Русская музыка

Russian Music

B2 · Upper Intermediate · non-fiction · 10 scenes · Premium story

An upper-intermediate documentary reader on Russian classical music. Eight centuries of village song and unaccompanied church chant, then one landowner's opera in 1836 and an entire tradition inside sixty years — built in large part by five composers who were a chemist, a naval officer, a civil servant and a military engineer by day. A Paris premiere that ended in a brawl, and a symphony played in besieged Leningrad on the day the city was supposed to have fallen.

Read Русская музыка in Russian

Characters

Mikhail Glinka (Михаил Глинка) — The founder
Alexander Borodin (Александр Бородин) — Chemist and composer
Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Пётр Чайковский) — The professional
Dmitri Shostakovich (Дмитрий Шостакович) — The one who stayed
Karl Eliasberg (Карл Элиасберг) — The conductor in Leningrad

Vocabulary from this story

музыка — music
нота — musical note
музыкант — musician
дирижёр — conductor
партитура — score
песня — song
голос — voice
хор — choir
церковь — church
инструмент — instrument
опера — opera
основатель — founder