1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905
1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910
1911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915
1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920
1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925
1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930
1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935
1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940
1941 | 1942 | 1943
1944
             
The German troops still controlled a considerable part of Soviet territory, but now it was becoming increasingly clear that the Russians were gaining an upper hand over their enemy. At this turning point in Russian history, the arts were becoming a major consolidating force…
… On New Year's night when the bells chiming on Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower were announcing the advent of the new year of 1944, the Moscow radio came alive with the majestic sounds of the new Soviet anthem…
In 1943, after 26 years of using the International written by the French composer Pierre Degeiter as this country's national anthem, the Soviet government held a contest for a new one. All of this country's leading composers sent in their versions, but the authoritative panel chose the melody written by the Red Army Ensemble's founding conductor Alexander Alexandrov. For almost half a century the new anthem was played at each and every Soviet official function, opening and closing radio programs until the demise of the USSR in 1992…
In March they were holding a gala concert in Moscow showcasing music by American, British and Soviet composers performed by leading musicians from the Bolshoi Theater and the Moscow Philharmonic orchestra.
In the fall of the same year, when the war was still raging on, the famous Russian enthusiasts of musical education, the Gnessin sisters, opened in Moscow what is now the very respectable Gnessins Music Academy…
Also in 1944 they opened a choir school in Moscow for boys which its organizer, the prominent Russian choirmaster Alexander Sveshnikov, modeled after the church choir schools that existed here before the revolution. The students were mostly children whose parents had perished in the war. They lived and rehearsed at a beautiful old mansion in downtown Moscow and, shortly after, they were already singing to packed audiences enchanted by the choir's amazingly tight sound.
Alexander Sveshnikov spent over 20 years at the head of the choir which now bears his name.
In autumn the Red Army broke the 900 day-old siege of Leningrad and famous musicians and orchestras started streaming back into the city. The Philharmonic was largely untouched by the German bombs and shells, mainly thanks to the selfless effort by the Big Hall's director Boris Hait and member of the Philharmonic orchestra Alexander Petrov. They had stayed on in the city taking turns throwing down the German fire bombs from the Philharmonic's roof and managed to keep virtually intact the society's property and its one-of-a-kind library.
On October 29 the Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra, just back from Novosibirsk and led by Yevgeny Mravinsky, gave their first performance in the Big Hall. Two weeks later, Dmitry Shostakovich was also there showcasing his newly-written chamber pieces, among them a trio paying tribute to the memory of the Philharmonic's late director Ivan Sollertinsky.
Composer Sergei Prokofyev started working on his epic opera War and Peace after a novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. The opera, recreating Napoleon's early 19th century invasion of Russia, was very consonant with the Soviet people's ongoing struggle with the German invaders. Once again, the country was at war and lying in ruins and once again, against all odds, the hardship-stricken people were standing tall determined to crush the hated enemy. And Mikhail Kutuzov's spirited call on the Russians to defend Moscow, to defend Russia, struck an immediate chord with the Soviet people…
Prokofyev wrote the libretto himself trying to preserve every little nuance of Tolstoy's inimitable prose. Sifting through the hefty tomes of the timeless novel, he tried to recreate only the most vivid and expressive episodes, and still, the opera ended up too long. The composer decided to make it go for two nights running, but war was certainly not the best of times to afford such luxuries and so, for now, they settled on a shortened, concert-length, version of the opera. On October 16 War and Peace premiered in a jam-packed Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
The opera was one major masterpiece where battlefield heroism and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky's love for the young Natasha Rostova combined into a beautifully inspiring epic of early 19th century Russian life offered in a modern opera format.
During the war many Russian emigres were exerting every effort to help their much-suffering country. Composers, painters and writers were buying arms for the Red Army and donating money to the Soviet embassies. In 1944 the famed Russian composer and pianist Nikolai Metner played his newly-written Third Piano Concerto in London and donated all his royalties and performance proceeds to the Red Army.
The Third Concerto was one of Nikolai Metner's best-known compositions and has since been performed by many leading players around the world.
On May 1 they arrested the well-known crooner Vadim Kozin. Whether he was detained for refusing to sing an uninspired song about Stalin or for going out with a woman courted by the dictator's feared henchman Lavrenty Beria we don't know. Anyway, the nationally-acclaimed singer was declared an "enemy of the people" and sent out to one of the northern labor camps. Kozin spent the rest of his life there refusing to return to Moscow even after his exoneration in 1956…
In Leningrad, composer Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi wrote one of the most beautiful wartime songs called Nightingales which became an immediate hit.
"I'll Meet You at 6 p.m. After the War" was the most popular movie of the year shot to music written by Tikhon Khrennikov. People were happily anticipating the upcoming victory and, fixing a date with their beloved in the festive Moscow, they, just like the film's characters did, would sing "Meet you in the evening after the war!"…
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


BACK TO MAIN PAGE