Russian music today has a firm hold around the world in the repertoire of opera houses ballet companies and orchestras. The music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky Nikolai RimskyKorsakov Sergey Rachmaninov Sergey Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich is very much todays lingua franca both in the concert hall and on the soundtracks of international blockbusters from Hollywood. Meanwhile the innovations of Modest Musorgsky Alexander Borodin and Igor Stravinsky have played their crucial role in the development of