The Freedoms of Sounds
On the Situation of the New Music in Russia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The liberation from pressure and censorship after the demise of the Soviet Union remained almost without influence on the musical creativity in Russia. At first, the reception of new music from the West stood centre stage. Today, academic concert life, festivals, and performances make up a diverse musical landscape. Currents such as minimal music, neo-romantic music, and new simplicity exist alongside one another, composers form groups such as Kompozitor, Structural Resistance Group, or Sound Plasticity and strive to create a new musical language. The spiritus rector of new music, Vladimir Tarnopol’skii, deserves special attention. He is one of the most important and most inspiring composers of the present and has become a link between Russian and Western culture.
(Osteuropa 4/2009, pp. 93–108)