Steven Schwartz wrote:

>Jos wrote:
>
>>... Vic Maes in his recent study on Russian Music clearly shows how
>>Stravinsky's Rite is FIRMLY ROOTED in the Russian tradition.
>
>That's because creatio ex nihilo doesn't exist.  Everything comes from
>somewhere.  Taruskin makes Maes's point in even more detail, showing that
>the Russian tradition Stravinsky came out of owes just about everything to
>Liszt.

I would have said Berlioz, rather than Liszt.  Berlioz spent much time
in Russia, and I believe it was from his influence that so many Russian
composers were great orchestrators.  And, of course, Berlioz was a major
influence on Liszt too, come to think of it.  He wrote his Treatise on
Orchestration, which Rimsky later used as a basis for his own writing.

And look at all the great Russian orchestrators:  Rimsky, and those others
of that time, and Stravinsky and Shostakovich and on and on.  I except
Mussorgsky for obvious reasons, and Prokofiev because he hired others to
do his orchestrating (or so it is said).

My God, I forgot to mention Tschaikovsky!!

Bill S