In 1921 Russia was still in the grip of the Civil war, ruthless
and the merciless, pitting brothers against brothers and forcing sons to
fight their parents. How could the arts possibly survive in this bloody
mess?!
Many famous Russian composers, writers, artists and actors had
already been forced into emigration. Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Dyagilev and
Sergei Koussevitsky were living in Paris, Sergei Rakhmaninoff was in America
and Sergei Prokofyev was wandering from country to country. In 1921 he
was in France, writing his Third Piano Concerto. He was working fast because
most of the tunes had already been written, some of them still back in
Russia.
Prokofyev dedicated the Third Piano Concerto to the poet Konstantin
Balmont whose bristling symbolism he liked so much… Balmont, who also happened
to be living in France, was among the first to hear Prokofyev's new work.
Profoundly impressed, he wrote a sonnet where he compared Prokofyev's music
to the sun joyfully beating the summer drum…
Sergei Prokofyev played the Third Piano Concerto in the United
States, accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but the premiere
left the American audience largely unstirred and the critics firing caustic
broadsides at the author:
"When a dinosaur's daughter was finishing the conservatory
of her barbarian age," quipped one critic, "she might have also
been playing Prokofyev's concerto…"
"Steel fingers, steel wrists, steel biceps," echoed
another, "Prokofyev is a solid-steel sound factory."
Those critics would be very much surprised if someone told them
that, years later, the Third Piano Concerto would make the list of the
century's best compositions and would become a mush playing for performing
pianists everywhere.
In May they set up Russia's first ever State Philharmonic Society
in Petrograd which brought together the city's best orchestra, choirs and
quartets. The Society was now also in control of the absolutely unique
library of sheet music which once belonged to the Royal Orchestra and also
of the city's Museum of Musical History. The local authorities also allowed
the Philharmonic Society to hold concerts at the city's finest venue -
the white-column hall of the former Noble Assembly. 87 symphony and 40
chamber concerts were held there in the first year alone. The Petrograd
Philharmonic Society officially opened on June 12th, 1921 with a concert
of Tchaikovsky's music.
Arts have always been an extension of our everyday life and cultural
events often depend on the political situation existing in a given period
of time. The revolutionary situation was inevitably brushing off on the
arts and, in the early-1920s, the familiar classical tunes started being
increasingly phased out sending conductors and artistic directors on the
lookout for new subjects. At the Maly Opera Theater in Petrograd, they
turned to music written by the Austrian avant-garde composer Ernst Kschenek
and at the former Mariinsky Theater they were staging Richard Strauss'
Salome opera after Oscar Wilde. Now that the operatic world has once again
immersed itself in the blissful sweetness of the all-time classics, one
can only envy the plethora of premieres and the truly revolutionary innovations
we had in the early Twenties…
After years of isolation from the international music scene,
Soviet Russia reopened to the world with a visit by the prominent German
conductor Oscar Fried who came to perform here at a personal invitation
from the then Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin. In 1921 he was performing Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony to thousands of workers gathered in the giant and freezing
bowl of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow…
Oscar Fried was accorded a very warm welcome, he had a meeting
with Lenin and many members of the Soviet government showed up at his concerts.
After that first visit, Oscar Fried always included Russia in his road-list
and, when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he settled down in Moscow.
Up until his death on July 5th, 1941, he conducted this country's main
radio symphony orchestra.
In 1921 Fyodor Chaliapin was working hard, with dates slated
in Moscow and Petrograd and followed by performances in Riga, London, Birmingham,
Sheffield and Liverpool. In Britain Chaliapin played one charity concert
for the care of the victims of the terrible famine which had struck Russia's
southern Volga region. In October the singer crossed the Atlantic to perform
at New York's famous Metropolitan opera house.
At the Met, they gave him the makeup room once used by the late
Enrico Caruso who had more than once teamed up on stage with the great
Russian bass… Overwhelmed by bittersweet memories, Chaliapin scribbled
on the wall a poem ending with the following words:
"My eyes are crying!
And, as if in response,
To my sad mem'ries of Caruso,
The Muse is crying too…"
The Americans accorded Chaliapin a tumultuous welcome the Metropolitan
opera house hadn't seen since the great Caruso sung there last…
In 1921 Maria Yudina graduated with honors from the piano department
of the Petrograd Conservatory and in autumn she was already performing
solo in what came as a real shock to the listeners.
"…Yudina's talent and playing manner immediately set her
aside from the rest", exulted one newspaper account. "She literally
flies in the face of the people used to everything that is romantic and
elegant in music. Her playing is clear-cut, dominating and absolutely one
of a kind… Maria Yudina offers her own, specific, vision of everything
she plays, which bespeaks a really fertile imagination we can see in this
very promising musician…"
In 1921 millions of people in Russia were going without food.
In Petrograd the young composer Dmitry Shostakovich was suffering from
anemia and a loss of memory caused by a meager monthly ration on only 2
teaspoonfuls of sugar. By the fall, the boy has grown so emaciated that
he could no longer practice… Learning about Dmitry's plight, the Conservatory
director Alexander Glazunov started knocking on official doors, including
that of the Education Ministry.
"Studying here at the Petrograd Conservatory is an exceptionally
gifted pianist and composer, Dmitry Shostakovich" he wrote in a letter
sent to the ministry officials." He is making great progress but,
unfortunately, this hard work is taking a heavy toll on his health, already
weakened by malnutrition. Would you please find a way to better feed this
richly-endowed boy so he can carry on?"
In case help might not be forthcoming, Glazunov simultaneously
appealed for assistance to the influential writer Maxin Gorky with whom
he had the following dialog:
- This boy needs a ration' said Glazunov.
- How old is he? Gorky asked.
- 14. His mother is a music teacher and his father is dead. They
live from hand to mouth and the boy is always hungry. He is getting weaker
every day and I am afraid that soon he will not be able to write music
at all…"
- The music he writes… Is it good?"
- It's awful. But I know that, some day, he will make it real
big…"
Dmitry Shostakovich was finally granted the so-called "academic
ration" which helped him survive the lean times …
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
