“Birthday” is a Soviet animated short film from 1959, based on a Dagestani folktale. The story follows a boy named Murat, who lives with his grandfather in a high mountain village. One day, Murat watches his grandfather record the birth of a lamb in the family book and is surprised to find that his own […]

Russian composers contributed greatly to the genre of programmatic symphonic works. Although many were initially attracted to it by Spanish inspirations, one reason for the genre’s eventual massive popularity was that it gave the composers a popular musical form to incorporate not only native Russian tunes and harmonic structures, but also to focus on other […]