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Focus! 2005 Celebrates Composers of the Soviet Avant-Garde By JOEL SACHS
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the failures of that society have become apparent, but some of its real merits have been forgotten. One of its finest achievements happened, to some extent, in spite of the society: the production of a generation of remarkable composers. For while musical education was carried out at the highest level, free expression of ideas certainly was not.
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| Alfred Schnittke (Photo courtesy of Karadar) |
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This subject was on my mind about a year ago as I realized that Alfred Schnittke would have celebrated his 70th birthday this season, and that a Focus! festival devoted to his music could be a major event. Then I recalled that the compositional leaders of his generation were all approximately that age, and that a new look at the whole of that brave group was in order. As it happened, the 2005 festival coincided almost exactly with the 25th anniversary of my own involvement with those composers. Time to celebrate!Since the subject of compositional prejudices often surfaces in the classroom, it seems appropriate to tell the story of how two converging forces kindled my interest in Soviet composers. In 1976, during a stay in London, Ronald Weitzman, a writer on music, asked me why my new-music ensemble Continuum had not included Shostakovich in its series of composer retrospectives. I replied (with a certainly fueled by ignorance) that his music was wonderful but rather conventional in comparison with the composers we featured. Had I said that he was played frequently and did not need our help, Ronald might simply have replied, "Yes, I see your point." But instead, feeling that I was illiterate, he invited me home to hear a few recordings. He led off with Shostakovich's last orchestral work: settings of sonnets by Michelangelo for bass and orchestra. Readers who know the piece will probably understand why I was speechless. It is such a staggering work that I don't even remember what else we listened to.
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| Dmitri Shostakovich (Photo courtesy of Karadar) |
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Upon returning to New York, I reported to Cheryl Seltzer, co-director of Continuum, that a Shostakovich concert was a must. We realized that his late works, almost unknown here, were uniformly amazing. Accordingly, we gave a program including the Viola Sonata, two song cycles, and other astonishing revelations. On January 26, 1980, having amassed a suitable budget, we gave the American premiere of the Michelangelo songs with the superb bass Herbert Beattie. I remember thinking, as we began, that the audience had no idea what it was about to experience. Indeed, the reaction was memorable.The concert prompted Cheryl to remind me of a meeting of the American Musicological Society's New York Chapter in the 1960s, when Joel Spiegelman gave an illustrated talk on the avant-gardists of the Soviet Union, a circle that defied the prohibition on writing "decadent, anti-proletarian" music. We agreed that we should try to give a concert of their music. The challenge was to find it.
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| Arvo Pärt (Photo courtesy of Karadar) |
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Only a day or two later, I happened to see Boris Schwarz, a violinist and author of a book on Soviet music since the Bolshevik revolution, and mentioned that I wanted to pick his brain on the subject. By a remarkable coincidence, he called the next day to say that he had received a cryptic letter from a woman in Washington who had a large collection of unorthodox Soviet music, and wanted to get it into good hands before she left the country. Did I want to contact her? It took a millisecond to get the "yes" off my tongue.And so, on one of those hideous July days that makes one question the sanity of those who placed our national capital in a swamp, I waded through a humid 106 degrees to meet Eleanor Sutter, a new foreign service officer who was about to be posted abroad. During her time in Moscow as an embassy wife, she had befriended an extremely lively group of composers in their 30s—Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Arvo Pärt, and others—whose music could not be programmed there, and had arranged for the "export" of their scores. On examining her collection, I was flabbergasted to think that such music was being written without anybody knowing about it. Our concert was definitely feasible. The only restriction was that we could not perform anything unpublished. Soviet law, attempting to stamp out the export of underground political tracts, forbade the export of unpublished writings of any sort, and performances of unpublished music could cause great trouble for the composers. It did not matter much, however; the Soviets published vast amounts of new music, even as they made it almost impossible for non-musicians to see or hear it.
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| Valentin Silvestrov |
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The key to the program seemed to be Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1, for two violins, prepared piano, and string orchestra. G. Schirmer had contracted to make Soviet music available in the United States, but warned me that Soviet cultural bureaucrats had their ways of obstructing the performance of music that met their disapproval. Telexes from abroad went mysteriously untranslated for months, answers came by horse cart, etc. The six months before our scheduled January concert were not long enough to get the parts for the Concerto Grosso. It was a huge disappointment.A few weeks later, I was strolling on London's Oxford Street when, through the din of traffic, a bell rang in my head: The recording of the Concerto Grosso that Eleanor Sutter owned had been made by the London Symphony Orchestra. The British agent for Soviet music, Boosey & Hawkes, was right around the corner. Perhaps ... In Boosey's rental library, a nice gentleman replied, "Oh, certainly, we have parts. Just tell Schirmer to contact us and we'll send them." The rest, as they say, is history. The concert took place at Alice Tully Hall on January 17, 1981, with music by six utterly unknown Soviet composers—Russians Schnittke and Denisov, Tatar/Russian Gubaidulina, Estonian Pärt, and Ukrainians Valentin Silvestrov and Leonid Hrabovsky. An all-Schnittke concert followed a year later; then programs devoted to Gubaidulina, Hrabovsky, Silvestrov, Giya Kancheli (Georgia), Valentin Bibik (Ukraine), and many others.
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| Giya Kancheli (Photo by Sarah Ainslie) |
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Audiences were generally astonished by the music. One New York Times critic wrote very negatively about Schnittke, in such a way as to play right into the hands of his enemies in the U.S.S.R., since The Times was considered to be the voice of the United States. Schnittke graciously responded that he did not mind strong dislike; he only was offended by neutrality or boredom. Fortunately, nothing untoward befell him. Years later, that critic told me he had changed his mind and now considered Schnittke one of the greatest living composers. Another Times critic wrote of Silvestrov that it was absolutely amazing to discover a completely unknown composer who had a really major musical voice.As to their fate: Several have gone on to become the leading figures in today's music. Others have not enjoyed the same international acclaim but are highly respected. An unfortunate number died in their 60s, such as Schnittke, Denisov, Bibik, and Oleg Felzer (Azerbaijan). A group that was young during the Soviet days has also established itself, among them Elena Firsova and Alexander Knaifel (Russia), Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and Faradzh Karayev (Azerbaijan), Dmitri Yanov Yanovsky (Uzbekistan), Alexander Shchetynsky and Alexander Grinberg (Ukraine), to name but a few. The sad but understandable fact is that many of them, older and younger, emigrated as soon as they could, knowing how the economic conditions would harm musical life.This festival can only scratch the surface in attempting to give an overview of those generations, which it will represent only with works composed during the Soviet period. It will also attempt to counteract a historic tradition of publishers and writers who interested themselves in Russian composers and neglected the composers of the other republics, notwithstanding a few major successes like Pärt. The festival opens with the New Juilliard Ensemble in four works, each featuring soloists. Pärt's witty mini-concerto for cello and chamber orchestra, Pro et Contra, one of the wild pieces of his youth, will be quite a surprise for those who are familiar with his meditative style. Valentin Silvestrov's Ode to a Nightingale sets Keats's text in Russian translation. Alexandra Cooke, who comes from a Russian-speaking family, will be the soloist. Giya Kancheli's Soviet-period compositions are, in general, on a grand, symphonic scale. Fortunately, he composed the beautiful Midday Prayers, for clarinet, boy soprano, and chamber orchestra, before the country collapsed. The program will conclude with Schnittke's Violin Concerto No. 3. I fail to understand why only the Pärt has been performed in New York.
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Focus! 2005
Breaking the Chains: The Soviet Avant-Garde, 1966-1991
Juilliard Theater
Friday, Jan. 21-Friday, Jan. 28
For time and ticket information, please see
the calendar.
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Four chamber concerts will follow, as well as a panel discussion on Soviet music, with Ms. Sutter, the scholar Laurel Fay, Juilliard faculty member Charles Neidich (who played in the Soviet Union in those days), and others. The concluding symphonic concert, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, comprises two pieces: Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15, and Gudaibulina's magnificent Stimmen ... Verstummen. This piece is one of her favorites, and to my delight, I learned that she hoped to come for the performance. Alas, to use that classic Juilliard phrase, she "has a conflict." Her visit would have been the perfect touch for the end of the festival—but I know that she will be with us in spirit.Joel Sachs, director of the New Juilliard Ensemble and the annual Focus! festival, has been a faculty member since 1970.
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