal Musical Association. He received the Kinkeldey Prize from the AMS twice, in 1997 and 2006. In 1998, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awarded him the Deems Taylor Award in 1988, and later in 2006. In 2017 he was the recipient of the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy (Music).

Publications

Sources:

Books

• Taruskin, Richard (1981). Opera and Drama in Russia: As Preached and Practiced in the 1860s. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. ISBN 978-0-8357-1245-3. Republished in 1993, Rochester: University of Rochester Press
• ——; Weiss, P., eds. (1984). Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. New York: G. Schirmer, Inc. ISBN 978-0-02-872900-8.
• —— (1993). Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue. Princeton: Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv18zhdkh. ISBN 978-0-691-01623-8. JSTOR j.ctv18zhdkh.
• —— (1995). Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-535743-1.
• —— (1996). Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra. Vol. 2 volumes. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07099-8.
• —— (1997). Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv15r5dmx. ISBN 978-0-691-01156-1. JSTOR j.ctv15r5dmx.
• —— (2005). The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 6 volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• —— (2008). The Danger of Music And Other Anti-Utopian Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26805-0.
• —— (2008). On Russian Music. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26806-7. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1ppqnq.
• ——; Karlinsky, Simon; Hughes, Robert P.; Koster, Thomas A., eds. (2013). Freedom from Violence and Lies: Essays on Russian Poetry and Music. Boston: Academic Studies Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1zxsk34. ISBN 978-1-61811-158-6. JSTOR j.ctt1zxsk34.
• ——; Allanbrook, Wye Jamison; Smart, Mary Ann, eds. (2014). The Secular Commedia: Comic Mimesis in Late Eighteenth-Century Music. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27407-5.
• —— (2016). Russian Music at Home and Abroad: New Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/j.ctt1dnncjs. ISBN 978-0-520-28809-6. JSTOR j.ctt1dnncjs.

Chapters

• Taruskin, Richard (1982). "The Musicologist and the Performer". In Holoman, D. Kern; Palisca, Claude V. (eds.). Musicology in the 1980s: Methods, Goals, Opportunities. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 107–117. ISBN 978-0-306-76188-1.
• —— (1982). "'Little Star': an Etude in the Folk Style". In Brown, Malcolm Hamrick (ed.). Musorgsky, in Memoriam, 1881–1981. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. pp. 57–84. ISBN 978-0-8357-1295-8.
• —— (1983). "Handel, Shakespeare, and Musorgksy: the Sources and Limits of Russian Musical Realism". Music and Language. Studies in the history of music. Vol. 1. New York: Broude Bros. pp. 247–268. ISBN 978-0-8450-7401-5.
• —— (1984). ""The Present in the Past": Russian Opera and Russian Historiography, ca. 1870". In Brown, Malcolm Hamrick (ed.). Russian and Soviet Music: Essays for Boris Schwarz. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. pp. 77–146. ISBN 978-0-8357-1295-8.
• —— (1984). "The Rite Revisited: the Idea and the Sources of its Scenario". In Hatch, Christopher; Strainchamps, Edmond; Maniates, Maria Rika (eds.). Music and Civilization: Essays in Honor of Paul Henry Lang. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 183–202. ISBN 978-0-393-01677-2.
• —— (1985). "Serov and Musorgsky". In Brown, Malcolm Hamrick; Wiley, Roland John (eds.). Slavonic and Western Music: Essays for Gerald Abraham. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. pp. 139–161. ISBN 978-0-8357-1594-2.
• —— (1986) [1982]. "From Subject to Style: Stravinsky and the Painters". In Pasler, Jann (ed.). Confronting Stravinsky: Man, Musician, and Modernist. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 16–38. ISBN 978-0-520-05403-5.
• —— (1987). "Stravinsky's "Rejoicing Discovery" and what it Meant: in Defense of his Notorious Text Setting". In Haimo, Ethan; Johnson, Paul (eds.). Stravinsky Retrospectives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 162–200. ISBN 978-0-8032-7301-6.
• —— (1988). "The Pastness of the Present and the Presence of the Past". In Kenyon, Nicholas (ed.). Authenticity and Early Music: A Symposium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 137–210. ISBN 978-0-19-816152-3.
• —— (1995). "The Traditional Revisited: Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles as Russian Music". In Hatch, Christopher; Bernstein, David W. (eds.). Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past. Chicago: Chicago University Press. pp. 525–550. ISBN 978-0-226-31902-5.
• —— (1995). "From Fairy Tale to Opera in Four Moves (Not so Simple)". In Bauman, Thomas; McClymonds, Marita Petzoldt (eds.). Opera and the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 299–307. ISBN 978-0-521-46172-6.
• —— (1995). "Public Lies and Unspeakable Truth: Interpreting Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony". In Fanning, David (ed.). Shostakovich Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 17–56. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511551406.002. ISBN 978-0-511-55140-6.

Articles

• Taruskin, Richard (July 1970). "Realism as Preached and Practiced: The Russian Opera Dialogue". The Musical Quarterly. Oxford University Press. 56 (3): 431–454. JSTOR 741247.
• —— (November 1977). "Glinka's Ambiguous Legacy and the Birth Pangs of Russian Opera". 19th-Century Music. University of California Press. 1 (2): 142–162. doi:10.2307/746475. JSTOR 746475.
• —— (Spring 1979). "Opera and Drama in Russia: The Case of Serov's "Judith"". Journal of the American Musicological Society. University of California Press. 32 (1): 74–117. doi:10.2307/831269. JSTOR 831269.
• —— (Autumn 1980). "Russian Folk Melodies in "The Rite of Spring"". Journal of the American Musicological Society. University of California Press. 33 (3): 501–543. doi:10.2307/831304. JSTOR 831304.
• —— (June 1982). "On Letting the Music Speak for Itself: some Reflections on Musicology and Performance". The Journal of Musicology. University of California Press. 1 (3): 338–349. doi:10.2307/763881. JSTOR 763881.
• —— (Spring 1983). "How the Acorn Took Root: A Tale of Russia". 19th-Century Music. University of California Press. 6 (3): 189–212. doi:10.2307/746585. JSTOR 746585.
• —— (Autumn 1984). "Some Thoughts on the History and Historiography of Russian Music". The Journal of Musicology. University of California Press. 3 (4): 321–339. doi:10.2307/763585. JSTOR 763585.
• —— (Autumn 1984). "Musorgsky vs. Musorgsky: The Versions of "Boris Godunov"". 19th-Century Music. University of California Press. 8 (2): 91–118, 241–256. doi:10.2307/746756. JSTOR 746756.
• —— (Spring 1985). "Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or, Stravinsky's "Angle"". Journal of the American Musicological Society. University of California Press. 38 (1): 72–142. doi:10.2307/831550. JSTOR 831550.
• —— (Summer 1986). "Antoine Busnoys and the "L'Homme armé" Tradition". Journal of the American Musicological Society. University of California Press. 39 (2): 255–293. doi:10.2307/831531. JSTOR 831531.
• —— (Spring 1987). "Chez Pétrouchka: Harmony and Tonality "chez" Stravinsky". 19th-Century Music. University of California Press. 10 (3): 265–286. doi:10.2307/746439. JSTOR 746439.
• —— (Spring 1989). "Resisting the Ninth". 19th-Century Music. University of California Press. 12 (3): 241–256. doi:10.2307/746505. JSTOR 746505.
• —— (15 June 1989). "'Jews and Geniuses': An Exchange". The New York Review of Books.
• —— (May 1992). "Tradition and Authority". Early Music. Oxford University Press. 20 (2): 311–314+317–320+323–325. JSTOR 3127887.
• —— (November 1992). "'Entoiling the Falconet': Russian Musical Orientalism in Context". Cambridge Opera Journal. Cambridge University Press. 4 (3): 253–280. JSTOR 823694.
• —— (1995). "Busnoys and Chaikovsky". International Journal of Musicology. 4, A Birthday Offering for George Perle: 111–137. JSTOR 24617753.
• —— (January 1995). "A Myth of the Twentieth Century: The Rite of Spring, the Tradition of the New, and the Myth Itself". Modernism/modernity. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2 (1): 1–26. doi:10.1353/mod.1995.0008.
• —— (2006). "The Birth of Contemporary Russia out of the Spirit of Russian Music". Muzikologija. 6: 63–76.
• —— (2006). "Is There a Baby in the Bathwater? (Part I)". Archiv für Musikwissenschaft. Franz Steiner Verlag. 63 (3): 163–185. JSTOR 25162364.
• —— (2006). "Is There a Baby in the Bathwater? (Part II)". Archiv für Musikwissenschaft. Franz Steiner Verlag. 63 (4): 309–327. JSTOR 25162374.
• —— (9 December 2001). "MUSIC; Music's Dangers And The Case For Control". The New York Times.
• —— (September 2006). "Why You Cannot Leave Bartók Out". Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. T. 47 (Fasc. 3/4): 265–277. JSTOR 25598260.
• —— (Spring 2009). "Afterword: Nicht blutbefleckt?". The Journal of Musicology. University of California Press. 26 (2): 274–284. doi:10.1525/jm.2009.26.2.274. JSTOR 10.1525/jm.2009.26.2.274.
• —— (Spring 2014). "Agents and Causes and Ends, Oh My". The Journal of Musicology. 31 (2): 272–293. doi:10.1525/jm.2014.31.2.272. JSTOR 10.1525/jm.2014.31.2.272.

Sources

• Morgan, Paula (2001). "Taruskin, Richard". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.47125. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• "Richard Taruskin | Kyoto Prize". Inamori Foundation.

Further reading

• "A History of Western Music? Well, It's a Long Story". New York Times. 19 December 2004.
• McClary, Susan. "The World According to Taruskin". 87 (3). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Oestreich, James R. (15 February 2012). "The World According to One Musicologist". New York Times.