The last quarter of nineteenth
century was the most crucial period of Russian music. The newly opened
conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg gave rise to professional
education. The line of Russian composers goes back to Mikhail Glinka
(1804-1857) – the first famous Russian composer and the first representative of
nationalistic tradition, who made nationalism the purpose of his work in order
to revive the Russian tradition after years of influence from Western music and
Western culture in general. The real nationalism as a tradition in music was
born in the middle of nineteenth century and associated with the “Russian
five”*** composers, the musician-innovators (innovators in the sense of
Russian music, which unlike Western contemporary music was still amateur). They
are considered as the first composers in St. Petersburg’s music school. After
the opening of the St. Petersburg and Moscow conservatories, the difference in
two schools was established. Maybe because St. Petersburg was the cultural
capital the National Music school was established there. Moscow at the same
time became the city of musical conservatism, the guardian of conservatory
western traditions and remained so until the second decade of this century,
when new geniuses appeared. This school was built on the authority of
Tchaikovsky (though he graduated from St. Petersburg conservatory, he did not
continue the pure nationalistic traditions, being strongly influenced by western
music) and Nikolay Rubinstein.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) no doubt came from
the Russian National School. He studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov, and
continued his teacher’s traditions, but he came at the time of dissolution of
the national tradition. And as a result he combined nationalists achievements
with the new style of neoimpressionism. Later he began to use Russian themes in
a sarcastic manner. In that sense Stravinsky’s nationalism proves to border on
anti-nationalism, in caricature-like exaggeration. With his music began a new
era of relations between Western and Russian music: during the nineteenth
century Western music had influenced Russian style, but now the trends began to
flow strongly in the opposite direction – giving a new color to the stream of
western music from which it had sprung.
Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953), like Mozart was
a child prodigy. He entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory at the age of
thirteen, and studied in the class of Rimsky-Korsakov. In the early period his
music was influenced by the late years of the Russian nationalist school, but
he found his own style very fast. Prokofiev had shown himself as an
anti-romantic, using satire and realism to upset the old order. He ignored
older rules governing melody, rhythm and harmony. Rimsky-Korasakov wrote on
Prokofiev’s graduation paper: “Talented, but completely immature”.
Contemporaries because of discord and dissonance considered some of his work
barbaric. A New York Times critic called him “the psychologist of all
uglier emotions – hatred, contempt, rage, disgust, despair, mockery,
different”. They also called his music “primitive” and
“grotesque”, but it was not the only way he could write – it was the
way he wanted to write.
Alexander Scriabin (1872-19??) A graduate
of Moscow conservatory, this very talented pianist and composer was taught
piano by Zverev (the piano teacher of Rachmaninov), composition by Arensky,
orchestration by Safonov (who later became an eminent conductor, leading the
New York Philharmonic Society). Later he left the Moscow music school, but did
not go towards old Russian national traditions. Scrjabin became antagonistic to
conservatism but at the same time neglected nationalism; became antipodal to
The Mighty Five and to Tchaikovsky. Scrjabin belonged to the Russian
Symbolists, organized against art too saturated with social motives and toward
a return to the pure art mastery and restoration of romanticism.
Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
belongs to the same generation as Scrjabin. They were even fellow students at
the Moscow Conservatory. Rachmaninov, a very talented piano player and quite
original composer, who worked in the old romantic style, became very popular by
his own work and from performing. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory as
a pianist and composer one year earlier than his class, and even his first
works, including his graduation work one act opera “Aleko” were very
successful.
After studying at the Conservatory,
Sergey Rachmaninov embarked on a career in Russia as a composer, pianist and
conductor. Many considered him as the first pianist of his age and he remained
a beautiful pianist his whole life.
Few composers have written a more
successful opus 1, even if he rewrote it eight years later because his own
dissatisfaction. He obtained rapid and firm popularity. Rachmaninov was a
celebrated pianist, and his piano music was virtuosi and full with notes.
Rachmaninov-composer and Rachmaninov-pianist worked together. His music was
written for himself, and it can be easily seen: not all professional pianist
can easily fit their hands on these spread cords, which were just nothing for
Rachmaninov’s huge hands (he could play a twelfth!).
Also as a pianist and composer he
continued the piano composers line of Liszt and Chopin. Tchaikovsky’s piano
concertos and piano music were before Rachmaninov, but he is regarded as the
first Russian piano composer. Sometimes even in his vocal pieces, especially in
his early works, it seems that he paid more attention to the piano part, than
to the vocals.
Rachmaninov grew up during the
height of the Romantic movement when the emotions became intensified and the
music grew larger than life. His early works from the 1890s were heavily
influenced by P.I. Tchaikovsky: dramatic, passionately lyrical, darkly colorful
in the orchestra and brilliant in the piano. Rachmaninov knew Tchaikovsky in
his early age and admired his works. At the age of 13, he arranged some of
Tchaikovsky’s orchestra works for two pianos or piano duets (although the great
composer was impressed by his first arrangement of the symphonic poem
“Manfred”, he was very unhappy with his piano-duet transcription of
“Sleeping beauty”).
Rachmaninov was very successful:
conductorship of the Moscow Philharmonic, piano performances as both a solo
pianist and with orchestras in Russia, Europe and America made him popular in
the world. After the October Revolution, in 1918 he had to leave Russia – at
first for Europe, than for America. Soon he became a fixture in the music life
of the United States. With the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold
Stokowski, he made phonograph records of his own works. The Soviet Government
considered him an enemy of the Soviet people. In 1931, the Soviet Government
newspaper “Pravda” wrote, that his music “is that of n
insignificant imitator and reactionary: a former estate owner, who, as recently
as 1918, burned with a hatred of Russia when the peasants took away his land –
a sworn and active enemy of Soviet Government”. “I am quite
indifferent” – answered Rachmaninov, but the attack hurt him more than he
would say. He stopped composing after he left Russia, almost for the rest of
his life. “I am a Russian composer, and the land of my birth has
influenced my temperament and outlook”. “The melody has gone, I can
no longer compose. If it returns, then I shall write again”. His
separation from his native land was wound that never healed; he suffered
nostalgia to the end of his life. He did compose, and some of his works, such
as “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”, were a dazzling success. But
other works were much less interesting and more like recollections of his
previous pieces, than something new.
He died in 1943 from cancer and was
burned in the Kensico Cemetery in New York State.
Список литературы
Leonard, Richard. A History of
Russian Music. The MacMillan Company, 1957.
Sabaneev, Leonid. Modern Russian
Composers. Books for libraries press, Inc. 1927, 1967.
Walker, Robert. Rachmaninoff, His
Life and Times. Midas Books, 1980.
Piggott, Patrick. The Great Composers.
Rachmaninov. Faber and Faber, 1978.