Early in spring, Dmitry Shostakovich, then a student of the Leningrad
Conservatory, was presenting his First Symphony to the faculty. The Conservatory's
Director, the renowned composer Alexander Glazunov, commended the composition
adding only that he would like to see some ill-sounding chords made more
palatable to the ear…
"My love and respect for Glazunov were too great for me
to argue, " Shostakovich recalled, "and so I did my best to make
it sound the way he wanted…"
Shostakovich presented the First Symphony during his graduation
exams and the jurors were so impressed by what they heard that they immediately
enrolled the 19-year-old composer at a post graduate course and gave the
score to conductor Nikolai Malko asking him to perform it during one of
the concerts organized by the city's philharmonic society.
On May 12th the First Symphony premiered in the magnificent,
white-column hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic…
The symphony was played the way it was originally meant to. Dmitry
Shostakovich had ignored the changes made at Alexander Glazunov's insistence
because his music defied the smooth classical idiom. Instead, it bubbled
and stirred just like young wine…
The famed literary critic Irakly Andronnikov thus described the
first performance of the First Symphony:
"Nikolai Malko raised his baton and the capacity audience
bated their breath…The opening chords were already very gratifying and
with each measure, the listeners were awakening to the talent, character,
style and expressive power of this very unusual music. When it was over,
people went on their feet offering a long and appreciative round of applause
apparently realizing that something very special was happening right before
their eyes…. A visibly shy Shostakovich was coming out on stage bowing
curtly and hastily disappearing behind the curtains…"
"I feel like I have opened a new chapter in the history
of symphony music," Nikolai Malko wrote in his diary after the concert,
"as if I have discovered a great new composer…"
On February 18th the Opera and Ballet Theater in Leningrad, formerly
the Mariinsky Theater, was playing host to Sergei Prokofyev's The Love
for Three Oranges opera which was already well known in the West following
its successful US premiere in 1921. The hilarious opera based on Carlo
Gozzi's tale of an enchanted prince and an orange-bound princess, was then
shown in Germany and it was now finally being presented in Russia…
The Love for There Oranges won widespread public and critical
acclaim and for three years it topped the theater's list of best-loved
productions.
Sergei Prokofyev saw the Russian adaptation of his opera in 1927
when, after nine years of absence, he returned to perform in Russia. Living
in Europe, he had been closely following the Soviet news reports and knew
about the resounding success his opera was enjoying in Leningrad.
"This is the first time anyone has done it right, just the
way it was meant to be!" he enthused after seeing The Three Oranges
in Leningrad. This one is livelier and better than what I've seen in Chicago,
New York, Cologne and Berlin…"
The following year The Love for Three Oranges was finally staged
at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
…After leaving the revolution-gripped Russia shortly before Christmas
day in 1917 Sergei Rakhmaninoff made his home in the United States where
he was mostly working as a performing pianist, sometimes as a conductor
and had stopped writing music altogether. "Having lost my country
I also lost my ability to compose" he confessed to one of his close
friends.
In 1926 the great composer finally broke his extended silence
by unveiling two major compositions, the Three Russian Folksongs for mixed
voices and orchestra and the Fourth Piano Concerto.
The Three Russian Folksongs were especially dear to Rakhmaninoff
who, like all nostalgia-stricken Russians, saw the music as a welcome reminder
of his faraway homeland. In America the Three Folksongs drew only lukewarm
response, polite applause and noncommittal reviews in the press…
The Fourth Concerto struck a stronger chord with the audiences,
not in the least due to the masterful lead work by Rakhmaninoff himself
who was the darling of the piano buffs on both sides of the Atlantic…
When, years later, Rakhmaninoff's new compositions finally made
their way into Russia, the general response here was very different. People
shed tears when listening to The Three Russian Folksongs while offering
politely lukewarm applause for the Fourth Piano Concerto…
In autumn the young tenor Ivan Kozlovsky was invited to join
the Bolshoi. A native of Ukraine where everyone is a singer, Kozlovsky
boasted an exceptional vocal range and his ease of handling the high register
notes invariably sent the audiences raving with applause.
Ivan Kozlovsky's popularity with the ladies could make any latter-day
rock star salivate… Hundreds of exulted girls spent hours standing out
in the street eager to catch a momentary glimpse of their idol whom they
showered with flowers after the performances…
Ivan Kozlovsky spent more than 30 years with the Bolshoi appearing
in more than 50 operas. Retiring already an old man, he continued singing
in concerts and up until 90 years old remained in good professional form.
In the town of Veliky Ustyug in northern Russia, schoolteacher
Antonina Kolotilova organized a female choir. None of its 12 members was
a professional singer and, because they had all come from the nearby villages,
they knew every little thing about the northern Russian songs… Antonina
Kolotilova herself had spent years studying the lifestyle and artistic
heritage of the northerners.
"When I was a kid I would spent a few months each year living
in the village of Sholga in the Vologda Region," Antonina recalled.
"Working in the field or walking around the village, I listened to
the songs they sung trying to memorize the most beautiful ones. Out there
in the north the songs are mainly sung by women, easy and tender, with
the serene and unobtrusive beauty which is so consonant with the magnificently
measured flow of our northern rivers…
Within just a few years Antonina Kolotilova's new choir had already
gone fully professional and it is still respected as one of the finest
folklore choirs in Russia with a style and manner all its own…
In 1926 a newly-formed orchestra was making its debut in Moscow
trying to play, of all things, jazz! The band's 19 year-old leader, composer,
arranger and pianist, Alexander Tsvasman, was the first conservatory graduate
to devote his life wholly to the new American import...
For more than 40 years Alexander Tsvasman was an undisputed jazz
authority in this country …
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
