# Richard Taruskin

Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as musical analysis that combines sociological, cultural, and political perspectives has incited much discussion, debate and controversy. He regularly wrote music criticism for newspapers including The New York Times. He researched a wide variety of areas, but a central topic was Russian music from the 18th century to the present day. Other subjects he engaged with include the theory of performance, 15th-century music, 20th-century classical music, nationalism in music, the theory of modernism, and analysis. He is best known for his monumental survey of Western classical music, the six-volume Oxford History of Western Music. His awards include the first Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society in 1978 and the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy in 2017.

## Early life and education

Richard Filler Taruskin was born on April 2, 1945, in New York. Taruskin was raised in a family described as liberal, intellectual, Jewish and musical; his mother, Beatrice (Filler), was a piano teacher and father, Benjamin Taruskin, an amateur violinist. He attended the High School of Music & Art, now part of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, where he studied cello. Taruskin went on to receive his B.A. magna cum laude (1965), M.A. (1968), and Ph.D. in historical musicology (1976) from Columbia University. As a choral conductor he directed the Columbia University Collegium Musicum. He played the viola da gamba with the Aulos Ensemble from the late 1970s to the late 1980s.
During his PhD studies, he worked with Paul Henry Lang, who had pioneered placing music within its socio-cultural context, as in Music in Western Civilization. Through a family member who had stayed in Russia after the Revolution, Taruskin had access to recordings of Russian operas besides the most familiar ones, which sparked his interest in Russian music. He went to Moscow for a year on a Fulbright Scholarship, where he was interested not only in the language and music, but also in the way music connects to social and political history. In the 1980s he explored the archives of Igor Stravinsky when they were held by the New York Public Library.

## Career

Taruskin was on the faculty of Columbia University from 1975 until 1986. He then moved to California as a professor of musicology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he held the Class of 1955 Chair. He retired from Berkeley at the end of 2014.
Taruskin published his first book in 1981, Opera and Drama in Russia as Preached and Practiced in the 1860s. He also wrote extensively for lay readers, including numerous articles in The New York Times beginning in the mid-1980s. They were often "lively, erudite, fiercely articulate" and controversial, with targets such as Elliott Carter, Carl Orff, and Sergei Prokofiev. Many of his articles were collected in books such as Text and Act, a volume that exhibits him as having been an influential critic of the premises of the "historically informed performance" movement in classical music, The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays, and On Russian Music. His writings frequently took up social, cultural, and political issues in connection with music—for example, the question of censorship. A specific instance was the debate over John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer.
Taruskin's extensive 1996 study Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra showed that Igor Stravinsky drew more heavily on Russian folk material than had previously been recognized. The book analyzed the historical trends that caused Stravinsky not to be forthcoming about some of these borrowings.
His survey of Western classical music appeared as the six-volume Oxford History of Western Music. The first volume, devoted to Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, "wove facts and impressions from histories, visual art and architecture", and was characterized at the time of his death as possibly "the best overall introduction to 'early music' available".

## Personal life and death

Taruskin married Cathy Roebuck in 1984. They had two children. He died from esophageal cancer at a hospital in Oakland, California, on July 1, 2022, aged 77.

## Awards and honors

Taruskin received numerous awards and honors for his scholarship. In 1978, he was the first recipient of the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society (AMS) for his research and recording of Ockeghem's Missa prolationum. He received the Alfred Einstein Award (1980) from the AMS and the Dent Medal (1987) from the Royal Musical Association. He received the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the AMS twice, in 1997 and 2006. In 1998, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awarded him the Deems Taylor Award in 1988 and again in 2006. In 2017 he was the recipient of the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy (Music). In 2012, a conference honoring him and his work, After the End of Music History, was held at Princeton University.

## Publications

Sources:

### Books

* Taruskin, Richard (1981). Opera and Drama in Russia: As Preached and Practiced in the 1860s. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. ISBN 978-0-8357-1245-3. Republished in 1993, Rochester: University of Rochester Press
* ——; Weiss, Piero, eds. (1984). Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 978-0-02-872900-8.
* —— (1993). Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue. Princeton: Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv18zhdkh. ISBN 978-0-691-01623-8. JSTOR j.ctv18zhdkh. S2CID 241012607.
* —— (1995). Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-535743-1.
* —— (1996). Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra. Vol. 2 volumes. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07099-8.
* —— (1997). Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv15r5dmx. ISBN 978-0-691-01156-1. JSTOR j.ctv15r5dmx. S2CID 193710371.
* —— (2005). The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 6 volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* —— (2008). The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26805-0.
* —— (2008). On Russian Music. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26806-7. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1ppqnq.
* Karlinsky, Simon (2013). ——; Karlinsky, Simon; Hughes, Robert P.; Koster, Thomas A. (eds.). Freedom from Violence and Lies: Essays on Russian Poetry and Music (PDF). Boston: Academic Studies Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1zxsk34. ISBN 978-1-61811-158-6. JSTOR j.ctt1zxsk34.
* ——; Allanbrook, Wye Jamison; Smart, Mary Ann, eds. (2014). The Secular Commedia: Comic Mimesis in Late Eighteenth-Century Music. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27407-5.
* —— (2016). Russian Music at Home and Abroad: New Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-28809-6. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1dnncjs.
* —— (2020). Cursed Questions: On Music and Its Social Practices. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-34429-7.
* —— (2023). Musical Lives and Times Examined: Keynotes and Clippings, 2006-2019. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-39200-7.

### Chapters

* Taruskin, Richard (1982). "The Musicologist and the Performer". In Holoman, D. Kern; Palisca, Claude V. (eds.). Musicology in the 1980s: Methods, Goals, Opportunities. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 107–117. ISBN 978-0-306-76188-1.
* —— (1982). "'Little Star': an Etude in the Folk Style". In Brown, Malcolm Hamrick (ed.). Musorgsky, in Memoriam, 1881–1981. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. pp. 57–84. ISBN 978-0-8357-1295-8.
* —— (1983). "Handel, Shakespeare, and Musorgksy: The Sources and Limits of Russian Musical Realism". Music and Language. Studies in the history of music. Vol. 1. New York: Broude Bros. pp. 247–268. ISBN 978-0-8450-7401-5.
* —— (1984). ""The Present in the Past": Russian Opera and Russian Historiography, ca. 1870". In Brown, Malcolm Hamrick (ed.). Russian and Soviet Music: Essays for Boris Schwarz. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. pp. 77–146. ISBN 978-0-8357-1295-8.
* —— (1984). "The Rite Revisited: the Idea and the Sources of its Scenario". In Hatch, Christopher; Strainchamps, Edmond; Maniates, Maria Rika (eds.). Music and Civilization: Essays in Honor of Paul Henry Lang. New York: W. W. Norton. pp. 183–202. ISBN 978-0-393-01677-2.
* —— (1985). "Serov and Musorgsky". In Brown, Malcolm Hamrick; Wiley, Roland John (eds.). Slavonic and Western Music: Essays for Gerald Abraham. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. pp. 139–161. ISBN 978-0-8357-1594-2.
* —— (1986) [1982]. "From Subject to Style: Stravinsky and the Painters". In Pasler, Jann (ed.). Confronting Stravinsky: Man, Musician, and Modernist. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 16–38. ISBN 978-0-520-05403-5.
* —— (1987). "Stravinsky's "Rejoicing Discovery" and what it Meant: in Defense of his Notorious Text Setting". In Haimo, Ethan; Johnson, Paul (eds.). Stravinsky Retrospectives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 162–200. ISBN 978-0-8032-7301-6.
* —— (1988). "The Pastness of the Present and the Presence of the Past". In Kenyon, Nicholas (ed.). Authenticity and Early Music: A Symposium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 137–210. ISBN 978-0-19-816152-3.
* —— (1995). "The Traditional Revisited: Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles as Russian Music". In Hatch, Christopher; Bernstein, David W. (eds.). Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past. Chicago: Chicago University Press. pp. 525–550. ISBN 978-0-226-31902-5.
* —— (1995). "From Fairy Tale to Opera in Four Moves (Not so Simple)". In Bauman, Thomas; McClymonds, Marita Petzoldt (eds.). Opera and the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 299–307. ISBN 978-0-521-46172-6.
* —— (1995). "Public Lies and Unspeakable Truth: Interpreting Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony". In Fanning, David (ed.). Shostakovich Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 17–56. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511551406.002. ISBN 978-0-511-55140-6.

### Articles

* Taruskin, Richard (July 1970). "Realism as Preached and Practiced: The Russian Opera Dialogue". The Musical Quarterly. 56 (3). Oxford University Press: 431–454. doi:10.1093/mq/LVI.3.431. JSTOR 741247.
* —— (November 1977). "Glinka's Ambiguous Legacy and the Birth Pangs of Russian Opera". 19th-Century Music. 1 (2). University of California Press: 142–162. doi:10.2307/746475. JSTOR 746475.
* —— (Spring 1979). "Opera and Drama in Russia: The Case of Serov's "Judith"". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 32 (1). University of California Press: 74–117. doi:10.2307/831269. JSTOR 831269.
* —— (Autumn 1980). "Russian Folk Melodies in "The Rite of Spring"". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 33 (3). University of California Press: 501–543. doi:10.2307/831304. JSTOR 831304.
* —— (June 1982). "On Letting the Music Speak for Itself: some Reflections on Musicology and Performance". The Journal of Musicology. 1 (3). University of California Press: 338–349. doi:10.2307/763881. JSTOR 763881.
* —— (Spring 1983). "How the Acorn Took Root: A Tale of Russia". 19th-Century Music. 6 (3). University of California Press: 189–212. doi:10.2307/746585. JSTOR 746585.
* —— (Autumn 1984). "Some Thoughts on the History and Historiography of Russian Music". The Journal of Musicology. 3 (4). University of California Press: 321–339. doi:10.2307/763585. JSTOR 763585.
* —— (Autumn 1984). "Musorgsky vs. Musorgsky: The Versions of "Boris Godunov"". 19th-Century Music. 8 (2). University of California Press: 91–118, 241–256. doi:10.2307/746756. JSTOR 746756.
* —— (Spring 1985). "Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or, Stravinsky's "Angle"". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 38 (1). University of California Press: 72–142. doi:10.2307/831550. JSTOR 831550.
* —— (Summer 1986). "Antoine Busnoys and the "L'Homme armé" Tradition". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 39 (2). University of California Press: 255–293. doi:10.2307/831531. JSTOR 831531.
* —— (Spring 1987). "Chez Pétrouchka: Harmony and Tonality "chez" Stravinsky". 19th-Century Music. 10 (3). University of California Press: 265–286. doi:10.2307/746439. JSTOR 746439.
* —— (Spring 1989). "Resisting the Ninth". 19th-Century Music. 12 (3). University of California Press: 241–256. doi:10.2307/746505. JSTOR 746505.
* —— (June 15, 1989). "'Jews and Geniuses': An Exchange". The New York Review of Books.
* —— (May 1992). "Tradition and Authority". Early Music. 20 (2). Oxford University Press: 311–314+317–320+323–325. doi:10.1093/earlyj/XX.2.311. JSTOR 3127887.
* —— (November 1992). "'Entoiling the Falconet': Russian Musical Orientalism in Context". Cambridge Opera Journal. 4 (3). Cambridge University Press: 253–280. doi:10.1017/S0954586700003797. JSTOR 823694. S2CID 190722625.
* —— (1995). "Busnoys and Chaikovsky". International Journal of Musicology. 4, A Birthday Offering for George Perle: 111–137. JSTOR 24617753.
* —— (January 1995). "A Myth of the Twentieth Century: The Rite of Spring, the Tradition of the New, and the Myth Itself". Modernism/modernity. 2 (1). Johns Hopkins University Press: 1–26. doi:10.1353/mod.1995.0008. S2CID 145160261.
* —— (2006). "The Birth of Contemporary Russia out of the Spirit of Russian Music". Muzikologija. 6 (6): 63–76. doi:10.2298/MUZ0606063T.
* —— (2006). "Is There a Baby in the Bathwater? (Part I)". Archiv für Musikwissenschaft. 63 (3). Franz Steiner Verlag: 163–185. JSTOR 25162364.
* —— (2006). "Is There a Baby in the Bathwater? (Part II)". Archiv für Musikwissenschaft. 63 (4). Franz Steiner Verlag: 309–327. JSTOR 25162374.
* —— (December 9, 2001). "MUSIC; Music's Dangers And The Case For Control". The New York Times.
* —— (September 2006). "Why You Cannot Leave Bartók Out". Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. T. 47 (Fasc. 3/4): 265–277. JSTOR 25598260.
* —— (Spring 2009). "Afterword: Nicht blutbefleckt?". The Journal of Musicology. 26 (2). University of California Press: 274–284. doi:10.1525/jm.2009.26.2.274. JSTOR 10.1525/jm.2009.26.2.274.
* —— (Fall 2011). "Non-Nationalists and Other Nationalists". 19th-Century Music. 35 (2). University of California Press: 132–143. doi:10.1525/ncm.2011.35.2.132. JSTOR 10.1525/ncm.2011.35.2.132.
* —— (Spring 2014). "Agents and Causes and Ends, Oh My". The Journal of Musicology. 31 (2): 272–293. doi:10.1525/jm.2014.31.2.272. JSTOR 10.1525/jm.2014.31.2.272.

### Review Articles

* Taruskin, Richard (Spring 1989). "Resisting the Ninth". 19th-Century Music. 12 (3). University of California Press: 241–256. doi:10.2307/746505. JSTOR 746505.
* —— (Spring 1993). "Back to Whom? Neoclassicism as Ideology". 19th-Century Music. 16 (3). University of California Press: 286–302. doi:10.2307/746396. JSTOR 746396.
* —— (Spring 1993). "Revising Revision". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 46 (1). University of California Press: 114–138. doi:10.2307/831807. JSTOR 831807.
* —— (Spring 2004). "The poietic fallacy". The Musical Times. 145 (1886): 7–34. doi:10.2307/4149092. JSTOR 4149092.
* —— (Fall 2005). "Speed Bumps". 19th-Century Music. 29 (2). University of California Press: 185–207. doi:10.1525/ncm.2005.29.2.185. JSTOR 10.1525/ncm.2005.29.2.185.
* —— (October 22, 2007). "The Musical Mystique: Defending Classical Music against Its Devotees". The New Republic.
* —— (August 2009). "Material Gains: Assessing Susan McClary". Music & Letters. 90 (3). Oxford University Press: 453–467. doi:10.1093/ml/gcp049.