Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nest'yev, Izrail' Vladimirovich

(b Kerch', Crimea, 4/17 April 1911; d Moscow, 19 April 1993). Russian musicologist. He graduated from the faculty of theory at the Moscow Conservatory (1937) and completed his postgraduate studies there under V.Ye. Ferman (1940). He defended his kandidat dissertation on Prokofiev in 1945 and was awarded the degree in the following year. After serving in World War II (1941–5) and acting as a correspondent for a Soviet army newspaper, he was the chief editor of music broadcasting for the All-Union Radio (1945–8) and then worked in the editorial office of the journal Sovetskaya muzïka (1949–59), from 1954 as deputy editor. From 1956 he was associate professor, later professor (from 1974), at the department of foreign music at the Moscow Conservatory. He became a senior research fellow in 1960 at the Institute of Art History (now the State Institute of Artistic Studies of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation), where from 1974 to 1991 he was head of the department for the history of the music of the peoples of the USSR. He was elected a member of the Russian Composers’ Union in 1940.

Nest'yev had a broad range of scholarly musical interests, including music both Classical and contemporary, and wrote many monographs, articles and essays on prominent Russian and western European composers. He became a foremost authority on Prokofiev following the publication of his first book on Prokofiev (1946) and later the more detailed biography (1973), which is one of the most well-documented studies of the composer. He also made a special study of Bartók, gaining the doctorate in 1970 for a dissertation on his life and work, and continued his interest in the musical culture of eastern Europe with studies of Janácek, Eisler, and the collaboration of Brecht and Weil. He was in addition the author of the first study in Russian musicology of Puccini (1963), and his book on Dyagilev and the music theatre (1994) marked a renewal of interest by Russian musicologists in the history of their musical culture. Another distinguishing area of interest was the music of everyday life in Russia during the 1920s and variety performers. His monograph Zvyozdï russkoy ėstradï (‘The Stars of Russian Variety Art’, 1970) was the first to provide portraits of such artists of the pre-revolutionary period. Like the work of many Russian musicologists, Nest'yev’s research, particularly his evaluation of contemporary music, was restricted by the ideological dogmas within the cultural policy of the Soviet government. His work, however, remains valuable for its lively feeling and enthusiasm for music, its professionalism and for its solid foundation in documentary evidence.

WRITINGS

‘M. Balakirev’, SovM (1937), no.7, pp.9–29

Prokof'yev (diss., Moscow Conservatory, 1946; Eng. trans., 1946, as Sergei Prokofiev: his Musical Life, enlarged 2/1960)

Sovetskaya massovaya pesnya [The Soviet popular song] (Moscow, 1946)

Mazepa P.I. Chaykovskogo [Tchaikovsky’s Mazepa] (Moscow, 1949, 2/1959)

Russkaya sovetskaya pesnya [Soviet Russian song] (Moscow, 1951)

‘O natsional'noy spetsifike muzïki’ [National characteristics in music], Sovetskaya muzïka: teoreticheskiye i kriticheskiye stat'i, ed. V. Vasina-Grossman and others (Moscow, 1954), 63–126

Prokof'yev (Moscow, 1957, rev., enlarged 2/1973 as Zhizn' Sergeya Prokof'yeva [The life of Prokofiev])

Yeyo padcheritsa: opera L. Yanacheka (Moscow, 1960) [Janáček’s Jenůfa]

‘Zametki o Malere’ [Notes on Mahler], SovM (1960), no.7, pp.72–82

Gans Ėysler i yego pesennoye tvorchestvo [Eisler and his songs] (Moscow, 1962)

‘Shimanovsky v Rossii’ [Szymanowski in Russia], SovM (1962), no.11, pp.128–38

Dzhakomo Puchchini [Puccini] (Moscow, 1963, 2/1965)

I pesnya i somfoniya [Both song and symphony] (Moscow, 1964)

‘O muzïkal'nom avangarde podlinnom i mnimom’ [The real and apparent avant garde], Voprosï ėstetiki, vii (1965), 250–80

ed., with G.Ya. Ėdel'man: Sergey Prokof'yev: 1953–1965: stat'i i materialï (Moscow, 1965)

Na rubezhe dvukh stoletiy: ocherk o zarubezhnoy muzïke kontsa XIX – nachala XX veka [At the turn of the century: an essay on foreign music at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries] (Moscow, 1967)

‘O muzïke ustnoy traditsii (o revolyutsionnoy i gorodskoy pesne v Rossii nachala XX veka)’ [On the music of the oral tradition (on revolutionary and urban songs in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century)], Russkaya khudozhestvennaya kul'tura kontsa XIX – nachala XX veka, ed. A.D. Alekseyev, i (Moscow, 1968), 287–311

Bela Bartók: 1881–1945: zhizn' i tvorchestvo (Moscow, 1969; diss., Institut istorii iskusstv, 1970)

‘Muzïka, rozhdyonnaya revolyutsiyey’ [Music born of the revolution], Iskusstvo, revolyutsiyey prizvannoye, ed. B.I. Rostotsky (Moscow, 1969), 62–108 [on the German song movement, 1918–32]

Zvyozdï russkoy ėstradi [The stars of Russian variety art] (Moscow, 1970, 2/1974)

‘Muzïka Betkhovena v sovetskoy Rossii (1917–1927)’ [Beethoven’s music in Soviet Russia (1917–1927)], Betkhoven, ed. N.L. Fishman, ii (Moscow, 1972), 239–55

Introduction to Istoriya muzïki narodov SSSR, v, ed. Yu.V. Keldïsh (Moscow, 1974)

‘Istoriya odnogo sodruzhestva (Bertol't Brekht i Kurt Vayl')’ [The history of a collaboration (Brecht and Weil)], Iz istorii muzïki sotsialisticheskikh stran Yevropï, ed. L.V. Polyakova (Moscow, 1975)

‘Skryabin i yego russkiye antipodï’ [Skryabin and his Russian antipodes], Muzïka i sovremennost', x (1976), 45–111

‘Bartók i Prokof'yev (neskol'ko paralleley)’ [Bartók and Prokofiev (some parallels)], Bela Bartók, ed. Ye.I. Chigareva (Moscow, 1977), 36–50

‘Muzïkal'nïye kruzhki v Rossii: muzïakl'naya ėstrada’ [Musical circles in Russia: variety music], Russkaya khudozkestvennaya kul'tura kontsa XIX- nachala XX veka, ed. A.D. Alekseyev, iii (Moscow, 1977)

Gans Ėysler: yego vremya, yego pesni [Eisler: his era and his songs] (Moscow, 1981)

‘O zhanrovo-stilisticheskom sinteze u Shostokovicha’, Dmitri Schostakowitsch: Cologne 1985, 107–22

Vek nïneshniy i vek minuvshiy [The present century and the past century] (Moscow, 1986) [incl. G. Ordzhonikidze: ‘I. Nest'yev: uchyonïy, kritik, publitsist’ [Nest'yev: scholar, critic, publicist], 3–9]

‘“Wandernde” Melodien: zum Problem der Migration von Massenliedern’, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Theorie der Musikkultur, ed. H. Klein (Berlin, 1988), 614–19

‘O novïkh izucheniyakh sovetskoy muzïki’ [New aspects of Soviet music research], SovM (1989), no.2, pp.44–51

‘Iz istorii russkogo muzïkal'nogo avangarda’ [From the history of the Russian music avant-garde], SovM (1991), no.1, pp.75–87

Dyagilev i muzïkal'nïy teatr XX veka [Diaghilev and music theatre] (Moscow, 1994)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

G.B. Bernandt and I.M. Yampol'sky: Kto pisal o muzïke [Writers on music], ii (Moscow, 1974) [incl. list of writings]

‘I.V. Nest'yev’, MAk (1993), no.4, pp.222–3

YURY KELDÏSH/NELLI GRIGOR'YEVNA SHAKHNAZAROVA