It is not unusual to regard Shostakovich's "Preludes & Fugues" as an
unprecedented work in the history of Russian music, a renovation for
piano of polyphony.  Much is made of the event of its inspiration--hearing
Tatiana Nikolayeva perform Bach when a contest judge.  Yet one of the most
peculiar and enduring developments in Russian & Soviet piano composition
is neo-polyphony.  There is a series of Soviet repertoire anthologies
(1970s-80s vintage?) that outline the tradition from Glinka through
Tchaikowsky's Opus 21 fugue.  But the tradition has its origins in S.
Taneev's application of findings from his study of strict counterpoint to
his compositional methods & their being taken up by his pupils Scriabin and
A.  Stanchinsky (whose preludes in the form of canons are an early
masterwork).  Myaskovsky's early sonatas are neo-fugues--one of the reasons
Glenn Gould fixed upon them.  Goldenweiser, the great Bach pianist, also
commenced writing polyphonic works before Shostakovich.  (Indeed Glazunov
wrote "Preludes & Fugues"!).  DDS's extraordinary success with the form
kept the tradition vital, w/ his contemporaries Kabalevsky & Anatolii
Aleksandrov writing several each.  But the subsequent generation became
particularly smitten w/ neopolyphony.  Tatiana Nikolayeva herself
contributed a "The Polyphonic Triad." Rodion Shcherdin did a "Polyphonic
Notebook" and a set of Preludes & Fugues.  Recent contibutions to the
tradition include Karamanov's 12 Concert Fugues & a newly finished set of
24 Preludes & Fugues by Serge Slonimsky.

Much of the musicological scholarship of the Soviet tradition of piano
composition dramatizes the repression of post-Scriabin experiment & the
folklorizing of composition in the 30s.  Disruption is the story.  Yet
there seems to be a continuity to the culivation of thus one branch of
composition.  I would much like to see a thorough account of this strand
of musical development.

David Shields
Charleston, SC