Research

Recently I was made aware of the claim that the Soviet national anthem, written by Aleksandr Vasilyevich Aleksandrov in 1943 and adopted as the anthem of the Russian Federation in 2000, might have been inspired by a piano work by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko, Fragment épique of 1876. Indeed, the hymn’s beginning sounds very similar to a passage near the ending of Lysenko’s composition. Is this creative appropriation, as one source argues, or even plagiarism (provided that Aleksandrov knew Lysenko’s work, which might be hard to substantiate)? Or is it just a random resemblance, with the melody and harmonic progression of both examples being derived from the common Romanesca schema, also known as major-minor parallelism? What do you think?

One of the most disputatious musicologists of all time has left the stage: Richard Taruskin (1945–2022) died a few days ago. As a music scholar and practitioner, he incited controversy wherever he raised his eloquent and often relentless voice. His merit is to have polarised and politicised musicological discourse in such a way that it became a public affair again, unquestionable in its social relevance. With his prolific writing, he took Russian music studies to a new level, continuously debunking myths and disenchanting widespread opinions in historiography. Most certainly, even those who ardently disagreed with Taruskin will regret that his voice fell silent. My own German-language obituary appeared in VAN Magazin today.