At the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, conductor Nikolai Golovanov
included in one of his concert programs The Three Russian Songs by Sergei
Rakhmaninoff who wrote them in emigration in America.
The very decision to play Rakhmaninoff's music in 1934 was a
fairly risky endeavor. When, three years before that, Golovanov performed
Rakhmaninoff's Bells in Moscow, many newspapers poured abuse on both the
composer and his music. The critics called Rakhmaninoff "the singer
of the merchants and the bourgeoisie, hopelessly outdated and a pathetic
copycat." The composer was declared as an "irreconcilable enemy
of the Soviet government'" and "the servant of the enemies of
the proletariat". The Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories were quick
to join in the thrashing and declared a ban on music written by the great
Russian composer.
Now that the Association of Proletarian Art had been disbanded,
Golovanov decided to risk playing new music written by his favorite composer.
The Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory was filled to capacity
by people of all ages. The heavy attendance was all the more surprising
because 17 years after Rakhmaninoff's emigration, a new generation had
grown up who had never heard any live performance of one of Moscow's best-loved
composers.
Nikolai Golovanov raised his arms and the hall filled with the
sound of ancient tunes carefully arranged by the nostalgia-stricken great
Master…
When the final chords had died away, there came a momentary silence
which, seconds later, exploded into thunderous applause which went on and
on and on… Golovanov then turned to the choir and orchestra and they played
the whole thing all over again.
In the United States, meanwhile, Sergei Rakhmaninoff unveiled
his brand new Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini. The Rhapsody was essentially
a single-part concerto for piano and orchestra stemming from Paganini's
hugely popular 24th Caprice for solo violin.
Despite his status of America's number one musician, Rakhmaninoff
the composer was of little interest to the Americans who largely appreciated
his pianistic talent. Therefore, the Rhapsody raised few eyebrows and was
appreciated to the full only after the composer's death which came on March
28, 1943…
Dmitry Shostakovich started writing his Lady Macbeth of Mzensk
as early as in October 1930 inspired by a new edition of Nikolai Leskov's
story lavishly illustrated by Boris Kustodiyev.
"Adjacent art forms can often prompt the subject of your
composition," Shostakovich once admitted. "I read the story and
was so enraptured that I immediately started writing an opera."
Shostakovch took two years and two months to complete the work,
much inspired by his love for Nina Varzar who eventually became his wife.
Even before the premiere, Shostakovich was already commenting
on the plot of the would-be opera - something he never did before.
"Katherina Izmailova is an intelligent and gifted woman,
he wrote in a newspaper. "Stifled in her ambition and seeking an outlet
for her energies, she poisons her husband at the instigation of her lover,
Sergei, an absolutely unworthy man who come to work on the Izmailov's estate.
To marry Sergei, Katherina commits a number of heinous crimes."
In January, Lady Macbeth of Mzensk premiered, almost simultaneously
in the country's two main cities. In leningrad, Nikolai Smolich presented
a lyrical drama while in Moscow, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko unveiled
a blood-curdling tragedy. Both productions were so good that Shostakovich
faced a hard choice to name the best one.
The press immediately hailed the opera as the greatest achievement
of Soviet operatic art. "This is a larger-than-life human tragedy,"
enthused critics in Moscow. "It moves, touches and enraptures one's
heart and soul…"
"This musical tragedy is bound to become the first Soviet
classical opera," echoed their colleagues in Leningrad.
The newspaper Sovetskoye Iskusstvo devoted a whole page to Shostakovich's
new opera headlined as A new victory for the Musical Theater . A special
directive was sent out to Leningrad theaters describing the opera as "yet
another example of the great progress being made by the Soviet opera art."
Lady Macbeth was played 94 times in Leningrad and 83 times in
Moscow in a matter of just two years. In that very same 1934 the opera
was produced in Sweden with the leading part sung by the world-famous Britta
Scherzberg. In New York, Arturo Toskanini presented scenes from the opera
and Albert Coats did the same in London. Before long Lady Macbeth could
also be seen playing in Buenos Aires and Zurich, Czechoslovakia and Denmark.
The success was absolutely deafening!
In France, the famed composer Georges Auric said that he had
learned the opera by heart the very first time he heard it and since then
had been greedily capturing every single note written by Shostakovich.
In 1934 there came out the first Soviet musical comedy "The
Jolly Fellows" - a hilarious love story of a shepherd and a cook,
played by the already popular crooner Leonid Utyosov and the still unknown
actress Lyubov Orlova, who sang and danced their days away much to the
satisfaction of their millions-strong audiences. The movie immediately
catapulted Lyubov Orlova to national stardom...
The filmgoers were pleasantly overwhelmed by an outpouring of
a constellation of refreshingly new melodies composed by Isaak Dunayevsky.
His music was literally permeated with a feeling of happiness which Soviet
art was so eagerly holding out for during the Thirties…
The Jolly Fellows directed by Grigory Alexandrov went down in
the history of Soviet film-making and Dunayevsky's captivating songs have
since become household names in this country.
Yefrem Tsimbalist and Yasha Heifets, the two famous violinists
who emigrated to the United States after the 1917 revolution, played a
series of hugely successful concerts in the Soviet Union.
In January they were holding the final leg of a national competition
of young prodigies in Leningrad. 36,000 young musicians in all took part
in the four month-long event.
In 1934 gramophones were becoming a nationwide craze in this
country and more than 100,000 units were manufactured in a single year.
On May 20, 1934 Alexander Varlamov and his jazz-orchestra were
playing their first concert at an open-air stage in the Red Army Park in
Moscow. Varlamov also doubled as a lead singer. The critics heaped praise
on the good taste and high professionalism displayed by the Alexander Varlamov
Jazz Band.
Just a few years later Alexander Varlamov was arrested for allegedly
being an "enemy of the people" and spent 8 years in Stalin's
labor camps. He was officially exhonerated only in 1956 ...
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
