In 1929 Odessa was fast becoming a center of attraction for musicians
from all over the country. Who knows, maybe because they have some very
special climate there or maybe it's a God-chosen place, this Black Sea
resort has spawned some of this country's finest musicians, writers and
actors. In 1929 there were two big stars rising up on the city's musical
horizon. These were pianist Emil Gilels and violinist David Oistrakh.
In autumn, the 13 year-old Gilels was playing his first concert
in Odessa to a packed audience because people always flock in to see young
prodigies at play. And, as befits a real Wunderkind, Emil played absolutely
"adult" things but did it so well that people immediately forgot
about his tender age. It was unbelievable, it just couldn't be! That little
boy was pulling off finger-twisting runs while managing to squeeze in feelings
that were so deep and subtle for someone this young!
Heaped with congratulations, Yakov Tkach who taught the young
virtuoso, smiled and said that "Milya" Gilels was born to be
a great pianist….
In that same year David Oistrakh played his first solo concert
in Odessa. He was already familiar to the local musical community because
his adoring teacher, professor Pyotr Stolyarsky, always tried to give David
a chance to play with an orchestra. At the age of 15, David Oistrakh already
teamed up with his teacher on stage to play an anniversary concert for
two violins and orchestra by Johann Sebastian Bach. This was followed by
a very special rendition of Tchaikovsky and it was now time for a solo
program…
At 20, David Oistrakh was already a matured musician and bound
to someday become one of the world's greatest violinists.
In June the Bolshoi's famous tenor Leonid Sobinov went on a major
tour of the USSR spending three and a half months performing to packed
audiences in 12 cities all across the nation. Even in places where classical
music had never been played so well before, people knew and appreciated
Sobinov's talent.
Leonid Sobinov had an extensive repertoire of operatic arias,
classical Russian love songs and more modern numbers. People were listening
to his divine voice with bated breath…
Despite his advanced age (Sobinov was already 60) his voice had
retained its refined elegance. Sobinov always worked with complete abandon
and some of his concerts stretched out for a whole three hours as the singer,
encouraged by the audience, performed almost every number twice.
March 18, 1929, will always be remembered as the day when Grigory
Kozintsev's New Babylon set to music written by Dmitry Shostakovich, hit
the silver screens. The film was silent but its authors wanted the music,
written in collaboration with Kozintsev, to accompany the most important
episodes. "Instead of just illustrating the scenes we wanted to give
them a whole new dimension" Grigory Kozintsev later recalled. "We
worked to the best of our imagination! At one point, the Marseillaise started
sounding like a cancan from Jacques Offenbach's La Belle Helene operetta…"
The New Babylon was one of the last silent movies to come out
before they started making full sound films in the early Thirties. The
music score was to be sent to the theaters, but the orchestras in most
of them were not prepared enough to play Shostakovich's music.
The director of the Piccadilly, one of Leningrad's biggest nickelodeons,
was dismissive about Shostakovich's work: "This young composer,"
he said, "knows nothing about films!"
Shostakovich spent the day of the premiere crisscrossing the
town trying desperately to make the largely hostile and sneering conductors
understand the nuances of his music…
"The score which Dmitry Shostakovich has written for The
New Babylon is an attempt to breath new vigor into the staid atmosphere
of our film music," commented the newspaper Pravda.
Also in 1929 the outstanding Hungarian composer Bela Bartok performed
a series of concerts in Moscow and Leningrad.
At the Moscow Conservatory they opened a special workers' department
for musically endowed people who could barely read or write music. Proletarian
origin was a must…
The company of Leningrad's State Opera and Ballet Theater presented
the first Russian-language adaptation of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier
opera.
Across town at the Maly Opera Theater, they were showing the
Poor Columbus opera by the contemporary German composer Erwin Dressel.
Because the overture part had somehow been lost during transportation,
Dmitry Shostakovich was commissioned to write a new introduction…
In 1929 operettas were making a strong comeback and The Bridegrooms
by Isaak Dunayevsky and The Serf Girl by Nikolai Strelnikov were among
the very first Soviet operettas to hit the stages. The Bridegrooms didn't
last long, but The Serf Girl is still popular.
In Kharkov, the young variety singer Klavdia Shulzhenko had her
first concert in 1929. She felt an urge for singing when she was still
a kid. Klavdia's other passion was acting, and in 1923 she joined the Kharkov
Drama Theater company. Her stint there was not very successful and, failing
to play a single leading role, she finally quit. Always looking on the
bright side, Klavdia Shulzhenko said that working with the excellent directors
in Kharkov had helped her to feel more relaxed and confident on stage which
eventually became a lifetime passion…
Even though Klavdia's first concert raised few eyebrows, she
now realized that she was born to sing… Shortly afterwards, she relocated
to Leningrad, hit out at the big time and for many years she was one of
this country's best-loved crooners …
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
