In 1919 Russia was in the throes of a civil war which had split
the entire country and each family into two fighting camps. The economy
was in shambles and millions of people were going without food… And still,
the hard times proved unable to put a damper on the Russian music…
Summer kicked off a new concert season in the former royal country
residence at Pavlovsk, just outside Petrograd. The place was a traditional
musical hub where Russian and foreign musicians had regularly been performing
in the previous two centuries. The great Johann Strauss, still touted as
the King of the Waltz, had once been conducting there. Even in 1919 when
people were taking a revolutionary view of the arts, giving preference
to everything heroical and larger-than-life, Strauss' elegant tunes could
still occasionally be heard in Soviet Russia…
And still, Johann Strauss was no longer a legislator of musical
fashion, taking a back seat to Ludwig van Beethoven after whom it was no
longer possible to speak of music merely as "the art of pleasing sounds".
Russian music was also being widely performed, but concert organizers were
now going for compositions heavily permeated by the ideas of class struggle.
Art was being increasingly put to the service of politics, and Alexander
Skryabin's music appeared to be perfectly suited for the changing times…
In autumn they had to cut short a concert season which had just
started at the Moscow Conservatory because there was not enough firewood
to keep people warm. They had to replace central heating with simple brick
heaths which never brought indoor temperatures above10 degrees Celsius.
Clad in their overcoats which they never took off during the concerts people,
in the audience shivered uncomfortably watching the musicians sitting there
in their regular suits and gowns.
Faced with acute shortages of paper, the theater and concert
hall administrations stopped publishing billboards and small programs.
There was a handwritten list of concerts for the whole month hanging lonely
at the entrance to the Moscow Conservatory and still, concerts continued
packing halls across the nation…
On August 26th, 1919, Vladimir Lenin signed a decree aiming to
help the best theaters in Moscow and Petrograd, including the formerly
Imperial Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Mariinsky Theater in Petrograd.
All their decorations, costumes, props and musical instruments were now
declared state property. The decree was also giving up on the traditional
contract system of old and switching to repertory companies. Actors were
thus becoming public servants working for fixed monthly salaries.
The only premiere they had at the Bolshoi in 1919 was Alexander
Gorsky's new production of Tchaikovsky's ballet Nutcracker. Gorsky had
also changed the libretto placing more emphasis on the character of the
ballet's young heroine, Clara. In still another departure from previous
tradition, a dancing school greenhorn was invited to perform Clara's part.
The result was a highly elegant and refined performance which one of the
critics described as a "celebration of youth and children's games,
thoughts and love."
It was the first time Moscow ballet buffs had a chance to enjoy
the Nutcracker which, until then, had only been played in Petrograd. Despite
its resounding success at the Bolshoi, the Nutcracker still came at the
wrong time and, after just a few runs, it was taken off the program of
the government's pet theater.
The year 1919 saw some other events connected directly with the
Bolshoi Theater.
In spring, the Bolshoi's management arranged a meeting between
the prominent stage director and the founder of the Moscow Art Theater
Konstantin Stanislavsky with members of the theater's opera company to
discuss much-needed reforms at the Bolshoi and ways of bringing up new
singers.
"You can't create another Chaliapin," Stanislavsky
said, "but you can and should create Chaliapin's school. In opera
we need more than just good singers, we need good actors as well… We need
a perfect combination of drama and music."
One result of that meeting was a decision to set up an experimental
opera studio at the Bolshoi, which Stanislavsky agreed to lead. Their first
production was Tchaikovsky's opera Yevgeny Onegin where Russia's foremost
turn-of-the-century tenor Leonid Sobinov was singing the part of the poet
Vladimir Lensky.
Stanislavsky's opera studio brought together the Bolshoi's most
endowed actors, musicians and conductors. It saw the first performance
of the Bolshoi Theater's 28-old conductor Nikolai Golovanov who later rose
to become one of Russia's leading conductors and longrunning director of
the Bolshoi Theater who presided over more than 20 major operas and ballets.
In 1919 he initiated a series of symphonic concerts at the Bolshoi.
The First State Choir, initially led by the famous choirmaster
Ivan Yukhov, was organized in Moscow on January 1st 1919. The tightly-knit
and easy-moving choir was an immediate success performing both on their
own and accompanying symphony orchestras, taking part in stage productions
and laying down soundtracks for movies. Besides classical numbers, the
choir also performed revolutionary songs which were hugely popular back
in those days…
Also in 1919 they set up in Moscow a state collection of musical
instruments comprising mainly stringed instruments, including ones built
by the great luthiers of the past, Amati, Gvarneri and Srtadivari. Some
of those instruments have since been leased out to the leading Russian
musicians, winners of international competitions and popular soloists.
The Yekaterinburg State Opera and Ballet Theater which they opened
in 1919 became the first professional musical theater in the Urals.
In 1919 a 13 year-old Dmitry Shostakovich enrolled at the St.Petersburg
Conservatory, the oldest in Russia, where he studied both piano playing
and composition. After the examination was over, the Conservatory director
Alexander Glazunov likened the new student to Mozart and said that, some
day, he would make a really great musician. This opinion was fully seconded
by Professor Glazunov's equally seasoned colleagues sitting on the admission
panel.
The young composer presented several piano preludes which strongly
impressed the panelists with their amazing combination of 19th century
classicism and the bold adventurism so inherent in the incoming 20th century…
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
