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 | 1945
1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949
1950
             
In 1950 the Soviet authorities were celebrating the complete routing of whatever artistic dissent could still be found in the country. The so-called socialist realism was now ruling supreme, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the ideals it preached.
The country's leading performers were now increasingly turning to the all-time classics. At the Bolshoi Theater, chief conductor Nikolai Golovanov staged Modest Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina opera, combining a very ingenious musical rendition with some absolutely inspiring stage scenery by Fyodor Fyodorovsky offering graphic pictures of the 16th century Red Square, the Kremlin, the Streletsky settlement and a group of Old Believers burning themselves up inside a small church…
The new adaptation concentrated more closely on the lives of individuals and the whole nation, the struggle for power and the clash between the old and the new. Small wonder that the opera held out for a record 45 years on the stage of this country's foremost theater. In 1950 Nikolai Golovanov, director Leonid Baratov, set designer Fyodor Fyodorovsky and several leading singers were awarded the Stalin Prize.
In line with its newly-avowed preference for the classics, the Moscow Philharmonic teams up with the Museum of Musical Culture and holds, for the first time in Soviet history, a series of the so-called Historical Concerts of old Russian music. It so happened that most of the 17th and 18th century Russian composers were writing church music which was virtually banned in the officially atheist Soviet Union. Pre-classical Russian culture, however, was something even many musicologists didn't know much about. No one was taking out the old Orthodox chants gathering dust in the archives, of course, but even secular compositions had, for some strange reason, wound up in the depositories away from the people's eye. One such peace that actually saw daylight in the 20th century was Orpheus, a melodrama written by the 18th century Russian composer Yevstignei Fomin.
The Historical Concerts offered music by such long-forgotten masters of the past as Dmitry Bortnyansky, Vasily Pashkevich and Osip Kozlovsky.
And now let's get back to the greatest modern composers, just two years after they were stigmatized for their alleged formalism…
Sergei Prokofyev realized all too well that it would take years before any of his new operas and ballets would finally see daylight… He had ample reason to be frustrated too because he just couldn't find a single theater company who would dare to stage his new operas and no one seemed to care about his almost-finished Tale of the Stone Flower ballet. Which was a great pity because the ballet was coming out just fine, drawing heavily on the Russian folklore and the old legends of the Urals. The Mistress of the Copper Mountain was coming strikingly alive, along with the great master Danila who was making absolutely wonderful things with the Ural stone and dreamed of someday finding a flower of stone…
Prokofyev brought the score to the Bolshoi Theater only to see his music criticized in no uncertain terms and lose all hope that the ballet would ever be produced . The Tale of the Stone Flower finally premiered in the Bolshoi in 1954, one year after the composer's sudden death in Moscow on March 5, 1953…
Because his major works were no longer being played, Sergei Prokofyev started feeling the pinch and, to earn a living, he had to write the "right stuff"… In 1950 he was writing the "oratorio" On Guard For Peace, but even there he remained the great master he always was…
Equally penniless, Dmitry Shostakovich was making ends meet writing music for films. In 1950 he wrote the film score for The Fall of Berlin, which was just another mediocre, Stalin-praising, effort by the film director Chiaureli.
Meanwhile, working against all odds, Nikolai Myaskovsky was writing a symphony, his 27th to date. He knew it was his last one because the thrashing he had suffered at the hands of the party-hired "critics" had severely undermined the health of this ultimate Old World gentleman… Realizing that his days were numbered, Myaskovsky was sorting out his personal archives and completing all the unfinished music. In June he put the finishing touches to the 27th Symphony and on July 8 he died…
Nikolai Myaskovsky was everybody's darling, earning the lifetime title of "Moscow's musical conscience." He was, without exaggeration, the man who, at various times, taught every single modern Russian composer, be it at the Conservatory or examining new works brought him by their authors. Small wonder that thousands of people turned out on July 10th to pay their last respects to the man who had been such a great influence on Russian music. A whole era was coming to a close…
The 27th Symphony, Myaskovsky's last, was played in public for the first time on December 9, 1950, in the House of Columns in Moscow. It was destined to be a classic of modern Russian music.
Conducting his own music was something Aram Khachaturian had been dreaming about for many years. At times he did just that leading small orchestras in theaters staging plays to his music.
"Once and again I tried to master this very difficult art," he later admitted, "but I was too tired too often to work hard enough. Once, in February, when I was already prepared to call it quits, they rang me up and suggested that I take part in a gala concert they were holding in the run-up to parliamentary elections. I asked what they really wanted me to do. "Well, you could conduct one of your pieces" they said. I said I couldn't, that I had never conducted a big orchestra, but they told me that the orchestra would be all prepared and would play it just fine even if I mixed it all up… They kept pressing on and, unable to resist any further, I agreed. I was nervous like hell, but everything went alright and I was even applauded for my effort. From that day on I was hooked for the rest of my life…"
During the Johann Sebastian Bach international competition in Leipzig, the first prize went to the 26 year old post graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, Tatyana Nikolayeva. A longtime fan of Bach's music, she played a whole program of 48 preludes and fugues written by the great German composer during her graduation exam. Tatyana Nikolayeva spent her entire life playing Bach's music…
In 1950 cellists from around the world were showcasing their skills in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The top award was shared by two young musicians from Russia. One of them, Mstislav Rostropovich, 24, was bristling with expression and boundless fantasy, belting out his first ever performance of Drorak's Concerto for cello which has since been his best-loved composition…
The other winner, the 26 year old Daniil Shafran, was an embodiment of romantic inspiration and elegance…
The triumph was the beginning of a long and very successful career for both Rostropovich and Shafran…
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


BACK TO MAIN PAGE