Viktor Abramovich Zuckerman (6 October 1903 – 30 September 1988) was a Soviet musicologist and music educator, professor at the Moscow Conservatory, and Doctor of Arts. He received the title Honored Art Worker of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1966.
He studied piano at the Kyiv Conservatory with Felix Blumenfeld, Boleslav Yavorsky, and Grigory Kogan, and studied music theory with Yavorsky and Alshvang. During his student years, he was a friend of Vladimir Horowitz. From 1923 to 1926 he lectured at the Kyiv Conservatory, then taught at the Moscow Conservatory. He headed its Department of Music Theory from 1936 to 1942 and became a professor in 1939.
Zuckerman received the Candidate degree in 1931 and the Doctor of Arts degree in 1958. He was also active in the Union of Soviet Composers. His students included musicologists Innokenty Popov, G. V. Grigoryeva, I. A. Barsova, and Y. A. Fortunatov, as well as the composers Edison Denisov, Andrei Eshpai, and Nikolai Peyko.
He was one of the founders of modern Russian musicology. His research focused on the theory and methodology of musical analysis. With Lev Mazel, Iosif Ryzhkin, and other musicologists, he developed the method of “integral analysis,” which interprets a work through detailed examination of melody, harmony, rhythmic and syntactic structures, and form.
His studies of musical form included Variation Form (1974), tracing the development of variations from Palestrina to Stravinsky and Bartók, and Rondo in Its Historical Development (1988–1990). His monographs on Glinka (1957) and Liszt (1984) examined, respectively, Glinka’s Kamarinskaya and Liszt’s B minor Sonata as works that clearly display the composers’ stylistic characteristics. In The Expressive Means of Tchaikovsky’s Lyricism (1971), a project on which he worked for about thirty years, he examined Tchaikovsky’s lyric melodic style and methods of melodic development. His textbooks and methodological writings remain widely used in music education.
Zuckerman received the Order of Lenin in 1953 and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1946. He was buried at Kuntsevo Cemetery in Moscow.