The year was 1922 and the Civil War, which had been ravaging
the country for a long four years, was finally over. The battle-scarred
country was slowly returning to normal and the arts were playing a very
important role in this peacetime reconstruction…
In January they set up a philharmonic society in Moscow which
immediately took over the city's choir, a string quartet, a Russian folk
orchestra and the newly-established Persimfans symphony orchestra which
performed without a conductor.
On January 29th, the Moscow State Philharmonic Society was being
inaugurated with all appropriate pomp and circumstance in the Grand Hall
of the Moscow Conservatory. The opening concert lasted a whole four hours
of music by Beethoven, Skryabin and Rakhmaninoff.
Working against the odds, the cash-strapped Moscow Philharmonic
held a whopping 210 concerts in a single year. To make ends meet, they
raised the admission fare effectively cutting off many music lovers who
could no longer afford to buy tickets.
Late in 1922, the prominent conductor Nikolai Malko wrote that:
"Symphony concerts are dying out in Moscow, the choir concerts are
already gone…"
The maestro might have laid it on a bit thick, but the situation
was really desperate. They even had to lease out the acoustically innovative
Grand Hall for use as a movie theater and concerts were only played there
a few times a month…
In spring, the young pianist Vladimir Horowitz was playing his
first solo concerts in Petrograd. Only a handful of people in the audience
knew that Vladimir just recently had graduated from the Kiev Conservatory
where his teachers promised him a great future.
Starting off playing in front of just a few dozen people, the
18 year-old Horowitz ended up driving capacity audiences crazy by his absolutely
phenomenal flash and ease of dealing with the most finger-twisting passages.
His lightning speed, however, never prevented him from playing elegantly
and with pinpoint precision…
After three years of non-stop touring in Russia, Horowitz left
the country, all set to conquer the world… The next time he played in Russia
again was a long 61 years after…
In April, the then Education Minister Anatoly Lunacharsky asked
the famous opera singer Antonina Nezhdanova to go on a major tour of Europe
and the United States. The whole thing was politically-motivated and all
Russian missions abroad were instructed to render every possible assistance
to Nezhdanova.
By sending Nezhdanova on a tour abroad, the Soviet authorities
had two main objectives in mind. For one thing, Nezhdanova was to raise
a hefty sum of money for the care of the famine-stricken people in the
Volga region. For another, Nezhdanova's larger-than-life talent was meant
to show to the whole world how much care and attention was going in Soviet
Russia for the betterment of national art and culture.
In three months of triumphal touring, Nezhdanova gave 47 concerts.
Newspapers were filled with rave accounts, the critics called her a "Russian
nightingale" and lavished praise on her splendid voice and masterful
performance.
Accompanying Nezhdanova on stage was her longtime partner, pianist
and conductor Nikolai Golovanov, who later became her husband.
Professor Genrikh Neuhaus first came to teach piano at the Moscow
Conservatory in 1922. Handsome, eloquent and always smiling, he immediately
became everyone darling. His inborn charm was enhanced by absolutely amazing
artisticity, pianistic freedom and almost hypnotic magnetism, which he
radiated both on stage and during classes.
Genrikh Neuhaus' God-given talent as a teacher was absolutely
amazing... One of his students remembers:
"Neuhaus had everything a teaching musician could ever need
- intelligence, sensitivity, taste, outlook, eloquence, determination and,
above all, he had this endless love for music which has such an irresistible
effect on his students."
"I still remember that very special atmosphere we had in
our class," remembers another, "Neuhaus was reading poems and
telling us about art and nature to bring out the right associations in
his students. He also played a lot and each time he did, students from
other classes, young teachers and musicians packed in enjoying the warm
and inspiring atmosphere reigning there…"
Genrikh Neuhaus spawned a whole constellation of leading pianists,
among them the all-time greats Svyatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels.
All of his life Genrikh Neuhaus combined teaching with playing
concerts and each such performance was a real celebration for our music
lovers…
In 1922 they set up a new operetta theater in Moscow which brought
together musicians, actors, singers, set designers and directors from many
companies. To win the people's attention, the new company turned to music
written by composers Imre Kalman and Franz Legar who were very much in
vogue back in those days.
In 1922 they started broadcasting from a specially-equipped studio
in Moscow, the so-called "radio concerts" of popular classics,
love songs and Russian folk songs performed by some of the country's leading
musicians. The Bolshoi Theater's operatic diva Nadezhda Obukhova took part
in the very first and many other such concerts which were broadcast to
the whole country.
When on the radio, Obukhova usually sang old Russian love songs
which she performed with such inimitable warmth and penetration… Her voice,
so soft and tender, perfectly got across to the people the finest nuances
of that emotion-filled music…
On June 29th , members of the Mariinsky Theater company gathered
at the Petrograd seaport to see off their much-loved collegue, the great
operatic bass Fyodor Chaliapin. Sick and tired of the endless nitpicking
by the new Soviet authorities, always looking into his pocket, and of all
those endless night-time searches by foot-stomping soldiers, Chaliapin
was leaving for Europe. What was originally intended as a brief outing,
eventually turned into a lifetime emigration…
"When the ship cast off," Chaliapin later reminisced,
"the members of the Mariinsky orchestra burst out playing some stirring
march music. I felt like crying and, somewhere deep in my mind, there was
an old Russian song wailing sadly about a young girl asking her beloved
one not to leave her…"
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
