In Moscow the cultural life was bubbling with concerts, premieres
and street shows happening in quick succession, and the First Arts Olympics
attracting thousands of amateur performers from all across the country.
The closing concert featured a 2,500-strong choir and an orchestra featuring
nearly 15 hundred musicians!
The list of very welcome guest stars included the famed Spanish
guitarist Andreas Segovia, the German conductor Erich Kleiber, the Hungarian
violinist Josef Sygethy and the French composer Darius Miyot, to name just
a few. Professor Franz Wuerer from the Vienna Music Academy said he was
amazed by Moscow's hectic concert life where he'd been able to hear a large
number of European celebrities over a very short period of time…
On January 19, 1927, Sergei Prokofyev came to perform in Russia
after 9 years of living abroad. On January 24 he was already playing in
the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. Pianist Genrikh Heuhaus provides
the following description of that memorable performance:
The moment Prokofyev came out on stage everyone went on his feet.
He kept bowing, doubling up, like a folding knife…"
That night, Sergei Prokofyev played, among other things, his
Third Piano Concerto which drew the following response from the well-known
composer and musical critic Boris Asafyev: "After Prokofyev's excellent
performance of the Third Piano Concerto, the joyful atmosphere that gripped
us from the very start, had reached the pitch of overflowing enthusiasm…"
The public acceptance of Prokofyev's music now was a far cry
from what he encountered in his early days. The audience was roaring again
but this time it was a reflection of their heartfelt admiration for his
music. Prokofyev encountered an equally enthusiastic welcome in his hometown
Leningrad…
"That's the kind of art, daring, strong and so captivatingly
joyful, we all need so desperately these days," enthused a local critic.
"It's so awash with warmth and light, it's all about the energy of
the sun and the ineradicable yearning and struggle for life…"
After Moscow and Leningrad, Prokofyev also performed in Ukraine
and, his Soviet tour finished, moved on to Monte Carlo to catch up with
the rehearsals of his new opera, Le Pas d'Acier already in full swing…
Sergei Prokofyev was commissioned to write the ballet by the
famous impresario Sergei Dyagilev who wanted something about life in the
Soviet Union. The idea was to show Russia in transition from its rural
past to an industrial future.
"I just couldn't believe my ears," Prokofyev wrote,
"It was like a gulp of fresh air, a real opportunity for me to show
the new things that were happening in the USSR. We wanted to bring out
on stage all these hammer-wielding workers, the rolling flywheels and the
lights blinking in the dark…"
Le Pas d'Acier premiered in Paris on June 1, 1927. Prokofyev
feared protests by Russian emigrants rattled by the presentation of what
they thought was Bolshevist propaganda but, contrary to all expectations,
the ballet had a warm reception. The only ones to cry foul were the critics
who loudly denounced the banging of the hammers and the genre of industrial
ballet as a whole.
A month later, Prokofyev's new ballet was met with tumultuous
applause in London. "The capacity audience was applauding like mad,"
Prokofyev later recalled. The London premiere of Prokofyev's new ballet
was attended by members of the royal family.
In 1927 violinist Miron Polyakin returned to Russia. After the
revolution, Miron, then a graduate of this country's oldest, St.Petersburg
Conservatory, emigrated to the United States where he became a celebrity,
on a par with the great Yefrem Tsimbalist and Yasha Heifets. Then, at the
very height of his popularity, he suddenly packed up and returned to Russia
bringing along his most essential belongings.
Shortly upon Miron Polyakin's arrival, they organized a series
of concerts for him in Moscow, Leningrad and other major Soviet cities
where the half forgotten musician immediately became the darling of the
local buffs of classical music…
Miron Polyakin was a violinist by the grace of God. His refined
musicality and the equally impeccable command of his instrument was so
mindboggling that even inexperienced listeners had a sense they were witnessing
something absolutely out of the way…
In Moscow, the Bolshoi Opera presented a new rendition of Modest
Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. The conductor, Ariy Pazovsky had brought back
all the parts previously deleted by tsarist censors. For the first time
ever, the opera included the scene near St.Basil's Cathedral in Red Square
where Tsar Boris Godunov meets with a church-side fool who epitomizes the
hardship-stricken Russian people and its dark foreboding of terrible times
lurking ahead… The Fool's part was performed by the young tenor Ivan Kozlovsky
who had joined the Bolshoi company only a year before. Ariy Pazovsky appreciated
Kozlovsky's "amazingly deep understanding of Mussorgsky's musical
style and the profoundly tragic notes in his lamentation of Russia's unhappy
fate."
In Warsaw the First International Piano Competition named after
the great Polish composer Frederick Chopin came as a real triumph for the
Soviet school of piano playing. Dmitry Shostakovich, still torn between
playing and composition, won an honorary award, the third prize went to
Grigory Ginzburg from Moscow and the first prize landed in the hands of
the 19 year-old Moscow Conservatory graduate, Lev Oborin.
"The Russian pianists took our musical world by storm,"
wrote the famous Polish composer Karol Szchimanowski. "It's more than
a success, even more than a sensation. It's one big triumph. Hats off to
Lev Oborin! I bow low to this young man because his playing is so beautiful!"
In 1927 the Union of Operetta Artists was transformed to become
the Moscow State Operetta Theater, organized and subsequently led by one
of the greatest comedy actors of all time, Grigory Yaron. The 35-old actor
was the heart-throb of Moscow's operetta-loving community.
Grigory Yaron devoted fifty years of his life to his beloved
art form. Each time he came out on stage, people burst into lengthy and
tumultuous applause…
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
