Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934 - November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, poet, novelist, and painter. His work mostly explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen was inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor. In 2011, Cohen received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not launch a music career until 1967, at the age of 33. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974).

Among the first of Gerald Abraham's many books were studies of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and his knowledge of Russian literature and culture has provided the key to his extensive research into the history of Slavonic music. Studies in Russian Music brings together critical essays on the most important of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas, and others such as Borodin's Prince Igor , Dargomizhsky's Stone Guest , and also includes chapters on Glinka, Mussorgsky, Balakirev and Tchaikovsky, copiously illustrated by music examples. In his Preface the author 'Although this is a book of separate essays, it is, I hope, given a certain unity by the fact that each chapter deals with some product or aspect of the 'classical' period of Russian the music of Glinka and, more particularly, that written in the half-century following his death. I have almost ignored Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, preferring to concentrate on the less discussed members of the 'mighty handful,' above all on Rimsky-Korsakov who has hitherto been unaccountably neglected by non-Russian critics. But in these studies of some of Korsakov's operas I have concerned myself only with certain aspects of them ... in the attempt to investigate the working of the composer's musical mind.' Essential reading for all students and lovers of Russian music.