2020 03 EXILES Mid Period Stravinsky

Exiles from Revolution Middle period Stravinsky

This term we are looking at how Soviet music reacted to Russian composers living abroad.

This session looks at two Stravinsky masterpieces: Les Noces, and Symphony of Psalms

We will see how they echo in Soviet Music by hearing works by: Prokofiev Shostakovich, and Ustvolskaya

When I started planning this session, I called it “Stravinsky and neo-classicism”. But the first Stravinsky piece, Les Noces, is not usually counted as a neo-classical work. Rather than have a distracting discussion on classifying (or neo-classifying) Stravinsky’s works, I’ve opted for a blander title.

Stravinsky – Les Noces Les Noces is a ballet in an unusual hybrid form; the music is a cantata. A piece which is both profoundly Russian, and profoundly modern.

Les Noces is usually translated as The Wedding or The Peasant Wedding. The Russian name Свадебка (Svadebka) is a country-folk diminutive of Свадьба (Svadba) – Wedding.

For Stravinsky, there’s an unusually long gestation period for this work. He first conceived it in 1913, and didn’t complete the score until April 1923. This is a period when Stravinsky’s style evolved very significantly, from the primitivism of Rite of Spring to the quirky eighteenth century mannerism of Octet.

Stravinsky created his own libretto for the cantata from several collections of folk materials that he brought back from his last visit to Imperial Russia in 1914. It’s a dense, complicated libretto. In terms of word count it’s sixteen times longer than Symphony of Psalms.

Decades later Stravinsky compared the work to Joyce’s Ulysses: Les Noces is a suite of typical wedding episodes told through quotations of typical talk. The latter, whether the bride’s, the groom’s the parents’ or the guests’, is always ritualistic. As a collection of clichés … it might be compared to one of those scenes in Ulysses in which the reader seems to be overhearing scraps of conversation without the connecting thread of discourse. Les Noces might be compared to Ulysses in the larger sense that both works are trying to present rather than to describe. [Mazo p 119, originally Craft & Stravinsky Expositions and Developments (1962)]

Les Noces – stages of development By 1917 there was a completed libretto; parts for soprano, mezzo, tenor and bass and SATB choir; and music accompaniment in short score.

The original plan was to orchestrate Les Noces in a style similar to Rite of Spring, but with greater emphasis on wind instruments.

Over the coming years, the sung parts stayed the same, but the orchestration evolved radically, moving far from the lush palate of Rimsky Korsakov and Wagner.

A 1919 draft exists for: wind ensemble, pianola, 2 cimbaloms (the central European hammered dulcimer), harmonium and percussion.

Next, Stravinsky explored a pianola-like mechanisation of the harmonium and cimbaloms. The feasibility of synchronising a group of mechanized instruments sounds daunting… but it was never put to the test because the technology was delivered too late.

In 1921 Stravinsky decided the final orchestral line up: four pianos and a battery of percussion (timpani, bass drum, tambourine, triangle, cymbals, 2 snare drums, 2 field drums, xylophone, crotales, chimes).

Les Noces – folk music? While the text is woven from the lyrics of many folk songs, their associated tunes are not here.

Stravinsky tells us that “only one of the themes… is folk derived; and it is not really a folk melody but a workers’ melody, a proletarian song… given me by my friend Stepan Mitusov ten years before I made use of it” [Mazo p 106]

Boris Asafiev a leading Soviet musicologist, and great admirer of Stravinsky, explained Les Noces in terms of “popevki”: cells or fragments of folk tunes from which Stravinsky builds novel melodic material.

The music of Les Noces is a long way from nineteenth century Russian national school use of folk idiom.

There is a deliberate distancing in the way the libretto is set; for example: lines which can be attributed to an individual character shift from one singer to another; the bride groom is a tenor in the second tableau, but a bass at the end of the fourth tableau.

The Ballets Russes production also introduced alienation: Bronislava Nijinska’s choreography stressed persistent group repetition of monotonous movements; Natalia Goncharova’s design was minimalist and monochrome. The result is a monumental primordial ritual.

Ritual of fertility and procreation In his 1929 A Book About Stravinsky, Asafiev interpreted Les Noces as a ritual of fertility and procreation. Robert Craft tells us that in the margin Stravinsky wrote: “I do not agree” “I meant nothing of the kind!” [Mazo p 101] But Stravinsky didn’t reveal his own perspective of the meaning of Les Noces.

Asafiev’s observation seems pretty astute… From their frequent sexual innuendo, the wedding guests are pretty clear about the purpose of marriage. And the word ritual seems very appropriate.

LISTENING NOTES Stravinsky Les Noces

First performance: 13 June 1923 by Ballets Russes, at Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris Conductor Ernest Ansermet, choreography Nijinska, design Gontcharova

Voices: solo soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, bass; plus choir SATB Orchestra: timpani, bass drum, tambourine, triangle, cymbals, 2 snare drums, 2 field drums, xylophone, crotales, chimes, 4 pianos

Stravinsky described Les Noces as a presentation of typical peasant wedding episodes. In An Autobiography he explained “the sound combination … was the necessary outcome of the music itself” [Stravinsky p 105]

Here is an explanation of the four tableaux, picking out some of the text.

First Tableau – Consecration of the bride Most of the text for this tableau is about braiding the bride’s hair 1. Lament of the Bride The bride remembers how her mother brushed her hair, before the pitiless match-maker came. Еще ох-ти мне! Woe is me! 2. Consoling the Bride Bridesmaids tell the “little swan” not to cry Her father tells her she will be welcomed by her new family, and loved tenderly 3. Invocation of the Holy Virgin Пречистая матерь, Ходи к нам у хать Holy Virgin, come to our house Свахе помогать, косу расплетать Help the matchmaker unwrap the braid.

Second Tableau – Consecration of the groom Hairdressing continues; the groom seeks a blessing from his parents; invocation of several saints 1. Invocation of the Holy Virgin Пречистая мать Ходи, ходи к нам у хать Holy Virgin, come to our house Свахе помогать, Кудри расчесать.. Help the matchmaker comb his curls. 2. Lament of the Groom’s Parents Mother anticipates the bride taking over the care of the groom’s hair 3. The Groom addresses his Parents The groom asks for his parents’ blessing as he ‘sets off to break through this stone wall’ 4. Blessing the Groom The chorus comment on the parents’ blessing 5. Invocation of the Saints Invocation of St Cosmos, St Damian, St Michael and St Luke. “Bless this union and the first baby”

Third Tableau – Departure of the Bride Continuation from first tableau… 1. Blessing the Bride This is told as a fairy story – the princess asking for a blessing before going to a distant land 2. Invocation of the Saints Invocation of the Holy Virgin and the saints, telling them to go to the wedding 3. Lament of both Mothers Groom’s and Bride’s mothers lament together Не покинь меня горемычную Do not leave me in misery Воротись моя дитятка, Воротись моя милая Come back my child, Come back my dear

Fourth Tableau – The Wedding Feast Much of the text is snippets of conversations from the guests… often sexual innuendo 1. Glorification of the Newly-weds The chorus discuss berries, birds, and a the distress of a young man who lost his jewelled ring 2. Handing-over the Bride to the Groom Вот тебе жана! От бога саждана. Here’s your wife! Given by God. Зятик мой, любезный, My son-in-law, dear, Вручаю тебе дочерю любезную I entrust to you my dear daughter. The chorus add: Love her and shake her like a pear tree! 3. Warming the Nuptial Bed The chorus discuss how the married couple are going to manage in the narrow cold bed. Two people are sent off to warm it up, while a series of toasts is drunk. 4. Glorification of the Nuptial Bed The couple are led to the bedroom. The last words are groom to bride: Данная моя погляденья, This is my prospect, Ночная моя забава. My nightly fun. Поживем мы с тобой харашеничка, You and I will live together in such happiness, Чтобы люди нам завидывали. That everyone will envy us.

Option A: here is a link to the entire ballet – which lasts 26 minutes…

LINK 1 A (26 mins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsXR81dLjjE Les Noces Royal Ballet presentation of the original Nijinska / Gontcharova production

Option B: here is a link to the final (fourth) tableau – which lasts around 10 minutes…

LINK 1 B (10 mins) https://youtu.be/vsXR81dLjjE?t=950 Les Noces Royal Ballet / original Nijinska / Gontcharova production / fourth tableau ONLY

The Ballets Russes production has been revived by several leading companies, including: Royal Ballet since 1966 Mariinsky since 2003.

Stravinsky’s concept of a ballet / cantata may have been prompted by a 1914 Ballets Russes production of Rimsky Korsakov’s Golden Cockerel; the singers were off stage, while the action was presented as a ballet.

This impressed Stravinsky… but it infuriated the Rimsky Korsakov estate.

Symphony of Psalms In the 1920s Stravinsky’s neo-classicism blossomed. Orchestration was pared down, formal structures (such as fugues) were introduced, classical subject matter (Apollo, Oedipus…) edged out the old Russian themes.

Koussevitzky commissioned what became Symphony of Psalms in 1930 to celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Stravinsky tells us in An Autobiography (1936) that he’d been contemplating a symphony for some time not in terms of conforming to nineteenth century models, but a work that was an organic whole, with great contrapuntal development.

The contrapuntal aspect swung Stravinsky towards “a choral and instrumental work ensemble in which the two elements should be on an equal footing”. [Stravinsky p 161] As the symphony emerged he explained to André Schaeffner: It is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing. [VS & RC p 297]

Early sketches suggest the work was initially going to be in Russian, but soon the text moved to Latin, taken from the Vulgate. [VS & RC p 295]

LISTENING NOTES Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms

First performance: 13 December 1930 Société Philharmonique de Bruxelles, conducted Ernest Ansermet Orchestra: omits clarinet, violins and violas. There are two pianos. Choir SATB

There are three linked movements, which take us through a standard liturgical journey; seeking reconciliation with God recognizing the grace of God praising God.

First movement – seeking reconciliation – begins “Hear my prayer…”

Exaudi orationem meam, Domine, Hear my prayer, O Lord, et deprecationem meam; and give ear unto my cry; auribus percipe lacrimas meas. hold not thy peace at my tears: Ne sileas, quoniam advena ego sum apud te, for I am a stranger with thee, et peregrinus sicut omnes patres mei. and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Remitte mihi, ut refrigerer O spare me, that I may recover strength, prius quam abeam before I go hence, et amplius non ero. Vulgate Psalm 38, 13-14 and be no more. KJV Psalm 39, 12-13

Second movement starts with a meditation on God. For almost two minutes we hear an instrumental double canon, before the choir enters: “I waited patiently for the Lord…” Some commentators suggest the first canon theme is a reference to the King’s Theme from JS Bach’s Musical Offering.

Exspectans exspectavi Dominum, I waited patiently for the Lord; et intendit mihi. Et exaudivit preces meas, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. et eduxit me de lacu miseriae He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, et de luto faecis. out of the miry clay, Et statuit super petram pedes meos, and set my feet upon a rock, et direxit gressus meos. and established my goings. Et immisit in os meum canticum novum, And he hath put a new song in my mouth, carmen Deo nostro. even praise unto our God: Videbunt multi, et timebunt, many shall see it, and fear, et sperabunt in Domino. Vulgate Psalm 39, 2-4 and shall trust in the Lord. KJV Psalm 40, 1-3

Third movement – the final verse of this second movement’s psalm told us: “He hath put a new song in my mouth…”. This new song forms the third movement – instructions on where and how to praise God. At first the tempo is slow, but it speeds up, and then moves to triplets. Stravinsky said he’d never previously written such a literal piece of music as the triplets on horn and piano; a depiction of prophet Elijah being carried to heaven in a fiery chariot.

Alleluia. Praise ye the Lord. Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus; Praise God in his sanctuary: laudate eum in firmamento virtutis ejus. praise him in the firmament of his power. Laudate eum in virtutibus ejus; Praise him for his mighty acts: laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis praise him according to his excellent greatness. ejus. Laudate eum in sono tubae... Praise him with the sound of the trumpet:... Laudate eum in tympano et choro; Praise him with the timbrel and dance: laudate eum in chordis et organo. praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Laudate eum in cymbalis benesonantibus; Praise him upon the loud cymbals: laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis. praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum! Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Alleluia. Vulgate Psalm 150 Praise ye the Lord. KJV Psalm 150

LINK 2 (21 mins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUSfrgPQjRM&t=704s Symphony of Psalms Solti conducting Chicago Symphony

Arthur Lourié (1892-1966) Let’s take a quick diversion, a few words about Arthur Lourié; an émigré Russian composer who was Stravinsky’s assistant for almost a decade from 1924.

Before the Revolution, Lourié was active in Futurist circles. He was friendly with Mayakovsky and Blok, and had an affair with Akhmatova.

After the Revolution, Lourié was appointed to head the music section of the Ministry of Enlightenment.

For the first anniversary celebrations Lourié composed the loud (but underwhelming) accompaniment for a mass recitation of Mayakovsky’s poem Our March: Beat the squares with the tramp of rebels! Higher, rangers of haughty heads! We'll wash the world with a second deluge, Now’s the hour whose coming it dreads. Too slow, the wagon of years, The oxen of days — too glum. Our god is the god of speed, Our heart — our battle drum. (translation by Dorian Rottenberg)

Lourié was not a popular bureaucrat. In 1918 Prokofiev accused him of negligence when his property was looted. Others accused him of using his position for personal advantage; Ippolitov-Ivanov and Goldenweiser filed an official complaint to Lenin.

Lourié goes West In August 1922 Lourié went to Berlin as official delegate to a quarter-tone composition conference. He postponed his return. When Lenin announced a crackdown on intellectuals who were not fully supportive of the Soviet system, he decided to remain in the west.

Lourié made his way to France, and got himself introduced to Stravinsky. Stravinsky was indebted to Commissar Lourié for facilitating his mother’s emigration in 1922, so he employed émigré Lourié as general assistant, publicist, and tutor for his children.

Lourié started publishing articles about Stravinsky’s music. Several of our standard insights into Stravinsky originate from these articles:  the Schoenberg / Stravinsky dichotomy (which he positioned as Neogothic /Neoclassic)  Pulcinella as the stylistic dividing line between Stravinsky’s Russian and Neo-classical periods.

Lourié, Stravinsky, and God A recent convert from Bolshevism, Lourié seems to have felt a need to prove his reactionary credentials. His letters to Stravinsky are full of religious exhortations and references to the ecclesiastical calendar. [Móricz & Morrison p 64] Lourié never seems to have been an atheist Marxist. He converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1913, and once he was living in the West his circle of friends included influential theologians.

In the late 1920s Lourié was instrumental in bringing Stravinsky back to active Orthodox faith.

It’s difficult to pigeon-hole Stravinsky’s faith.

In An Autobiography (1936) Stravinsky shrugs off the religious connotations of the texts in Symphony of Psalms. I sought for my words, since they were to be sung, among those which had been written for singing. And quite naturally my first idea was to have recourse to the psalms. [Stravinsky p 162]

In the 1970s, Vera – his widow – and Robert Craft wrote: …the composer would never discuss the religious attitudes and content of his music, or admit that he worshipped God through it – even though Symphony of Psalms and [10 years later] Symphony in C were inscribed “A la Gloire de Dieu”. [VS & RC p 450]

Lourié’s musical influence on Stravinsky Not only did Lourié influence Stravinsky’s spiritual world. There appears to have been a cross-fertilisation of music too. The year before Stravinsky wrote Symphony of Psalms, Lourié wrote Concerto Spirituale.

Concerto Spirituale is a virtuoso piano concerto, using a similar orchestra to Symphony of Psalms (double basses and brass), and setting Psalm 41 from the Vulgate.

Stravinsky was sensitive to charges of influence from his assistant. On hearing of Lourié’s death in 1966, Stravinsky commented: “never in my life have I seen or heard a single line of Lourié’s music” [letter to Suvchinsky, quoted Taruskin in Móricz & Morrison paper p 63]

However, there are many letters from the 1920s showing that is a serious lapse of memory!

[By the way…there is a performance of Concerto Spirituale on YouTube, conducted by Rozhdestvensky, piano soloist Postnikova. Unfortunately the sound quality is awful.]

Stravinsky and Lourié part company Stravinsky’s relationship with Lourié started to turn sour in the early 1930s.

First Stravinsky questioned the motivation of some of Lourié’s publicity articles. Too much theology, not enough musicology. [Porter, p 10]. Too much criticism, not enough promotion… an analysis of Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra was “extremely venomous”. [Porter, p 12]

Stravinsky mocked Lourié for agreeing to write a hagiography about Koussevitzky. This proved a difficult wrangle with the Koussevitzky family, and Stravinsky showed no sympathy; looking down on the “contrabassist who never learned to play the piano, became the American Star with no more than his conductor’s baton. But a genius does not need to study at the piano, since for this inferior job he can always hire someone to play the music for him over and over until he is filled up to the ass with it”. [Stravinsky to Ansermet, quoted VS & RC p 281-2]

The final straw for the relationship with Lourié was Stravinsky’s marriage to Vera Sudeykina in 1940. Before the Revolution, Lourié had shared a house with Vera, her then husband Sergei Sudeykin, and Olga (Sergei’s ex-wife). It’s not clear what element of this historic soap opera broke the relationship with Stravinsky; perhaps the new geometry was simply too complex to navigate.

Les Noces and Symphony of Psalms – Reception in the USSR Symphony of Psalms not performed in public in USSR until 1962. The State Repertoire Committee introduced new regulations in 1928 which banned Orthodox liturgical music in the concert hall, and limited Western classics, such as Bach Passions, to one or two performances a year, with an insistence that performances must not coincide with the liturgical calendar. [Fairclough p 73] Les Noces was performed in the USSR in the late 1920s. Pianists at the 1928 Leningrad premiere were: Shostakovich, Yudina, Popov and Renzin. [Fairclough p 235]

Les Noces was highly praised by Boris Asafiev. But it faced two significant problems in the USSR:  Counter-revolutionary subject matter… peasants, marriage, continuity of the old world  Association with Ballets Russes – Diaghilev’s enterprise to titillate the western bourgeoisie.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment… The modernism of Les Noces matches important elements of 1920s Soviet Arts  Break with the past  Drawing inspiration from folk art  Focus on words. Imagine applying the musical approach of Les Noces to a Soviet subject, say Electrification of the Soviet Union. Such a work could have had a profound impact on Soviet Music!

Prokofiev takes Stravinsky to the movies Let’s look at how Soviet composers echoed Stravinsky in their works.

First, Prokofiev. He had heard Les Noces in Paris in 1924. His diary entry is a glowing endorsement. “Work of a master, with an intensity approaching that of Rite of Spring. A marvellous work”. [Prokofiev Diary 26 May 1924 vol 3 p 58] Prokofiev was still living in the west when Stravinsky was writing Symphony of Psalms. In Spring 1930 they meet unexpectedly in the street and chat about their latest projects. His diary entry records uncertainty about the wisdom of setting Latin texts: “Psalms will be taken as something dry, clerical, rather than as incandescent poetry”. [Prokofiev Diary late April/May 1930 vol 3 p 950]

By chance, Prokofiev was in Brussels just before the premiere of Symphony of Psalms. He sat with Stravinsky in a rehearsal, looking over the score. He tells us he particularly liked the beginning, and the end of the first and third movements. But the fugue in the second movement “becomes drowned in a sea of inter twisting voices and dissolves into haziness… We had lunch together after the rehearsal. Stravinsky never ceases to abuse Jews.” [Prokofiev Diary 12 Dec 1930 vol 3 p 983]

Alexander Nevsky Eight years later Prokofiev is settled back in the USSR, working on a film with Sergei Eisenstein. His score for Alexander Nevsky will become one of the most celebrated uses of music in the cinema.

The story concerns a thirteenth century prince who’d repelled invasions by Swedes and Teutonic Knights. With the growing threat of Nazi Germany, this had become topical.

The Russians are represented with diatonic music, which sounds like folk song; bright, open, and pleasant.

As for the Teutonic Knights… yes, they are German, and they are on a religious mission; they are the Northern Crusaders, determined to overthrow the Russian Orthodox faith and replace it with Roman Catholicism. Prokofiev said he originally intended using genuine plainchant for the Teutonic Knights, but couldn’t find anything sufficiently sinister. Instead he gives them anachronistic modern music which anchors the threat against Russia in the present.

In October, 1994 Dr Morag Kerr published a fascinating insight into the Crusader’s music in Musical Times. Kerr had noticed that the Latin lyrics of the Crusader’s hymn (which were written specifically by Prokofiev), were a cut and paste job… key words from each movement of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Peregrinus expectavi, pedes meos in cymbalis

Alexander Nevsky It’s not just meaningless words that Prokofiev is borrowing. The style is a send up of Stravinsky’s neo-classical monumental choral approach: heartless Bach with a twentieth century make-over: dissonance, blaring brass and savage percussion. Also aping Stravinsky, the rhythm of the music takes priority where it doesn’t match the metre of the lyrics.

Is Prokofiev having a harmless joke at Stravinsky’s expense? … or is he asking “which side are you on?”

No debt to Stravinsky was publically acknowledged. By now Stravinsky was persona non grata and (as we saw in session one) Prokofiev had already been pilloried for channelling Stravinsky in his 1936 Russian Overture.

In 1939 Prokofiev reshaped the film score into a concert piece: Alexander Nevsky, cantata, op 78. Here is the third movement from that Cantata, The Crusaders in Pskov Brutal music of the Teutonic Knights sandwiches a lament from the invaded Russians

LINK 3 (7 mins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x5grdx3g_8 Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky Crusaders in Pskov Svetlanov USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra

Shostakovich and Stravinsky We know that Stravinsky was an important influence on young Shostakovich. In September 1927, when he was approaching his twenty first birthday, he was interviewed by Roman Ilich Gruber, from the State Institute of Arts History in Leningrad. Gruber’s questionnaire focused on the psychology of the Creative Process.

The completed questionnaire gives us an unmediated view of Shostakovich’s early thoughts on music.

Asked to name his favourite composers… “among the Russians, in first place Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky” [Fay DDS World, p 32]

And his favourite individual works… “Russian works: Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony… Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Serenade for Piano, L’Histoire du soldat, and Oedipus Rex” [Fay DDS World p 33]

Shostakovich was bang up to date! Oedipus Rex had been premiered in Paris only four months earlier.

Shostakovich and Symphony of Psalms Symphony of Psalms had a powerful impact on Shostakovich.

He made a two piano arrangement of the score, and used it regularly in his orchestration and composition classes at the Conservatoire after his appointment as acting professor in 1937.

Use of this teaching material was held against him in the 1948 Anti-Cosmopolitan purges. At one meeting a member of staff yelled: “How dare Shostakovich defile the walls of this Conservatoire with Stravinsky’s vile music? Such an action can only be the work of a cosmopolitan, an enemy of our own patriotic music” [Glikman p 202]

When Stravinsky finally visited the USSR in 1962, Shostakovich told him he had been overwhelmed by the Symphony of Psalms when he first heard it, and presented him with a copy of his two piano arrangement.

There is a clear allusion to Symphony of Psalms in Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony.

Shostakovich Leningrad Symphony In 1941, Shostakovich famously responded to the invasion of the USSR with his Leningrad Symphony.

First he started a work for soloist, choir and orchestra, setting some psalms. One of his friends, Leo Arnshtam says he heard a few fragments of this work. But the idea was abandoned. [Fay p 124]

Next, what became the first movement of the Leningrad Symphony was composed. At first this was envisaged as a choral work. After the main climax of the principal theme of the first movement he had envisaged a choir entering, but this developed into the idea of a kind of instrumental requiem, dedicated to those who fell in battle. [Meyer quoting Sovetskoe Iskusstovo October 1941 p 277-9] Shostakovich completed the first movement on 29 August. By this time Nazi forces were almost at the city gates...the blockade was about to begin.

He wrote the second and third movements in besieged Leningrad.

At the beginning of October, Shostakovich was evacuated to Kuybyshev (now Samara) 1,000 km east. Forced to travel light, he took scores for only two works: Lady Macbeth, and Symphony of Psalms (in both original form and his own piano arrangement) [Fay p 125. Quoting Sollertinskaya in Zvezda 9 1986] By 27 December the Leningrad Symphony was complete.

Leningrad Symphony as War Propaganda The new symphony was premiered in Kuybyshev in March 1942.

A microfilmed score was flown to the allies. Henry Wood conducted it at the London Proms in June. Toscanini broadcast it from New York in July. Time magazine carried a cover of “Fireman Shostakovich” protecting the Conservatoire from incendiary shells, with the headline: “Amid bombs bursting in Leningrad he heard the chords of victory”.

In August a scratch orchestra was mustered to perform the work in besieged Leningrad. The blockade continued for another 18 months.

Shostakovich’s symphony was nominated for a Stalin Prize even before its Kuybyshev premiere. At the Stalin Prize Committee meeting on 19 February, the chair, culture minister Khrapchenko, said: I think there’s no need to discuss it, since everything is perfectly clear [MFW Stalin Prize p 91]

Leningrad Symphony … as described by Shostakovich in spring 1942

I. Allegretto The first movement, a symphonic allegro, was inspired by the month of August [1941] in Leningrad. The war burst into our peaceful life... Our people – workers, thinkers, creators – became warriors. Ordinary men and women became heroes... The first part... includes a requiem. It is full of grief for those who died the death of heroes on the field of battle. However, we are unconquerable in our great national war, because ours is a righteous cause. We know that Hitler will be defeated and that our enemy will find his grave in Russian earth. Therefore, the general spirit of the first movement is bright, cheerful and life-asserting.

II. Moderato (poco allegretto) III. Adagio I composed the second and third movements – a scherzo and an adagio – at a time when the dark clouds gathered over our country... every step of the retreating Red Army evoked a smarting painful echo in our hearts. But the Soviet people knew that they were invincible [these movements] express the confidence in the near triumph of freedom, justice, and happiness.

IV. Allegro non troppo The fourth movement begins with the idea of the struggle for life and death. The joint struggle of life and darkness grows into radiant exultation. We are carrying on the offensive. The fatherland is victorious.

Leningrad Symphony – revival Ernest Newman summed up Leningrad Symphony for many western critics, locating the music “on the seventieth degree of longitude, and the last degree of platitude”. Almost no-one challenged this assessment when I was first finding my way round Shostakovich’s music. In recent decades it has made a spectacular comeback in concert performances.

Whatever your view of the enduring quality of Leningrad Symphony, there is one place in particular where the sound world of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms is evident; the wind chorale at the beginning of the third movement.

Here’s a Soviet era recording of the third movement of Leningrad Symphony conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

LINK 4 (16 mins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cJk9BseGpc Shostakovich Symphony no 7 adagio Rozhdestvensky USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra

Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) Finally, a piece which reminds me of the sound world of Les Noces.

The music of Galina Ustvolskaya comes in two flavours:  Stalinist orthodoxy written to pay the bills – almost all of this music later renounced  Challenging contemporary music, usually with a spiritual dimension.

Levon Hakobian summarises her contemporary style as: Highly individual and not especially listener-friendly style, whose most conspicuous features include: measured pace of even rhythmical units, lean textures, sharp dynamic contrasts, frequent confrontations of extreme registers, and unusual combinations of instrumental timbres. [Hakobian p 187]

The standard Shostakovich literature tells us a few things about Galina Ustvolskaya… Shostakovich was one of her teachers, and he nurtured her talent, encouraged her to take a distinct musical path… and even planned to marry her. Laurel Fay for example, says: [Fay p 183] [Shostakovich] sheltered profound professional respect and tender personal feelings [for Ustvolskaya]

However, that received wisdom is savagely rebutted by Ustvolskaya.

Ustvolskaya on Shostakovich From the website ustvolskaya.org (run by her husband, and Andrei Bakhmin – who maintains her archive and is writing her official biography).

“I am writing these notes to finally assert the TRUTH about my relations with Dmitri Shostakovich. To state the TRUTH about Shostakovich himself as a composer and a person… It is high time to move on from the steadfast, stupid point of view on Shostakovich.

On my part I would like to say the following: never once during the years, even during my studies at the Conservatoire which I spent in his class, was Shostakovich’s music close to me. Nor was his personality. I would be even more candid: I bluntly refused to accept his music… “

Ustvolskaya is unceasingly called a pupil of Shostakovich. Almost every text about her starts with this "important observation". {This suggests that if she had}* not have been his pupil, her music would be less significant or interesting. She was deeply exasperated and hurt that even at 80 she was still called a pupil…

"Shostakovich's music always left me depressed. {How can music such as this have been called, and still be called genius?}* It dims over time.” [* I have slightly reworded sections in {brackets}]

Galina Ustvolskaya – Octet This Octet dates from 1949-50. It wasn’t performed for twenty years.

First performance was in Leningrad, 17 November 1970. The instrumentation is typically eccentric: 2 oboes, 4 violins, timpani, and piano

I don’t think Octet is deliberately imitating Les Noces; but this music and Les Noces are drawing water from the same well.

Reinbert de Leeuw, leader of the Schönberg Ensemble, who became a major Western advocate of Ustvolskaya’s music, wrote: I listened to a tape with a recording of Ustvolskaya’s Octet and I was in a kind of shock. My God! A composer… living in the time of Stalin and writing a piece that had no connection with any other music around her or her culture. It was a voice that was so authentic, so completely on its own.

LINK 5 (18 mins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-fSRrsEXJI Ustvolskaya Octet Schönberg Ensemble, Reinbert de Leeuw

Further material on Galina Ustvolskaya: Remarkable thirty minute documentary: Scream into Space www.youtube.com/watch?v=ninHa6TqgqM

Bibliography

Pauline Fairclough Classics for the Masses 2016 Laurel Fay Shostakovich: a Life 2000 Laurel Fay (ed) Shostakovich and his world 2004 Marina Frolova-Walker Stalin’s Musical Prize 2016 Isaak Glikman Story of a Friendship Letters of DDS to IG with commentary by IG 2001 Levon Hakobian Music of the Soviet Era (2nd Edition) 2017 Margarita Mazo Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Russian Village Wedding Ritual 1990 Journal of American Musicological Society 43 / 1 Krzysztof Meyer Schostakowitsch: Sein Leben, sein Werk, seine Zeit 1998 K Móricz & S Morrison (eds) Funeral Games in Honor of Arthur Vincent Lourié 2014 Jana (Borchardt) Porter From Commissar to Stravinsky’s Conscience: 2015 Lourié’s Connection to Stravinsky and the Relationship’s Demise Sergei Prokofiev Diaries 1924-1933: Prodigal Son 2012 (trans Anthony Phillips) Igor Stravinsky An Autobiography 1936 V Stravinsky & R Craft Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents 1978 Richard Taruskin Russian Music at Home and Abroad 2016