Question by Zachary: Russian futurist music, pre-Stalin?
I’m looking for recommendations of pieces to study by any of the so-called Russian “futurist” composers who were composing non-tonal music during the 1910s-20s, before Stalin put a stop to such “formalist” music. (especially, anything before the “Chaos instead of Music” article (1936) about Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth)
I’m familiar with a small number of works by Roslavets — I know the Trois Compositions (1914) and Cinq Preludes (1922), and am vaguely familiar with some of his other pieces. But if anyone here is a real fan of such music, I’d entertain all recommendations!
Other composers I know *of*, but don’t know any/much music by:
Mosolov (I know his piece Zavod)
Lourié
Mikhail Matiushin (artist and composer)
possibly even including early non-tonal works by Shostakovich (but this is kind of a different category)
If you have any recommendations of non-tonal music from Russia before around 1936, I’d love to hear them!
Thanks very much!
This is wonderful. Thanks, guys! I’ll check out as many of those pieces as I can get ahold of. My “real” interest is in Soviet non-tonal music during and after the Thaw, but I think it would be a bad idea to look at that music without looking at some of this stuff, too. Del_icio, on second thought I think you’re probably right about early Shostakovich. Since he had such a strong influence on the later generation of composers (Denisov, Volkonsky, Silvestrov, etc), it’s probably very likely that they would have known these pieces.
I’ll leave this question open over the weekend, to see if I get any other responses, but I love the ones I’ve gotten so far!
Thanks!
Answers and Views:
Answer by Edik
I don’t know much of this repertoire, but I’m excited to read others’ answers on this topic, too. (I suspect Del will have some good recommendations — he seems to be our resident “obscure music” expert).
Here are some pieces I’d check out — but I’ll admit to not knowing them VERY well:
Roslavets — Chamber Symphony (1935…getting close to “Chaos”); In the Hours of the New Moon (1913); Any of the piano pieces — Three Etudes (1914), Three Compositions (1914), Two Compositions (1915)…to be honest, I can’t remember which of these I’ve heard and which I haven’t.
Lourie — Formes en l’air; Synthèses (Wikipedia says this piece arrives “at an early form of dodecaphony.” I doubt that is true in any sense of the word, but it’d be worth studying, I think!)
I’ve never heard of Matiushin. And I agree that early Shostakovich probably isn’t really the same…although you might check out The Nose (if you don’t already know it) and his Aphorisms for piano.
You might want to look at the book “Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant Garde” by Stitsky and Kramer. It’s a pretty general source — don’t know if there’s much there. But it’s got a ton of composers represented!
Good luck — keep us posted on what you find!!
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del_icious_manager says
I think it is a mistake to exclude the young Shostakovich from this question. As a composer hungry to experience as much music as possible, Shostakovich was exposed to a great deal of experimental music from western Europe during the 1920s (Austrian composer Ernst Krenek's weird and wonderful opera 'Jonny spielt auf' enjoyed great popularity in that short but wonderful period in Communist Russia between 1918 and Stalin's gradual but terrible 'accession' in the 1920s and 1930s). Works by Shostakovich such as 'The New Babylon', 'Hypothetically Murdered' and 'The Nose' would not have existed had he not soaked up the influences from western and central Europe. He was at the forefront of futurism as some of his early works like those above and the Second Symphony, First Piano Sonata, 'Aphorisms' for piano and the Two Pieces for String Octet Op 11.
Prokofiev was something of an 'enfant terrible' during this period but was conspicuously absent due to his say in Paris between 1920 and 1935, although it could be argued that some of his more radical works such as the Second Symphony, the opera 'The Flaming Angel' and the Cantata 'They are Seven' would have been written even if he had remained in Soviet Russia.
Most of the other names from the period you ask about are very minor ones. Mosolov was not a good composer. Even 'Iron Foundry' finds its fame resting more on the depiction of machinery and the loudness of the music rather than real musical quality (of which it has very little).
Roslavets was an interesting musical figure. While his experimental nature would have been just right for early 1920s Russia, he soon found himself at the wrong end of Stalin's cronies in later life and was demoted to a 'non-person' by the Stalinist authorities. Much of Roslavets' music is more 'Romantic' than his reputation might suggest, such as the wonderful Violin Concertos of 1925 and 1936, the Chamber Symphony of 1935 and 'In the Hours of a New Moon' from 1913 (and so pre-Revolutionary in the terms of your question).
Apart from the above recommendations, I don't feel there are many more worthwhile composers to mention.