Summary Of M. T. Anderson's Symphony For The City Of The Dead

During the 1930s the Soviet Union went through several changes economically and socially. Some historians see what happened in the Soviet Union at this time as a Second Revolution. However, this is an understatement as the Soviet Union actually went through more than one revolution at this time. This period saw rapid political, social, industrial and agricultural change that shaped the future of the Soviet Union and arguably the 20th century as a whole. All four of these changes worked together to form a rapid socioeconomic revolution. Moreover, a revolution from the government against its people made this socioeconomic revolution possible. This revolution was implemented through the use of terror. Historian Robert C. Tucker saw this as a revolution

A passage in Night, written by Elie Wiesel, contains a horrific incident that took the lives of many, known as a death march. Innocent people such as Elie, Elie’s father, and a young man by the name of Zalman were forced into the march to escape the liberating army, leaving Buna, their camp in Auschwitz, far behind. Not only did they run over forty miles, but they ran beyond their weariness, past the principle of pain, and much further than their physical capability through the dark night and relentless snow. This gruesome trial relates to the orchestra piece of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, as each rise in the notes expresses sorrow and grief, while the slight fall in the notes convey momentary relief that

When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia was ready to support them with their mobilization plans. During this time mobilization was considered an act of war. The Russian mobilization plans were based on a war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. So when the Czar ordered a partial mobilization of the Russian army against Austria-Hungary, they could not partially mobilize due to the plans. Czar Nicholas II ordered his army to continue with the full mobilization, even though he knew Germany would consider this as an act of war.

In Igor Stravinsky's passage “Conductor’s Faults,” he critiques common styles of conductors. Stravinsky develops these critiques by utilizing demeaning similes and metaphors and accusing diction. His purpose is to elaborate for the public what qualities of a conductor are misinterpreted as being skilled. Stravinsky employs his own haughty but accusatory tone with the inexperienced audience to correct them of this innocent misunderstanding.

The exposition of the piece is primarily concerned with the atrocities and horrors that the narrator experienced

"Peace, bread, and land!" This was the promise made by Vladimir Lenin to the people of Russia. Lenin was the founder of the Russian Communist Party and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution to overthrow the Tsar. At the start of the 20th centur, the ruling Tsar of Russia had absolute power, but

Composer Howard Goodall looks at the popular age the last hundred years in music. It has been a period when classical music, as it is now generically styled, seemed to many to be in retreat, crisis or even terminal decline. Howard Goodall believes that rumors of its death have been exaggerated. While some cutting edge works proved too challenging to win the hearts of a mainstream audience, the DNA of classical music, as it had been constituted since the time of Monteverdi in the 1600s, is alive and well in musical theatre, in the cinema and in much popular music. Beginning with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, a jazz-classical hybrid first performed in 1924 that became a much-loved standard despite its sniffy reception by highbrow critics at the

Discuss the innovations in the music of Stravinsky’s ‘Russian Period’ with specific reference to The Rite of Spring and at least one other work.

October Revolution and Composers The democratic and socialist ideals of October caught the attention of the oppressed classes and also influenced artists and composers, who were strongly involved with the cause of the revolution. Talented people like the poets Alexander Blok and Sergei Yesenin deeply sympathized with the revolution. Composers such as:

In The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman uses his style of illustration to convey the theme of power in his graphic novel. In 1980, cartoonist Art Spiegelman wrote the first volume of Maus. Before Art’s work came into prominence, comics had not been truly acknowledged as art. His work would practically evolve graphic novels into a recognized form of literature. Art Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948 to Vladek and Anja Spiegelman, but his family immigrated to Rego Park in Queens, New York three years later. His father, Vladek, was a wealthy textile salesperson and manufacturer in Poland. Both of his parents survived confinement to the Jewish ghettos and imprisonment in the Auschwitz Nazi Concentration camp in Poland. His mother, Anja,

Roger’s and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music is arguably one of the most well known films that many can admit to watching at least once in their lifetime. People all around the world have found this musical inspiring, as it documents growth and hope amidst the horrors of World War II. This incredibly well written film is based on the story of the Von Trapp family who escaped Austria when the Nazis invaded it during the war. Part of what made this movie so interesting on so many different accounts was the music that accompanied the vivid and exciting scenes. Without music, many could agree that our world would be a sad, quiet, dull and depressing place. In John Harrington Edward’s book God and Music, he states, “In simplest definition,

“The Rite of Spring” was certainly the most controversial piece of orchestral music of its time. The piece, composed by the Russian Composer Igor Stravinsky, included a great deal of uncommon musical elements. But was it really that uncommon? The world-changing ballet, “The Rite of Spring” was so controversial when it debuted in 1913, because it completely contradicted the common rhythmic and harmonic languages of the music at the time. The choreography and costumes were a main part of the reason why the audience reacted with negativity and riots. But the fact that Stravinsky’s music used similar melodic, orchestrational, and harmonic techniques of pieces written before, brings up the question: Why did the audience react the way that they did? Stravinsky’s music reflected his early life experiences. Consequently, Stravinsky was not, in fact, the first composer who was “committed” with composing such controversy, so again: were riots necessary? The result of the audience’s reaction caused by the ballet has not happened before.

War and Peace defies facile categorization. It is a suitable generic combination of the psychological novel, the family novel, and the historical novel, with a liberal admixture of the scope and tone of the epic. Set amidst the historical conflict between the France of Napoleon and the Russia of Alexander I, it deals primarily with the events of the years 1805 to 1812 and ends with an epilogue set in about 1820. Against a backdrop of alternating periods of peace and war Tolstoy unfolds the stories of the Bolkonsky and Rostov families, and of Pierre Bezukhov.

I started looking for Alexander Etkind’s “Warped Mourning. Stories of the Undead in the Land of Unburied” in Kyiv’s bookstores right after I’d finished the “Portraits in the Barbed Frame” by Vadim Delaunay. The autobiographical fictionalised diary of Delaunay's journal goes back to the beginning of the 1968 protest in Red Square, where young people under the slogan “For your freedom and ours” came out to protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. In my mind, the pictures from the "Portraits" went side by side with the letters and news reports from the Crimean political prisoners - Kolchenko and Sentsov. And at some point, very clearly, I sensed the need to look at this from the perspective of history, including the main themes of the “Warped Mourning” and

Written between 1935 and 1940, Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem” follows a grieving mother as she endures the Great Purge. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union’s General Secretary, unabatedly pursued eliminating dissenters and, consequently, accused or killed hundreds of thousands who allegedly perpetrated political transgressions (“Repression and Terror: Kirov Murder and Purges”). Despite the fifteen-year censorship, Akhmatova avoided physical persecution, though she saw her son jailed for seventeen months (Bailey 324). The first-person speaker in “Requiem,” assumed to be Akhmatova due to the speaker’s identical experience of crying aloud “for seventeen months” (Section 5, Line 1), changes her sentiments towards deaths as reflected in the poem’s tone shifts. Akhmatova’s melancholic diction initially reveals her sorrow, but the tone transitions to serious and introspective when she uses allusions to religious martyrdom and imagery of fixed objects. These contemplations are later resolved when she integrates imagery of liberation to portray an ultimately triumphant and optimistic outlook towards the future.