{"title":"Simon Morrison","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the captivating works of Simon Morrison, an author celebrated for his insightful explorations of Russian music and culture. Uncover hidden histories and compelling narratives within his acclaimed books.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"love-and-wars-of-lina-prokofiev-book-simon-morrison-9780099581789","title":"The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev","description":"As heard on Radio 4 Book of the Week  Lina Prokofiev was alone in her Moscow apartment one night when the telephone rang. The caller insisted that she come downstairs to collect a parcel, but when she reached the courtyard she was arrested for treason.   First enraptured by the young pianist and rising star, Serge Prokofiev, during a courtship in Brooklyn, then abandoned by him in Moscow, Lina survived one of the darkest periods in Soviet history – enduring eight years in the Gulag after she received that fateful telephone call.   Unfolding with the intrigue of a spy novel, The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev traces the largely untold story of a remarkable woman who gave up her career, her country and her freedom for the brilliant man she married.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49504197181713,"sku":"GOR005768180","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50680040849681,"sku":"GOR010570059","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50696957526289,"sku":"NGR9780099581789","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53580064915729,"sku":"GOR006578078","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099581787.jpg?v=1751100605"},{"product_id":"discombobulated-book-simon-morrison-9781900486736","title":"Discombobulated","description":"From Las Vegas to Moscow and from New York to Bolton, these are 50 unbelievably true tales of high living and low-cost slumming with a cast that includes Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, Coolio, Dave Courtney, Kylie Minogue, Take That and many others. Simon Morrison, much-loved correspondent for DJ Magazine, collates his writings on the mad, bad world of club culture and gives readers a rip-roaring tour of UK popular culture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49508931371281,"sku":"GOR002367869","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52108879495441,"sku":"GOR007336658","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1900486733.jpg?v=1750963731"},{"product_id":"love-and-wars-of-lina-prokofiev-book-simon-morrison-9781846557316","title":"The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev","description":"Unfolding with the intrigue of a spy novel, The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev traces this largely untold story, from the moment Lina fell in love with a rising star to her experiences in the Gulag after she received that fateful telephone call.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49523048481041,"sku":"GOR005142614","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50098149785873,"sku":"GOR005656193","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50391775969553,"sku":"CIN1846557313G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401629339921,"sku":"CIN1846557313A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51838420025617,"sku":"GOR011908958","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846557313.jpg?v=1751445201"},{"product_id":"bolshoi-confidential-book-simon-morrison-9780007576609","title":"Bolshoi Confidential","description":"On a freezing night in January 2013, an assailant hurled acid in the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, Sergei Filin. The crime, organized by a lead soloist, dragged one of Russia’s most illustrious institutions into scandal.             Under Vladimir Putin, the Bolshoi Theatre has been called on to preserve Russia’s lengthy artistic legacy and to mirror its neo-imperial ambitions. As renowned musicologist Simon Morrison shows in his tour-de-force account, the attack, and its torrid aftermath, underscored the importance of the Bolshoi to the art of ballet, to Russia, and to the world.             With exclusive access to state archives and private sources, Morrison sweeps us through the history of the ballet, tracing the political ties that bind the institution to the varying Russian regimes, and detailing the birth of some of the best-loved ballets in the repertoire. From its disreputable beginnings in 1776, the Bolshoi became a point of pride for the tsarist empire after the defeat of Napoleon in 1812. After the revolution, Moscow was transformed into a global capital; meetings of the Communist Party were hosted at the Bolshoi, and the Soviet Union was signed into existence on its stage. Recently, a £450 million restoration has returned the Bolshoi to its former glory, even as prized talent has departed.             The Theatre has been bombed, rigged with explosives and reinforced with cement. Its dancers have suffered unimaginable physical torment to climb the ranks. But, as Morrison reveals, the Bolshoi has transcended its own fraught history, surviving 250 years of artistic and political upheaval to define not only Russian culture but also ballet itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49544414232849,"sku":"GOR007737325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49636926095633,"sku":"GOR008185131","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49910930374929,"sku":"GOR007762951","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0007576609.jpg?v=1751193986"},{"product_id":"bolshoi-confidential-book-simon-morrison-9780007576630","title":"Bolshoi Confidential","description":"On a freezing night in January 2013, an assailant hurled acid in the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, dragging one of Russias most illustrious institutions into scandal.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49559653318929,"sku":"GOR008650114","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49728875987217,"sku":"NGR9780007576630","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50141393912081,"sku":"CIN0007576633VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50282602922257,"sku":"CIN0007576633G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53251773792529,"sku":"GOR009607099","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0007576633.jpg?v=1751100673"},{"product_id":"bolshoi-confidential-book-simon-morrison-9780007576616","title":"Bolshoi Confidential","description":"On a freezing night in January 2013, an assailant hurled acid in the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, Sergei Filin. The crime, organized by a lead soloist, dragged one of Russias most illustrious institutions into scandal.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49608429961489,"sku":"GOR008686399","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49609228976401,"sku":"GOR009466943","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49798153306385,"sku":"CIN0007576617G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0007576617.jpg?v=1750842757"},{"product_id":"bolshoi-confidential-book-simon-morrison-9780871402967","title":"Bolshoi Confidential","description":"A Booklist Editors' Choice Selection   An enthralling, definitive new history of the Bolshoi Ballet, where visionary performances onstage compete with political machinations backstage.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49623543447825,"sku":"GOR010006835","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50047384289553,"sku":"CIN0871402963A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50268308734225,"sku":"CIN0871402963VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51424149733649,"sku":"CIN0871402963G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0871402963.jpg?v=1750947972"},{"product_id":"mirror-in-the-sky-book-simon-morrison-9780520304437","title":"Mirror in the Sky","description":"A stunning musical biography of Stevie Nicks that paints a portrait of an artist, not a caricature of a superstar.   Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century.   This biography from distinguished music historian Simon Morrison examines Nicks as a singer and songwriter before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-lit Night of 1000 Stevies celebrations.   The book uniquely:   Analyzes Nicks's craft—the grain of her voice, the poetry of her lyrics, the melodic and harmonic syntax of her songs. Identifies the American folk and country influences on her musical imagination that place her within a distinctly American tradition of women songwriters. Draws from oral histories and surprising archival discoveries to connect Nicks's story to those of California's above- and underground music industries, innovations in recording technology, and gendered restrictions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49725212492049,"sku":"CIN0520304438VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740553224465,"sku":"NGR9780520304437","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50098111545617,"sku":"CIN0520304438G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50241396867345,"sku":"GOR013895942","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002951991569,"sku":"NIN9780520304437","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53378083160337,"sku":"GOR014888357","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53521174462737,"sku":"NLS9780520304437","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0520304438.jpg?v=1750911053"},{"product_id":"mirror-in-the-sky-book-simon-morrison-9780520401266","title":"Mirror in the Sky","description":"A stunning musical biography of Stevie Nicks that paints a portrait of an artist, not a caricature of a superstar.   Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century.   This biography from distinguished music historian Simon Morrison examines Nicks as a singer and songwriter before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-lit Night of 1000 Stevies celebrations.   The book uniquely:   Analyzes Nicks's craft—the grain of her voice, the poetry of her lyrics, the melodic and harmonic syntax of her songs. Identifies the American folk and country influences on her musical imagination that place her within a distinctly American tradition of women songwriters. Draws from oral histories and surprising archival discoveries to connect Nicks's story to those of California's above- and underground music industries, innovations in recording technology, and gendered restrictions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49750518923537,"sku":"NGR9780520401266","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002967097617,"sku":"NIN9780520401266","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51450072957201,"sku":"CIN0520401263VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53437899473169,"sku":"CIN0520401263G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0520401263.jpg?v=1750879608"},{"product_id":"sergey-prokofiev-and-his-world-book-simon-morrison-9780691138954","title":"Sergey Prokofiev and His World","description":"Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953), arguably the most popular composer of the twentieth century, led a life of triumph and tragedy. The story of his prodigious childhood in tsarist Russia, maturation in the West, and rise and fall as a Stalinist-era composer is filled with unresolved questions. Sergey Prokofiev and His World probes beneath the surface of his career and contextualizes his contributions to music on both sides of the nascent Cold War divide. The book contains previously unknown documents from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow and the Prokofiev Estate in Paris. The literary notebook of the composer's mother, Mariya Grigoryevna, illuminates her involvement in his education and is translated in full, as are ninety-eight letters between the composer and his business partner, Levon Atovmyan. The collection also includes a translation of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's unperformed stage adaptation of Eugene Onegin, for which Prokofiev composed incidental music in 1936. The essays in the book range in focus from musical sketches to Kremlin decrees. The contributors explore Prokofiev's time in America; evaluate his working methods in the mid-1930s; document the creation of his score for the film Lieutenant Kizhe; tackle how and why Prokofiev rewrote his 1930 Fourth Symphony in 1947; detail his immortalization by Soviet bureaucrats, composers, and scholars; and examine Prokofiev's interest in Christian Science and the paths it opened for his music. The contributors are Mark Aranovsky, Kevin Bartig, Elizabeth Bergman, Leon Botstein, Pamela Davidson, Caryl Emerson, Marina Frolova-Walker, Nelly Kravetz, Leonid Maximenkov, Stephen Press, and Peter Schmelz.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49950020305169,"sku":"CIN0691138958G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005661282577,"sku":"NIN9780691138954","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51395658252561,"sku":"GOR009452379","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691138958.jpg?v=1751168277"},{"product_id":"tchaikovsky-s-empire-book-simon-morrison-9780300192100","title":"Tchaikovsky's Empire","description":"A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—composer of some of the world’s most popular orchestral and theatrical music    “A lively, argumentative and thoughtful reflection on one of the 19th century’s most important musical figures.”—Michael O’Donnell, Wall Street Journal     Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire’s worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage.     In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky’s complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred.     Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky’s music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky’s Empire unsettles everything we thought we knew—and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia’s most popular composer.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50106845036817,"sku":"NGR9780300192100","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50556146581777,"sku":"GOR013997253","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50806543843601,"sku":"GOR014078716","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51000713642257,"sku":"NIN9780300192100","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51697551638801,"sku":"CIN030019210XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53129622159633,"sku":"CIN030019210XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/030019210X.jpg?v=1750909706"},{"product_id":"bolshoi-confidential-book-simon-morrison-9781631493447","title":"Bolshoi Confidential","description":"A critical triumph, Simon Morrison’s “sweeping and authoritative” (Guardian) work, Bolshoi Confidential, details the Bolshoi Ballet’s magnificent history from its earliest tumults to recent scandals. On January 17, 2013, a hooded assailant hurled acid into the face of the artistic director, making international headlines. A lead soloist, enraged by institutional power struggles, later confessed to masterminding the crime. Morrison gives the shocking violence context, describing the ballet as a crucible of art and politics beginning with the disreputable inception of the theater in 1776, through the era of imperial rule, the chaos of revolution, the oppressive Soviet years, and the Bolshoi’s recent $680 million renovation. With vibrant detail including “sex scandals, double-suicide pacts, bribery, arson, executions, prostitution rings, embezzlement, starving orphans, [and] dead cats in lieu of flowers” (New Republic), Morrison makes clear that the history of the Bolshoi Ballet mirrors that of Russia itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50311650509073,"sku":"CIN1631493442G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51804019228945,"sku":"CIN1631493442VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52836500373777,"sku":"CIN1631493442A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1631493442.jpg?v=1751120468"},{"product_id":"people-s-artist-book-simon-morrison-9780195181678","title":"The People's Artist","description":"A study in contrasts, the career of Sergey Prokofiev spanned the globe, leaving him witness to the most significant political and historical events of the first half of the twentieth century. In 1918, after completing a program of studies at the St. Petersburg conservatory, Prokofiev escaped Russia for the United States and later France where, like most émigré artists of the time, he made Paris his home. During these hectic years, he composed three ballets and three operas, fulfilled recording contracts, and played recitals of tempestuous music. Scores were stored in suitcases, scenarios and librettos drafted on hotel letterhead. The constant uprooting and transience fatigued him, but he regarded himself as a person of action who, personally and professionally, traveled against rather that with the current. Thus, in 1936, as political anxieties increased in Western Europe, Prokofiev escaped back to Russia. Though at first pampered by the totalitarian regime, Prokofiev soon suffered official correction and censorship. He wrote and revised his late ballets and operas to appease his bureaucratic overseers but, more often than not, his labors came to naught. Following his official condemnation in 1948, many of his compositions were withdrawn from performance. Physical illness and mental exhaustion characterized his last years. Housebound, he journeyed inward, creating a series of works on the theme of youth whose music sounds despondently optimistic.  The reasons for Prokofievs return to Russia and the specifics of his dealings with the Stalinist regime have long been mysterious. Owing to their sensitive political and personal nature, over half of the Prokofiev documents at the Russian State Archive have been sealed since their deposit there in 1955, two years after Prokofievs premature death. The disintegration of the Soviet Union did not lead to the rescinding of this prohibition. Author Simon Morrison is the first scholar, non-Russian or Russian, to receive the privilege to study them. Alongside wholly or partly unknown score materials, Morrison has studied Prokofievs never-seen journals and diaries, the original, unexpurgated versions of his official speeches, and the bulk of his correspondence. This new information makes possible for the first time an accurate study of the tragic second phase of Prokofievs career. Moving chronologically, Morrison alternates biographical details with discussions of Prokofievs major works, furnishing dramatic new insights into Prokofievs engagement with the Stalinist regime and the consequences that it had for his family and his health.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50663982399761,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50663982956817,"sku":"GOR005269150","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51695029846289,"sku":"CIN0195181670G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52149140947217,"sku":"NLS9780195181678","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52458322493713,"sku":"GOR007348201","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195181670.jpg?v=1776765850"},{"product_id":"people-s-artist-book-simon-morrison-9780199753482","title":"The People's Artist","description":"A study in contrasts, the career of Sergey Prokofiev spanned the globe, leaving him witness to the most significant political and historical events of the first half of the twentieth century. In 1918, after completing a program of studies at the St. Petersburg conservatory, Prokofiev escaped Russia for the United States and later France where, like most émigré artists of the time, he made Paris his home. During these hectic years, he composed three ballets and three operas, fulfilled recording contracts, and played recitals of tempestuous music. Scores were stored in suitcases, scenarios and librettos drafted on hotel letterhead. The constant uprooting and transience fatigued him, but he regarded himself as a person of action who, personally and professionally, traveled against rather that with the current. Thus, in 1936, as political anxieties increased in Western Europe, Prokofiev escaped back to Russia. Though at first pampered by the totalitarian regime, Prokofiev soon suffered official correction and censorship. He wrote and revised his late ballets and operas to appease his bureaucratic overseers but, more often than not, his labors came to naught. Following his official condemnation in 1948, many of his compositions were withdrawn from performance. Physical illness and mental exhaustion characterized his last years. Housebound, he journeyed inward, creating a series of works on the theme of youth whose music sounds despondently optimistic.   The reasons for Prokofiev's return to Russia and the specifics of his dealings with the Stalinist regime have long been mysterious. Owing to their sensitive political and personal nature, over half of the Prokofiev documents at the Russian State Archive have been sealed since their deposit there in 1955, two years after Prokofiev's premature death. The disintegration of the Soviet Union did not lead to the rescinding of this prohibition. Author Simon Morrison is the first scholar, non-Russian or Russian, to receive the privilege to study them. Alongside wholly or partly unknown score materials, Morrison has studied Prokofiev's never-seen journals and diaries, the original, unexpurgated versions of his official speeches, and the bulk of his correspondence. This new information makes possible for the first time an accurate study of the tragic second phase of Prokofiev's career. Moving chronologically, Morrison alternates biographical details with discussions of Prokofiev's major works, furnishing dramatic new insights into Prokofiev's engagement with the Stalinist regime and the consequences that it had for his family and his health.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51000251875601,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51000255643921,"sku":"NIN9780199753482","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52673861714193,"sku":"NLS9780199753482","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52812585042193,"sku":"CIN0199753482G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53351284572433,"sku":"GOR009456551","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199753482.jpg?v=1751291051"},{"product_id":"tchaikovsky-s-empire-book-simon-morrison-9780300284317","title":"Tchaikovsky's Empire","description":"What is death and why does it matter to us? How should the knowledge of our finitude affect the living of our lives and what are the virtues suitable to mortal beings? Does death destroy the meaningfulness of lives, or would lives that never ended be eternally and absurdly tedious? Should we reconcile ourselves to the fact of our forthcoming death, or refuse to go gently into that good night? Can death really be an evil if, after death, we no longer exist as subjects of goods or evils? How should we respond to the deaths of others and do we have any duties towards the dead? These, and many other, questions are addressed in Geoffrey Scarre's book, which draws upon a wide variety of philosophical and literary sources to offer an up-to-date and highly readable study of some major ethical and metaphysical riddles concerning death and dying.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51789010469137,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51789010567441,"sku":"NGR9780300284317","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53241088082193,"sku":"NLS9780300284317","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53359149351185,"sku":"NIN9780300284317","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53461556691217,"sku":"GOR014932775","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53592732926225,"sku":"GOR014973475","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780300284317.jpg?v=1761213265"},{"product_id":"russian-opera-and-the-symbolist-movement-book-simon-morrison-9780520229433","title":"Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement","description":"An aesthetic, historical, and theoretical study of four scores, Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement is a groundbreaking and imaginative treatment of the important yet neglected topic of Russian opera in the Silver Age. Spanning the gap between the supernatural Russian music of the nineteenth century and the compositions of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, this exceptionally insightful and well-researched book explores how Russian symbolist poets interpreted opera and prompted operatic innovation. Simon Morrison shows how these works, though stylistically and technically different, reveal the extent to which the operatic representation of the miraculous can be translated into its enactment. Morrison treats these largely unstudied pieces by canonical composers: Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, Rimsky-Korsakov's Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya, Scriabin's unfinished Mysterium, and Prokofiev's Fiery Angel. The chapters, revisionist studies of these composers and scores, address separate aspects of Symbolist poetics, discussing such topics as literary and musical decadence, pagan-Christian syncretism, theurgy, and life creation, or the portrayal of art in life. The appendix offers the first complete English-language translation of Scriabin's libretto for the Preparatory Act. Providing valuable insight into both the Symbolist enterprise and Russian musicology, this book casts new light on opera's evolving, ambiguous place in fin de siecle culture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51828487651601,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51828487848209,"sku":"NGR9780520229433","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53521254711569,"sku":"NLS9780520229433","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780520229433.jpg?v=1752755088"},{"product_id":"kingdom-and-a-village-book-simon-morrison-9780593318454","title":"A Kingdom and a Village","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn erudite and entertaining history of Moscow, a city defined by its survival and reinvention, and whose rich history offers crucial insight into contemporary global politics\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"A magisterial account of Moscow that reveals the city's history and something of its soul through countless interwoven stories and colorful characters. . . . A gripping and enlightening journey.\"\u003cbr\u003e --Ben Rhodes, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eAfter the Fall\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The city of Moscow stands at the center of a nation comprising eleven percent of the globe's landmass, 11 time zones, and nearly 150 million people, some 13 million of whom live in the capital. In \u003ci\u003eA Kingdom and a Village,\u003c\/i\u003e acclaimed historian Simon Morrison offers a vividly rendered history of Russia's heart and soul, tracing its transformation from a \"big village\"--the demeaning nickname the St. Peterburg nobility gave to its provincial neighbor--into a spectacular metropolis of vast geopolitical import.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e That arc is the stuff of dramatic, violent, stranger-than-fiction historical narrative: the last century alone has featured invasions and costly battles, the destruction (and reconstruction) of sacred cultural and religious landmarks, and the collapse of the Soviet republic--not to mention the rise of an authoritarian leader who is a keen student of Russian history. Morrison reaches back further still, to the founding of the place we now know as Moscow as a fortress on a river nearly a millennium ago. In the centuries that followed, any number of external forces--from Tatar Mongols and Swedes to Napoleon and Hitler--set their sights on Moscow, reinforcing its self-conception as both a glittering prize and a site of perpetual defense and resurrection.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Drawing on a rich array of archival materials, from the birchbark scrawls that record the oldest layer of Russian civilization to the articles in European newspapers heralding the opening of the magnificent Bolshoi Theater, Morrison brings to life the bloody power struggles; cultural marvels; excruciating famines, droughts, storms, and fires that have shaped and reshaped the city and reinforced its essential character.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e With \u003ci\u003eA Kingdom and a Village,\u003c\/i\u003e Morrison makes a persuasive, even impassioned case that to understand Moscow is not only to unlock the spellbinding mysteries of Russia's past but also, critically, to grasp the grim logic of its present. It is a magisterial biography of a place--and an essential guide to a people and a nation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53263831564561,"sku":"NIN9780593318454","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53383640318225,"sku":"CIN0593318455G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53625783845137,"sku":"CIN0593318455VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780593318454.jpg?v=1773852833"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-simon-morrison.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}