A revealing work that shows a dynamic panorama, sometimes paradoxical, that highlights the importance of music at a crucial moment in the 20th century.

This book explores the changing role of music in shaping the cultural identity of the Soviet Union, in a revealing work that counteracts certain hitherto accepted visions of a policy of repression and uncompromising censorship in all areas of artistic creation.

Newly opened archives from the Leninist and Stalinist eras have shed new light on concert and musical life in the Soviet period, revealing how the music of the past was used to help shape and spread cultural politics. Throughout its pages, the reader will witness the continuous pulse between the different official tendencies, the reception of new listeners, the delicate situation of religious music, the progressive vindication of their own musical heritage, the efforts of musicians and bureaucrats to maintain musical channels opened between Russia and the West, the fluctuating position against Russian and non-Russian composers such as Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Bach or Rachmaninoff, with cases ranging from repudiation to «canonization».

A dynamic, convulsive, sometimes paradoxical panorama, fascinating in any case, that highlights the importance of music at a crucial moment in the 20th century from which there is still much to learn.