Singing Soviet Stagnation: Vocal Cycles from the USSR, 1964¿1985

Singing Soviet Stagnation: Vocal Cycles from the USSR, 1964¿1985 explores the ways in which the aftershock of an apparent crisis in Soviet identity after the death of Stalin in 1953 can be detected in selected musical- literary works of what has become known as the ¿Stagnation¿ era (1964¿1985). Richard Louis Gillies traces the cultural impact of this shift through the intersection between music, poetry, and identity, presenting close readings of three substantial musical-literary works by three of the period¿s most prominent composers of songs and vocal cycles:

¿ Seven Poems of Aleksandr Blok, Op. 127 (1966¿ 1967) by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906¿1975)
¿ Russia Cast Adrift (1977) by Georgy Sviridov (1915¿1998)
¿ Stupeni (1981¿1982; 1997) by Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937).

The study elaborates an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of musicalliterary artworks that does not rely on existing models of musical analysis or on establishe