"The Book of Mr. Boris Yoffe 'Im Fluss des Symphonischen' has impressed me a lot. First of all it is a high professional, large scale, fundamental work about Soviet Symphonism, which embraces the period before the Soviet state was established, to present the pre-soviet period, as well it presents the full picture of Soviet era symphonism. This book is written with knowledge and love. The mentioned above book is representing not only the composers of the 20-th century, but as well the whole cultural scale of Russian and Soviet period. The details presented in book are extremely interesting, opening a new glance of soviet composing school, which is extremely interesting for any performer and for a conductor particularly.

The presentation of a 16-th chapter, 'Die Symphonie der Unionsrepubliken',so called Koloniale Misik, is written very interesting, presenting the real picture and analysis of the mentioned subject. Particularly interesting is presented the music in Baltic States and in Caucasus. All themes of this book are interesting, but for me particularly interesting was chapter 9, "Die am Rande Gebliebenen". Another chapter which moved me a lot, is about the St. Petersburg school and particularly about Boris Arapov, who was a great friend of my father, whom I knew personally very well and who blessed me in the very beginning of my life as a conductor. Not talking about personal-close relationship of my family with Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Khrennikov, Kabalevsky, Kaka Karaev, and other composers. From 60-s, the whole palette of the Soviet music inclusive its composers, was in front of my eyes and I am a witness of many events happening in those times. That’s why I can say, that this book is a honest picture of the Soviet music and very interesting as for the professionals, as well for the ones who love and understand music."

Vakhtang Matchavariani, conductor

"Yoffe’s book stands out of a row of traditional musicological essays – first of all with its vivid polemical character and readability.  The author is not afraid to stress his own often very personal approach to the subject, he does not try to make problematic point smoother in order to prevent probable critics, avoids false complexity and science-wise formulas. He has a rare gift to write about music (by the way mostly unknown music) interestingly. Only few of the works mentioned in the book are recorded and accessible – and nevertheless it does not make reading less capturing, Yoffe can find images to re-create the sounding of music impelling to actually listen to the described compositions. This is the greatest achievement and contribution of this book: it tells not only the history of Soviet music, more or less familiar to some readers, the intention of the author is to rouse an interest not for the history, but for this very music… It is hardly possible to imagine any other approach more suitable for investigating  this subject as widely. There are lots of surprises even for the musicologists specialized in the topic. Yoffe’s essay counts 650 pages making a captivating panoramic view of the symphonic art of dozens composers."

Jascha Nemtsov, musicologist and pianist

"Yoffe takes music seriously as a mode of cognition and discusses it with an authority that can no longer be taken for granted. It is to be lauded how here the question of music’s significance is pursued with authentic urgency. One can only hope that protagonists of contemporary music who are interested in theoretical discourse – and perhaps not only they – realize the ball is in their court."

Johannes Menke, music theorist, from his review, published in:
Musik & Ästhetik Heft 66, Stuttgart 2013, S. 110-112.