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John Rink and Jim Samson, eds. Chopin Studies 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. x, 253 pp. ISBN 0-521-41647-7 (hardcover).
Chopin Studies 2, the companion to Cambridge University's first, analytically-centred volume of Chopin studies (1988), encompasses a wide spectrum of subject matter and methodology relating to three main fields of inquiry: reception history, aesthetics and criticism, and performance studies. The present volume comprises a series of twelve essays-by Jim Samson, Andreas Ballstaedt, Anne Swartz, Jeffrey Kallberg, Karol Berger, Anthony Newcomb, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Edward T. Cone, Carl Schachter, L. Henry Shaffer, David Rowland, and John Rink-with an appendix by Jeremy Barlow.
I. Reception History
The topic of Chopin reception is first approached by Jim Samson, with an informative introductory section on nineteenth-century reception history. While Samson's essay offers some insightful theories on the implications of reception studies for music history and analysis, the general overview of Chopin reception is perhaps too general. Instead of offering a brief synopsis of Chopin reception by French critics, German publishers, Russian composers, and English amateurs, as Samson has done, a more effective strategy may have been to focus on a single receptive Held, critics for example. Such a study could compare critical reception in France, Germany, Russia, and England, and theorize as to the reasons behind any discrepancies.
"Chopin as 'salon composer' in nineteenth-century German criticism," by Andreas Ballstaedt, documents recurrent references to the salon milieu in German criticism of Chopin's music, but provides little evidence to support the author's assertion that such references held negative connotations for the composer. Ballstaedt's text selection, which excludes journal articles and reviews other than extended essays, is questionable. Anne Swartz explores Chopin reception history in nineteenth-century Russia by revealing how Chopin's music satisfied the philosophical needs of both the "Westernisers," proponents of the Western European romantic tradition, and the "Slavophiles," a group of intellectuals ideologically grounded in the Orthodox Church (p. 35). Although this type of categorization oversimplifies the complex critical climate of mid-century Russia, Swartz's essay convincingly demonstrates how the Slavophiles's perception of Chopin as a "modern" composer was conditioned by aspects of musical style and political ideology.
One of the more provocative titles in the book is "Small fairy voices: sex, history, and meaning in Chopin," by Jeffrey Kallberg. In...