What Did Richard Taruskin Do For A Living?
In Oakland, California, early on Friday, Richard Taruskin, an influential musicologist and public intellectual whose polemical writing and critique upended conventional classical music history, passed suddenly. He was 77. According to his wife, Cathy Roebuck Taruskin, esophageal cancer was the cause of his hospital death. The six-volume Oxford History of Western Music was written by…
In Oakland, California, early on Friday, Richard Taruskin, an influential musicologist and public intellectual whose polemical writing and critique upended conventional classical music history, passed suddenly. He was 77.
According to his wife, Cathy Roebuck Taruskin, esophageal cancer was the cause of his hospital death.
The six-volume Oxford History of Western Music was written by Mr. Taruskin, an emeritus professor of Russian music at the University of California, Berkeley.
He has authored a number of other ground-breaking musicological studies.
Mr. Taruskin promoted the idea that the classical canon was influenced politically at a period when it was revered. His enemy was the generally held notion that the historical contexts of Bach’s cantatas and Beethoven symphonies could be disregarded.
He derided the idea of music, portraying it as a sterile, decontaminated environment where music might be created, performed, and heard in the absence of culture and history.
What Did Richard Taruskin Do For A Living?
The six-volume Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin, which provides a thorough overview of Western classical music, is well recognized. He also writes music criticism for periodicals including The New York Times.
