Sonic Overload offers a new, music-centered cultural history of the late Soviet Union. It focuses on polystylism in music as a response to the information overload swamping listeners in the Soviet Union during its final decades. It traces the ways in which leading composers Alfred Schnittke and Valentin Silvestrov initially embraced popular sources before ultimately rejecting them. Polystylism first responded to the utopian impulses of Soviet ideology with utopian impulses to encompass all musical styles, from "high" to "low". But these initial all-embracing aspirations were soon followed by retreats to alternate utopias founded on carefully selecting satisfactory borrowings, as familiar hierarchies of culture, taste, and class reasserted themselves. Looking at polystylism in the late USSR tells us about past and present, near and far, as it probes the musical roots of the overloaded, distracted present.A Based on archival research, oral historical interviews, and other overlooked primary materials, as well as close listening and thorough examination of scores and recordings, Sonic Overload presents a multilayered and comprehensive portrait of late-Soviet polystylism and cultural life, and of the music of Silvestrov and Schnittke. Sonic Overload is intended for musicologists and Soviet, Russian, and Ukrainian specialists in history, the arts, film, and literature, as well as readers interested in twentieth- and twenty-first century music; modernism and postmodernism; quotation and collage; the intersections of "high" and "low" cultures; and politics and the arts.

About the Author
Peter J. Schmelz is Professor of Musicology at Arizona State University, and author of Alfred Schnittkeas Concerto Grosso No. 1 (OUP, 2019) and Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw (OUP, 2009)

Reviews
By placing Schnittke, a Russian of German heritage, and Silvestrov, a Ukrainian who studied in Moscow, on equal footing, Schmelz has compellingly blown apart ideas of Russian superiority, even if only implicit, within the Soviet musical apparatus. Schmelz's nuanced take on these twomen offers a refreshing riposte to stories that privilege the metropoles of Moscow and Leningrad. * Gabrielle Cornish, Twentieth-Century Music *
Schmelz's original, in-depth research provides valuable insight into musical life in the Soviet era. * D. Arnold, CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8 *
An essential and highly readable book for anyone with an interest in Russian and Soviet musical culture. * Gramophone *
Sonic Overload is a brilliant, bracing book that challenges conventional wisdom about the Soviet Union's place in contemporary history. In vivid evocations of music, people, and ideas, Peter J. Schmelz shows that polystylism is key to understanding the late Soviet experience - and our own. * Lisa Jakelski, Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester *
Part biography, part aesthetic inquiry, Sonic Overload is - like polystylism itself - vastly more than the sum of its many scintillating parts. Schmelz's book is a wholesale revision of Soviet music history after Stalin. Its significance for future research and listening is simply monumental. * Kevin C. Karnes, Emory University *
Sonic Overload, Schmelz presents essential reading for anyone interested in art music since the 1970s, encapsulating how writing on Soviet music should be done. * Daniel Elphick, Notes: the Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association vol. 80 *


Awards
Winner of Winner, 2022 Otto Kinkeldey Award, American Musicological Society Winner, Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards in the concert music field, ASCAP Foundation.



Book Information
ISBN 9780197541258
Author Peter J. Schmelz
Format Hardback
Page Count 430
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 748g
Dimensions(mm) 165mm * 239mm * 33mm