All dates are given in accordance with the Julian calendar, sometimes known as ‘Old Style’. To convert them to the Gregorian calendar used in the West, and after 1918 in Russia too, twelve days must be added in the nineteenth century and thirteen in the twentieth century. In a limited number of cases, such as the first performance of a Russian composition abroad, dates are given in both forms. In footnotes, ‘Author's note’ refers to the original author of the item, and ‘Editor's note’ refers to the editor of the publication in which the article appeared for the first time. Other interventions are the work of the editor and translator of this volume.

Several colleagues have drawn my attention to worthwhile material, suggested topics to which I had given inadequate notice, or proposed items I had not discovered for myself. I acknowledge gratefully the advice in these various ways of Alexander Belonenko and Georgy Abramovsky of the St Petersburg Conservatoire, and Marina Rakhmanova of the State Central Museum for Musical Culture named after M. I. Glinka in Moscow. For making available newspapers and periodicals, republications in book form and music scores, I gladly thank the librarians of the Russian State Library in Moscow, the State Institute for the Study of the Arts in Moscow, the Russian National Library in St Petersburg, the St Petersburg Conservatoire, the Tchaikovsky House-Museum at Klin, Helsinki University Library and the British Library.