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Soviet Music: Two early Socialist Realist symphonies 1 © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 This is a sample of material presented at the Lewes U3A Soviet Music sessions It comes from the first of a series of talks about Socialist Realism 1932-41 It covers two proto-Socialist Realist symphonies. “Proto” because they pre-date any working definition of Socialist Realism The symphonies are: Myaskovsky’s Twelfth Symphony (1932) Kolkhoz / Collective Farm” Knipper’s Fourth Symphony (1934) Poem about a Komsomol FighterYou’ll probably recognise one of the tunes in the Knipper symphony Brief reminder of the political development of the Soviet Union The Bolsheviks took power in October 1917. They quickly established a system they called War Communism where the state owned and controlled everything. Marxists had expected the Russian Revolution to trigger a much wider revolution. They theorised that Proletarian Revolution could only succeed if it was international. But soon they recognised a dilemma; the advance guard had no follow up. The leading thinkers needed to think again, and find a path for building socialism in one country. In 1921 there was a historic compromise with reality. The New Economic Policy reintroduced a mixed economy which tolerated small scale entrepreneurs. For a while international relations were normalised, but in 1927 there was a growing sense of encirclement and incursion caused by two significant events: Britain briefly broke diplomatic relations and a Chinese communist uprising was brutally suppressed. In 1928, the New Economic Policy and its spivs were swept away by a Revolution from Above The Five Year Plan approach was born with the objectives of renationalisation industrialisation on massive scale centralised planned economy collectivisation of agriculture Stalin explained that the Soviet Union needed to catch up and overtake the capitalist world technologically and economically. 1929 was designated The Great Turning Point The impact of the new centrally planned approach was immense. Just a couple of statistics: industrial working class increased in size three-fold between 1928 and 1940 by 1936 90% of agricultural workers worked in Collective Farms There was another important development in the late 1920s; the phasing out of bourgeois specialists… hangovers from before the revolution. A new managerial class was built by educating people of impeccable working class origins. The bourgeois specialists took on a new role; the scapegoat for any problems. A series of spectacular show trials was held from May 1928, when the Shakhty trial accused 53 engineers in the Donbass coal industry of: wrecking equipment, organising accidentsand maintaining links with former capitalist coalmine owners.
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Page 1: Soviet Music: Two early Socialist Realist symphonies 1 It ......It comes from the first of a series of talks about Socialist Realism 1932-41 It covers two proto-Socialist Realist symphonies.

Soviet Music: Two early Socialist Realist symphonies 1

© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

This is a sample of material presented at the Lewes U3A Soviet Music sessions It comes from the first of a series of talks about Socialist Realism 1932-41 It covers two proto-Socialist Realist symphonies. “Proto” because they pre-date any working definition of Socialist Realism The symphonies are:

Myaskovsky’s Twelfth Symphony (1932) “Kolkhoz / Collective Farm” Knipper’s Fourth Symphony (1934) “Poem about a Komsomol Fighter”

You’ll probably recognise one of the tunes in the Knipper symphony Brief reminder of the political development of the Soviet Union The Bolsheviks took power in October 1917. They quickly established a system they called War Communism where the state owned and controlled everything. Marxists had expected the Russian Revolution to trigger a much wider revolution. They theorised that Proletarian Revolution could only succeed if it was international. But soon they recognised a dilemma; the advance guard had no follow up. The leading thinkers needed to think again, and find a path for building socialism in one country. In 1921 there was a historic compromise with reality. The New Economic Policy reintroduced a mixed economy which tolerated small scale entrepreneurs. For a while international relations were normalised, but in 1927 there was a growing sense of encirclement and incursion caused by two significant events: Britain briefly broke diplomatic relations and a Chinese communist uprising was brutally suppressed. In 1928, the New Economic Policy and its spivs were swept away by a Revolution from Above The Five Year Plan approach was born with the objectives of

renationalisation

industrialisation on massive scale

centralised planned economy

collectivisation of agriculture Stalin explained that the Soviet Union needed to catch up and overtake the capitalist world technologically and economically. 1929 was designated The Great Turning Point The impact of the new centrally planned approach was immense. Just a couple of statistics:

industrial working class increased in size three-fold between 1928 and 1940

by 1936 90% of agricultural workers worked in Collective Farms There was another important development in the late 1920s; the phasing out of bourgeois specialists… hangovers from before the revolution. A new managerial class was built by educating people of impeccable working class origins. The bourgeois specialists took on a new role; the scapegoat for any problems. A series of spectacular show trials was held from May 1928, when the Shakhty trial accused 53 engineers in the Donbass coal industry of: wrecking equipment, “organising accidents” and maintaining links with former capitalist coalmine owners.

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Soviet Music: Two early Socialist Realist symphonies 2

© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

Music and the Cultural Revolution Introduction of the Five Year Plan / Revolution from Above coincides with a ferocious Cultural Revolution. Up to that point there had been a wide range of musical societies The Association of Contemporary Musicians was a group of modernists – for them the Revolution was about being modern. There was also a plethora of proletarian musical societies, advocating music by proletarians for proletarians. Lunacharsky (the charismatic Enlightenment commissar appointed immediately after the October Revolution) was replaced by Andrey Bubnov , who was decidedly less experimental. Socialism in One Country undermined the position of the internationally affiliated modernists. Composers left the Association of Contemporary Musicians; it was inactive after 1929. The triumphalist Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians savagely harassed leading academics and administrators. Late in 1931 it started a campaign for repertoire reform:

a blanket ban on Chopin as a “salon composer”

and bans on works hostile to the working class, such as Saint-Saens Third Symphony Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra [Fairclough CfM p 100]

Mikhail Gnesin, professor at Moscow Conservatoire, decided he had nothing to lose [Gnesin was the younger brother of the three sisters who set up the Gnesin Institute in 1895] He wrote to Stalin:

If I am not right, then let me be persecuted, for I must have deserved it But if the truth is on my side in any of these matters, then significant change needs to be made in the way music is run [MFW M&SP p315]

Stalin engaged. A series of conferences was held in the music arena. At the same time Stalin noted seething discontent in the other arts On 23 April 1932 a Central Committee resolution radically changed the cultural scene On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organisations. All the existing artistic associations were liquidated

– replaced with “Creative Unions” (Writers Union, Union of Soviet Composers, etc) Artists were overjoyed. Professionals were guaranteed safe jobs, and harassment by zealots ended. Basic organisations were built. Then, after a couple of years, the Creative Unions started discussing the new official aesthetic doctrine ... Socialist Realism.

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© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

Myaskovsky’s struggle to defend the Soviet Symphony Myaskovsky is often described as “father of the Soviet Symphony”. He taught almost everyone in the Soviet musical world. As the Cultural Revolution intensified he was described publically by the head of State Academy for the Arts as “old school composer” – hostile to the proletariat and Marxist Leninist outlook.

[M&SP p 285] Myaskovsky took quick action to save his vocation. In August 1931 he took the leadership of the New Creative Association of Composers. This group aligned with Proletarian groups in music and literature (RAPM and RAPP) with the declared objective of creating “proper Soviet music”. In this feverish atmosphere, the idea for a topical symphony about the Collectivisation of Agriculture appears to originate in a note from one of his radical proletarian students – Koval.

What would you think of a topic like this for your symphony? …. The new people come out to fight nature, not just as individuals, but now as a collective, and their attitude to nature is also different. You could build a symphony on this from the sufferings of endless toil through to joyful and inspired collective construction. [M&SP p 285]

Next, Koval sent Myaskovsky detailed ideological guidance:

Readings from Lenin and Stalin to aid correct philosophical interpretation

Mind your “clarity of language” (a contemporary cliché)

Beware the superficial light approach

Beware individualistic heavy approach – heart rending themes, gloomy and desperate turning to effusive jubilation [M&SP p 286]

Myaskovsky genial thanks Koval for his ideological guidance

Regretfully it’s too late, the new symphony is pretty much finished. I have committed all the mortal sins your letter warned me against… I wrote three separate chapters with a gradual brightening up towards the end, roughly:

The old – The struggle for the new – The new.

Myaskovsky also makes sure his enthusiasm for collectivization is on record: I think that the collectivist transformation of the countryside into a truly socialist sector is the beginning of a new era in human life worldwide. [M&SP p 287]

Twelfth Symphony was premiered in June 1932. It was received without enthusiasm, so one of his recent graduates, Kabalevsky, helped Myaskovsky sex up the symphony by publishing a detailed commentary on this “symphony of struggle” in the journal Sovetskoye iskusstvo [Soviet Arts]. I’ve used extracts of this commentary as listening notes below. One interesting feature of Kabalevsky’s article is his frequent use of the words “dialectic” and “contradiction” – language which resonates with Leninist theory.

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© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

LISTENING NOTES: Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky Symphony No 12 in G minor op 35 (Kolkhoz / Collective Farm) First performance: 1 June 1932 in Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted Albert Coates. Dedicated to the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. This symphony was concrete evidence that Myaskovsky was seeking ways of salvaging what he could of traditional musical style while realigning with the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. The topical subject of collectivisation of agriculture was proposed by Koval, one of Myaskovsky’s radical students. Koval also offered suggestions on the form of a truly proletarian symphony (largely ignored by Myaskovsky; there is no chorus, and no inspiring build-up at the end). Kabalevsky, one of Myaskovsky’s politically astute graduates, provided a detailed programme for the new work in an article titled Symphony of Struggle, published in Sovetskoye iskusstvo 15 June 1932.

There can be no doubting that Myaskovsky’s Twelfth Symphony is one of the most important events in our musical lives over the past few years. The very fact that such a great master has made the transfer to Soviet subject matter is very significant in itself.

By way of programme notes, here are extracts from Kabalevsky’s article: I Andante

Paints a picture of the old, pre-revolutionary countryside. Begins with a theme of the shepherd pipe variety, vividly depicting the Russian country landscape with its gloominess, melancholy and despair. A worker appears, oppressed and exhausted by his hard labour. The middle section is a folk dance which never turns into real, healthy merry-making. The oppressed mood reappears, and gradually takes us back to the shepherd pipe theme

II Presto agitato

A bugle call to attention, and the struggle begins. The main theme, dark and unstable, is opposed by a second – brighter, more stable, but very primitive and static in its structure. A new and energetic melody appears organising the struggle, penetrating not only this movement, but the finale as well. All these themes undergo development and recapitulation in a sonata structure

III Allegro festive e maestoso

At last, the finale. A victorious song, the song of the new socialist countryside. The first theme – victorious, jubilant – is followed by a second which is softer and attains soaring lyricism. But the struggle is not yet over; a theme from the first movement reappears showing that the old has not yet been overcome completely. This is followed by the finale theme leading to something qualitatively new: a mass song and mass dance have grown from the finale theme. The symphony ends with a quick lively dance. Here the scheme is overcome, subordinated to the logical development of the idea

www.youtube.com/watch?v=keoOHTgAGdo

Myaskovsky Symphony No 12 G minor op 35 (Kolkhoz / Collective Farm)

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© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

Over the next five years or so Myaskovsky wrote another half dozen symphonies. Compared to the rest of his works these are all relatively uncomplicated works, accessible to the listeners, with one exception… Immediately after the Kolkhoz / Collective Farm symphony he wrote his Thirteenth Symphony: his most melancholic and unusually chromatic symphony. In his autobiography Myaskovsky described Thirteenth Symphony as

“pessimistic” “strange in the extreme” written at a time of illness

and suggested it was a reaction to his dissatisfaction with Twelfth Symphony [Ikonnikov pp 51-2] Background on Collectivisation Collectivisation of Agriculture was part of the Soviet class war. There are two senses of it being a class war:

an eradication of the rich peasants and proletarianisation of the remaining agricultural workers

factory production line techniques were brought to the countryside and there was new technology for the workers – the tractor

The consequences of collectivisation were horrific. The peasants were stratified, and the entrepreneurial rich band (the kulaks) were demonized. In 1929 it was made clear that the kulaks were going to be liquidated. The authorities set up requisition teams. As these requisition teams moved around the country many peasants who expected to be targeted, slaughtered their cattle, sold or gave away their grain, and burned down their own houses. The next stage was deportation. There were pockets of armed resistance to t deportation, so the Red Army was sent in. In March 1930 policy was moderated. Stalin made a speech Dizzy with success – reported in Pravda

some party members were so enthusiastic in their drive to massively exceed their plan quotas that they were behaving like blockheads

they were failing to observe the “voluntary principle” of the kolkhoz Hearing that collectivisation was voluntary, the peasants left the kolkhoz in droves. By March 1930 more than 50% had entered, but the percentage quickly fell to just under 25%. Policy was amended again and a new campaign started after the 1930 harvest. Now kolkhoz members could also have a small personal plot + one cow + poultry.

50% collectivised by 1932

90% collectivised by 1936 There was a heavy price for the disruption, and the naivety of requisitioning seed corn; a huge famine in 1932-3. A UN statement in 2003 (signed by Russia) estimates total deaths as 7-10 million. The great majority of these deaths were in Ukraine; Russian and Kazakhstan at around 1m each. Modern Ukraine sees this as a deliberate action of genocide by Stalin – the Holomodor.

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© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

Knipper’s Song symphony In the first half of the 1930s the Song Symphony was a passing fashion in the Soviet Union. We are going to hear one now, Lev Knipper’s Fourth Symphony “Poem about a Komsomol Fighter”. The Komsomol was the Communist Youth movement set up in 1918. It was effectively a local adaptation of Baden Powell’s scouting movement, with red neck scarves and echoing the scout motto “be prepared” with Всегда готов – always prepared. Song Symphonies were typically rather primitive music. Their objective was agit prop rather than high art [Schwarz p 160] Knipper’s life was an amazing adventure. His aunt, Olga, was Chekhov’s widow. He was a mountaineer. An ethnomusicologist interested in Central Asian, Kurdish and Syrian music. He had a special relationship with the Red Army, and was an active member of the NKVD – the secret police. In the Civil War he appears to have been a double agent embedded in the White Forces. He was evacuated from the Crimea with the defeated Whites in 1920. He studied music in Germany until 1923; later admitting to being “infected with western modernism” [Hakobian p 82] During the Nazi invasion Knipper was ordered to stay in Moscow. When all cultural assets were being shipped east he was given a special mission: befriend the Nazi high command (if they arrive in Moscow), get introduced to Hitler, and kill him. Later in the war he was sent on a mission to Iran, studying local music, and coincidentally preparing the ground for the 1943 Tehran summit (between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill).

[MFW Stalin Prize p 195-6] Knipper wrote two song symphonies in the 1930s, each setting a “mass song” by Viktor Gusev. [mass song was a harmonically simple, ideologically appropriate, work for amateurs.]

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© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

LISTENING NOTES: Lev Konstantinovich Knipper Symphony No 4 op 41

(Поэма о бойце-комсомольце / Poem about a Komsomol Fighter) First performance: 23 February 1934 Moscow, National Radio Orchestra conducted Aleksandr Gauk. Knipper (1898-1974) was a talented and versatile composer who studied with Gliere. He was a leading advocate of the hybrid “song-symphony” in the early 1930s. His well known “mass song” (often translated as Meadowland) is ubiquitous in this symphony. Meadowland appears briefly 90 seconds in, dominates the second half of the first movement, and reappears in each of following movements. The symphony is for large orchestra and choir, plus tenor and baritone soloists. Some choir and orchestra parts are written for amateurs – this is an inclusive work. Putting this in an international context around the same time Paul Hindemith is writing Gebrauchsmusik [useful music] for amateur musicians. I Andante maestroso. Allegro

Sets the scene with two major themes of the new society: young men volunteering for Red Army service in the Civil War, and collectivization of agriculture. We meet our hero

II Allegro Engagement with the enemy, in which our hero fights courageously, but is killed In the battle scene Knipper sends up the White Guards… their tune is a trivial chansonette with ugly instrumentation

III Tempo di marcia funebre Funeral for our dead hero

IV Andante We leap forward a decade. To demonstrate the future our hero has helped secure, a Red Army regiment parades through a Collective Farm which erupts in spontaneous joy Gerald Abraham says the finale consist of:

a kolkhoz song

a comic chastushka about an unlucky brigadier (a chastushka is a sort of highly rhythmical drinking ditty – usually lewd)

the March of the Komsomol

reprise of Meadowland Abraham quotes Knipper as saying:

The finale is based on something I saw myself one spring: at a flourishing collective farm arrived an army of Komsomols armed with their youth and strength and all the mighty technique of the Red Army. I remembered a young man [who had died in the civil war]. I remembered all the hard years of fighting. And it seemed to me that this was the best memorial to the young man, the best acknowledgement to those women who gave what they loved most to the Revolution

[Abraham Eight Composers]

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© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

Поэма о бойце-комсомольце (Виктор Гусев) Полюшко-поле, Полюшко, широко поле. Едут по полю герои, Эх, да Красной Армии герои! Девушки плачут, Девушкам сегодня грустно, Милый надолго уехал, Эх, да милый в армию уехал! Девушки, гляньте, Гляньте на дорогу нашу, Вьется дальняя дорога, Эх, да развеселая дорога! Только мы видим, Видим мы седую тучу, Вражья злоба из-за леса, Эх, да вражья злоба, словно туча. Эх, девушки, гляньте, Мы врага принять готовы, Наши кони быстроноги, Эх, да наши танки быстроходны. Пусть же в колхозе Дружная кипит работа, Мы - дозорные сегодня, Эх, да мы сегодня часовые.

Poem about a Komsomol fighter (Viktor Gusev) A field, a field, A field, a wide field, Riding through the field are heroes Oh, yes Red Army heroes. The girls are crying, The girls today are sad Beloved has left for a long time, Oh, yes, beloved has left with the army. Girls, look, Take a look at our road, Winding long road Oh, yes the cheerful road. But only we see We see a gray cloud, Enemy anger from over the forest, Oh, yes, enemy anger, like a cloud. Eh, girls, look, We are ready to take on the enemy, Our horses are sure-footed, Oh, yes, our tanks are fast. Let there be, on the collective farm Friendly enthusiastic work, We are watching out today, Oh, yes, we are sentries today.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snp5xDBeTbM&t=135s

Knipper Symphony No 4 op 41 Here are some contemporary opinions of Knipper’s symphony: First a letter from his aunt, Olga Knipper-Chekhov:

In the evening in the Great Hall of the Conservatory Lev’s Fourth Symphony was premiered: … a very monumental work and very emotional. Imagine my excitement! I am not a judge, but I have heard serious reviews from many, describing him as a master and successful artist. In this symphony there is a wonderful song … which is already being sung in concerts with great success. [Russian Wikipedia]

Soviet Music 1935/6 21 article by Rizhkin:

In Knipper’s Fourth Symphony we are given impression of musical characters – but in a congealed immoveable state. The images of conflict … have a theatrical quality and do not lead to internal transformation – to the emergence of a new quality [Fairclough SC p 21]

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© 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422

Bibliography Gerald Abraham Eight Composers 1943 Pauline Fairclough Classics for the Masses 2016 Pauline Fairclough A Soviet Credo 2006 Marina Frolova-Walker Music and Soviet Power 1917-32 2012 & Jonathan Walker Marina Frolova-Walker Stalin’s Musical Prize 2016 Levon Hakobian Music of the Soviet Era (2nd Edition) 2017 Geoffrey Hosking A History of the Soviet Union 1917-91 1992 Alexei Ikonnikov Myaskovsky: his life and work 1946 Boris Schwarz Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970 1972


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