Music History, the Practice Turn, and Maria Yudina’s Journey through the Soviet ‘Thaw’, 1959–63

Abstract This article develops an approach to music history that centres performers and their artistic work, drawing on insights from musical performance studies. It responds to criticisms of the practice turn and builds on recent scholarship on Soviet music to contextualize the life of pianist Maria Yudina in the years 1959–63, in which she dedicated herself (at great cost) to new, avant-garde music. Case studies include Yudina’s key role in performing the first Soviet twelve-tone composition in 1961 — Andrei Volkonsky’s Musica Stricta: Fantasia Ricercata — and her advocacy of Igor Stravinsky in the build-up to his homecoming in 1962.