In 1908 Russian art was taking on the world forcing Europe and America
to bow low to the pent-up talent of Russian composers, singers and instrumentalists...
The famous Russian ballet, art and music impresario Sergei Dyagilev
had already established himself as a cult figure in Paris whose art connoisseurs
were still going under the impression of the Russian historical portraits
exposition he organized in 1906 and his 1907 presentation of Fyodor Chaliapin
and other leading Russian musicians. In 1908 Dyagilev was all set to boggle
the Parisians' minds with a larger-than-life production of Modest Mussorgsky's
opera Boris Godunov.
Sergei Dyagilev and his star-studded company spent a whole year
preparing the ambitions project. The outstanding composer and a close friend
of the long-deceased Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov provided a musically
updated version while the prominent Moscow Art Theater director Aleksei
Sanin was working on the details of the future production always bearing
in mind Dyagilev's penchant for fast-moving and sharply-contrasting action.
Stage decorations and costumes were being designed by the leading Russian
artists Alexander Benois, Ivan Bilibin and Konstantin Yuon.
As usual, the project was running into all kinds of bureaucratic
hassle with the directorate of the Imperial Theaters saying it would not
allow the costumes to be made at its workshops. Undaunted, Dyagilev immediately
reverted the order to private clothiers and when the stage technicians
at the Grand Opera refused to set up the decorations saying that the Russian
"barbarians" had no idea just how long a real job like that takes
to do, Dyagilev had a team of Russian workers rushed in and had the whole
job completed in a matter of just a few hours. When, shortly before the
curtain went up, Fyodor Chaliapin, who played Boris Godunov had a sore
throat, Dyagilev called in the best doctors around,
but, in the final account, it was his own power of conviction
that eventually helped the great singer to come out on stage and stun the
audience with his mighty bass combining so amazingly the sonorous musicality,
sheer power and the agonizingly breathless whisper of the qualms-ridden
ruler...
"The audience held their breath until the very last note,"
wrote a French critic. "Paris had never seen such a commotion before...
People were standing on their seats, stomping their feet, waving handkerchiefs,
crying and hollering like mad..."
Years later Fyodor Chaliapin reminisced: "It was a mindboggling
night, never before had I seen anything like that in my whole life! It
had put to the test our Russian maturity and artistic originality and the
Europeans had to admit we had stood that test with flying colors..."
In December 1908 New York witnessed the premiere of Alexander
Skryabin's trailblazing Poem of Ecstasy where the composer ventured into
previously uncharted territory. It was a real breakthrough into the Cosmos,
into the endlessly faraway future. The Poem's exhilarating score was a
red hot combination of intertwining layers suddenly exploding with a triumphant
and almost tangible burst of blinding light...
Reaction to the Poem of Ecstasy after its American premiere and
performances in Russia was rather mixed with critics dismissing it as "immature"
by form and "chaotic" by essence. Only a handful of connoisseurs
realized the bright future unfolding before this larger-than-life composition...
On December 18th, the 17 year-old aspiring composer Sergei Prokofyev
was, for the first time in his life, performing his compositions to the
broad public on stage of one of St.Petersburg's concert halls. Prokofyev
was far from being the best in his conservatory class and was largely dismissed
by the faculty as a gifted but too eccentric young man. Small wonder that,
used to customary dressing downs, Prokofyev was terribly nervous waiting
for the curtain to go up...
Looking out into the audience and apparently terrified by what
he saw, Sergei told his mother: "Just imagine some of these big-time
critics are all there waiting to crucify me!"
Imagine Prokofyev's surprise when, opening the prestigious newspaper
Slovo the following day, he read there this highly inspiring account:
Every little whimsicality of this bubbling imagination attests
to a talent that is big and unquestionable. Prokofyev's music is sincere,
natural and surprisingly versatile. His outstanding talent is also visible
in its clear-cut forms and compositional logic. The music is also a little
bit unbalanced, but it's all because the composer is so young. Prokofyev
draws his inspiration from his endlessly bubbling fantasy and imagination..."
During that memorable performance Prokofyev played a string of
piano pieces including the Suggestion Diabolique.
In October the Moscow Art Theater was marking its 10th birthday.
10 years is not much, but Konstantin Stanislavsky had ample reason to celebrate
because, besides being the best loved in the country, his company had also
turned completely around the theatergoers' concept of what is good and
what is bad in art. Affectation and pose had made way for pristine simplicity
and naturalness.
The list of the Art Theater's fans reads like a Who's Who of
the early-century Russian art, featuring, among other celebrities, the
great composer, pianist and conductor Sergei Rakhmaninoff. This is what
he wrote in the congratulatory message he sent Stanislavsky from Germany
where he happened to be at the time of the celebrations:
"My dearest Konstantin Sergeyevich! How I wish I were now
in Moscow applauding you and singing you praises! Please convey my heartfelt
congratulations to the company. Yours very truly, Sergei Rakhmaninoff.
Dresden. October 14, 1908."
There was more to that message than just a friendly congratulation,
though. Rakhmaninoff had put the message to music…
The Moscow Art Theater's 10th anniversary coincided with the
premiere of Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird, an allegorical fantasy
about the search for the wondrous bird of happiness put to the elegant
music written by the Russian composer Ilya Sats. The march from The Blue
Bird eventually became the musical symbol of the Moscow Art Theater.
"...We all come together and following this bird of feather..."
Back in the relative calm of the 1908 people thought happiness was so close
at hand...
At 3 o'clock in the terribly stormy morning of June 8th, 1908
there stopped beating the heart of one of Russia’s greatest composers of
all time, Nikolai Rimsly-Korsakov. He was only 64…
In 1908 the prominent double bass player and conductor Sergei
Kusevitsky set up a new symphony orchestra and founded the Russian Music
Publishing Society which soon became one of the most authoritative music
publishers in Russia.
In 1908 the Great Russian Folk Orchestra led by Vasily Andreyev
stunned audiences in Europe and North America with their sound that was
so new and powerful...
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
