Features thirty-six essays on composers ranging from Bortnyansky in the eighteenth century to Tarnopolsky in the twenty-first, as well as all of the famous names in between.

"Taruskin's autobiographical reflections of his engagement with Russian music are fascinating. The author's pre-eminent stature in this field of studies is justification enough for issuing such a collection, and the range of materials is considerable."—Laurel E. Fay, author of Shostakovich: A Life

"The scholarship and writing style in this book are up to Taruskin's usual superior standard. It is especially impressive to see the assurance and acute sense for the important issues at the heart of the topic in the earliest essays."—Sanna Pederson, University of Oklahoma

Over the past four decades, Richard Taruskin's publications have redefined the field of Russian-music study. This volume gathers thirty-six essays on composers ranging from Bortnyansky in the eighteenth century to Tarnopolsky in the twenty-first, as well as all of the famous names in between. Some of these pieces, like the ones on Chaikovsky's alleged suicide and on the interpretation of Shostakovich's legacy, have won fame in their own right as decisive contributions to some of the most significant debates in contemporary musicology. An extensive introduction lays out the main issues and a justification of Taruskin's approach, seen both in the light of his intellectual development and in that of the changing intellectual environment, which has been particularly marked by the end of the cold war in Europe.