The Voice of Russia World Service presents another edition of our
new series about the Russian musical
highlights of the 20th century...
By the time the year 1907 set in, the revolution which had lashed
the country for the two preceding years had largely been crushed. The authorities
were cracking down severely on any forms of dissent and the arts were now
left to the mercy of the trouble-sniffing censors.
In August 1907 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov finished writing his Golden
Cockerel opera. Looking through the libretto, one of the censors got enraged
saying with a good reason that it looked more like a revolutionary leaflet
than a fairy tale.
The Golden Cockerel, based on Alexander Pushkin's eponimously
titled poem, had never been politically benign as it was, but Rimsky-Korsakov
allowed his libretto writer Vladimir Belsky to lay it on even thicker resulting
in an acid satire on the stupidity of the autocracy. Already in the
Foreword, the wise Astrologer provides the following tell-tale
warning to the listener: "There is a grain of truth in every tale..."
The whole story is set in the lazy kingdom of Czar Dadon. His
stupid, good-for-nothing lieutenants are busily running around in a make-believe
effort of selfless service to their master, whose only wish is to be left
alone slumbering on his cot... Now that the Astrologer has presented him
with the Golden Cockerel, Dadon can just sit back and relax because the
vigilant bird is always on the lookout for an approaching enemy...
The enemy happens to be doing just that, so Dadon has no other
choice but to raise an army of whoever can carry arms. The funny Czar can
neither mount his horse nor wield a sword. Running across the comfortably
inviting tent of Queen of Shemakha, he falls madly in love with that beautiful
lady completely forgetting the purpose of his military campaign... The
only declaration his coarsened mind can produce is a stupid: “I will love
you forever and will try to never forget...” Rimsky-Korsakov put this clumsy
declaration of love to the tune of a primitive street song.
The composer spared no comic colors to portray a string of intentionally
primitive events, but always a great melodist, he came up with a really
catchy melody sung by the half-real, half illusory Queen of Shemakha.
The government took its revenge by banning the opera which was
not produced till 1909, two years after the composer's death. The opera
was originally meant to be staged at the Bolshoi Theater, but the city
governor and the censors cried bloody murder and so the opera which Rimsky-Korsakov
called "a fantasy acted out", was effectively shelved for a whole
two years...
The energetic and very successful impresario Sergei Dyagilev,
inspired by the previous year's triumph of the art exhibition and chamber
concerts he organized in Paris, was now burning to do something larger-than-life,
like a star-studded five concert series of Russian music. The project was
certainly not going to be cheap and, failing to raise a single kopek in
Russia, Dyagilev began courting art patrons in France. The first such donor
was Countess Elizabeth Greffuille.
"I was wondering about the reason of his visit," the
Countess reminisced, "but he gave me a charming smile, sat down by
the piano and started playing music written by Russian composers I had
never heard before. He played really well and the music was so fresh and
exhilarating that I promised to do my best to make this project happen..."
In May 1907 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov, Sergei
Rakhmaninoff, Alexander Skryabin, Fyodor Chaliapin and many other top-ranking
Russian musicians descended on Paris to attend five nights of concerts
to be played at the city's Grand Opera unveiling a nearly century-long
panorama of Russian music. The audience was in seventh heaven and the critics
filled the newspapers with an endless stream of complimentary accounts...
"A country which has given us people like Glinka and Dostoyevsky,
Rakhmaninoff and Tolstoy has no right to shut itself out from the rest
of the world," eulogized one Paris newspaper. "Russia's great
art belongs to the world..."
"The Historical Concerts" in Paris began with an Overture
to Mihail Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. The concerts aroused a wave
of unheard-of-before interest with politicians, artists, writers, the leading
French composers, among them Camille Saens-Sans and Maurice Ravel all turning
up for the events. Encouraged by the resounding success of the Historical
Concerts in Paris, Sergei Dyagilev started working on new projects.
Buoyed by enthusiastic acceptance of his works in Paris, Sergei
Rakhmaninoff devoted himself wholly to finishing his Second Symphony. To
do this, he retired to his wife's family estate in Ivanovka where he spent
the whole summer of 1907.
Ivanovka lied some 500 kilometers south of Moscow where the composer
drew inspiration from the endless steppes whose summertime fragrance was
so invigorating to his soul... Despite his tight daily schedule, Rakhmaninoff
still found time for horseback riding or driving his newly-acquired car.
He loved getting up early in the morning and roam the nearby fields and
it never occurred to anyone he met during those promenades that the tall
man wearing top boots, a free-flowing shirt and with a trademark cigarette
in mouth was indeed one of the greatest musicians of his time...
There, relaxing amid the endless southern steppelands, Rakhmaninoff
put the finishing touches to the Second Symphony which he dedicated to
his Conservatory Professor Sergei Taneyev whom he idolized as the "best
thing musical Moscow has ever had".
The Second Symphony fell short of the initial expectations with
critics all agreeing that "the music was not alive enough". Later,
when the sheer magnitude of this large-scale composition had sunk in, its
real worth started gradually coming into sharper relief. Rakhmaninoff's
prophetic music was all about Russia, her joys, pain and hopes for a better
future...
In the fall of 1907, composer and conductor Sergei Vasilenko
organized a series of affordable and very educational Historical Concerts
in Moscow offering a program of the most popular melodies beginning from
the 16th century.
In 1907 musicians and concertgoers in St.Petersburg were celebrating
25 years in the profession by the outstanding Russian composer, conductor
and public activist Alexander Glazunov. A symphony concert was held at
the city's Noble Assembly where, along with Glazunov's music, they played
congratulatory pieces written for the occasion by the composer's colleagues.
In the Small Hall of the St.Petersburg Conservatory they played chamber
compositions while the Mariinsky Theater offered Glazunov's The Seasons,
Ruses d'Amour and Raymonda ballets. In recognition of his international
reputation, Alexander Glazunov was awarded in June 1907 with the degree
of Doctor of Music by both Cambridge and Oxford Universities. The celebrations
continued for more than two months. "If I only live to see another
such celebration," Glazunov wrote to a friend, "I will never
again subject myself to this sweet but very painful thrashing..."
In 1907 Pyotr Sterligov and accordion player Orlansky-Titarenko
designed a whole new instrument which was an updated version of the traditional
four-tier Russian accordion. The authors called the new instrument Bayan
after the legendary Russian bard of the same name. The bayan did justice
not only to the folk Russian tunes but classical pieces as well.
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
