Mikhail Tarakanov

Mikhail Yevgenyevich Tarakanov was a Soviet and Russian musicologist, music critic, writer, and teacher. He was born on February 20, 1928, in Rostov-on-Don and died on September 26, 1996, in Moscow. He became a Doctor of Art Studies and, from 1990, a professor at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

He was born into a family of physicians. His father, Yevgeny Ivanovich Tarakanov, was a Soviet neurologist and endocrinologist who also played the violin and mandolin, while his mother, Arfeniya Mikhailovna Stepanyan-Tarakanova, had dreamed of becoming an opera singer. Tarakanov studied music at the Ippolitov-Ivanov Music College. In 1948 he graduated from the music college attached to the Moscow Conservatory as a musicologist, and in 1952 he graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He then continued there in postgraduate study, completing it in 1955 under the supervision of S. S. Skrebkov. He also studied with the musicologists R. I. Gruber, A. F. Mutli, V. V. Protopopov, I. V. Sposobin, and V. A. Tsukkerman.

In 1957 he defended his candidate dissertation on thematic development in the symphonies of Nikolai Myaskovsky's first creative period, covering Symphonies Nos. 1 through 6. In 1971 he defended his doctoral dissertation, "The Style of Prokofiev's Symphonies." From 1955 he worked as a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory, where he taught music-theoretical disciplines. From 1960 he also worked at the Institute of Art History, now the State Institute for Art Studies.

In 1980 Tarakanov returned to the conservatory as a teacher in the Department of Music Theory. From 1986 he served as head of the Department of Soviet Music and Music Criticism, later renamed the Department of the History of Contemporary National Musical Culture. He lectured on music criticism, opera dramaturgy, and other subjects. He died in Moscow and was buried at Lyublino Cemetery.

The main area of Tarakanov's scholarly interest was Russian and foreign music of the twentieth century. He participated in major collective works including History of the Music of the Peoples of the USSR, Twentieth-Century Music, History of Contemporary National Music, History of Russian Music, and Russian Musical Art in the History of Twentieth-Century Artistic Culture. Under his supervision, 10 doctoral dissertations and 30 candidate dissertations were prepared and defended.

Among his principal books were The Style of Prokofiev's Symphonies (1968), The Musical Theater of Alban Berg (1976), The Works of Rodion Shchedrin (1980), Soviet Musical Theater (1982), Russian Soviet Symphony: Results and Prospects (1982), Instrumental Concerto (1985), Musical Culture of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1987), Symphony and Concerto in Russian Soviet Music (1988), Soviet Music Yesterday and Today (1989), V. Artemov: An Essay on His Work (1994), and Prokofiev's Early Operas (1996). He also published articles on twentieth-century tonality, methodology of musical analysis, Soviet music, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mozart, and the relationship between music and state power in Soviet Russia.

Tarakanov was also the father of musicologist Yekaterina Mikhailovna Tarakanova, who later compiled memorial collections dedicated to him, including Man and the Phonosphere and The Sound Environment of Modernity. His scholarly and pedagogical influence continued through his students, among them A. Baeva, L. Brazhnik, S. Goncharenko, S. Gubaidulina, E. Dukov, A. Ivashkin, R. Kosacheva, K. Melik-Pashayeva, N. Savkina, and R. Sergiyenko.

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