Unsung composers! - Pashchenko etc.

[Luke]

Hello  I am new to this forum and do not, by any means, presume to know a lot about composers, neglected or otherwise. I do, however, notice that no mention thus far has been made of composers such as Vytautas Bacevicius, Kaikhosru Sorabji or Andrei Pashchenko.

Does anyone know anything about any of these - particularly Pashchenko, as I know next to nothing about him other than that he was a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Composers and that he wrote a fairly substantial body of works, particularly operas? Oh, and he wrote for Theremin too. But that's ALL I know  Anyone heard any of his music?

May I also direct you, if you do not yet know of it, to the website of a new record label - Toccata Classics: http://www.toccataclassics.com/. Please support the work of its founder, Martin Anderson.

Great to see a forum such as this in existence!

[Pengelli]

Come to that,has anyone ever come across a  cd or LP of Muradeli? I've searched in vain! (Melodiya recorded him).

[Gareth Vaughan]

I don't care for Bacevius' music. It's too dissonant. Sorabji is fascinating but he often makes absurd demands on listeners and performers (the 2nd organ symphony lasts 6 hours - and the 3rd one even longer!). Pashchenko I don't know. I do know Martin Anderson, however - and he's doing a great job with Toccata Classics.

[Alan Howe]

The forum is not really intended for the discussion of more modern music, except when it conforms to more traditional notions of melody, harmony, etc. We do try to be flexible, however.

And yes, Martin Anderson is doing a terrific job - for all musical epochs. I can assure you that he has some mouthwatering releases in the pipeline...

[Pengelli]

Sorry! Although,Vano Muradeli, being the kind of Soviet he was, probably sounds very tonal.Anyway......

[Amphissa]

 
I've become curious about Pashchenko. It is surprising to me that there is no existing recording of a single work by a composer as prolific as he was. I've started a list of compositions (below). Does anyone have any better list of works? I'm most interested in the list of symphonies, because all I've found so far is the fact that he wrote 15 of them.


I also believe there are no recordings. I wonder if we can find a listing of all his works. Here is a beginning:

Opera
The Revolt of the Eagles (1925)
Emperor Maximilian (1927)
The Pompadours, aka Pompadurï (after Saltikov-Shtchedrin's story, 1939)
Radda and Loyko (after Gorki's story Makar Tchudra, 1957)
Orlinïy bunt (7.11.1925 Leningrad)
Tsar Maximilian (1930)
The Black Cliff (12.6.1931 Leningrad)
Svad'ba Krechinskovo (1947)
Jester Balakirev (1949)
The Capricious Bride, aka The Stubborn Bride (1956)
Nila Snishko (1961)
Velikiy soblasnitel (1966)
Alpïskaya balada (1966)
Woman, This is the Devil (1966)
African Love (1966)
The Horse in the Senate (1967)
Portret (1968)
Master i Margarita (1971)

Orchestral
Requiem in memory of the heroes of the great war
15 symphonies (1915–70)
Solemn Polonaise
Festive Overture
A Symphonic Mystery for Termenvox (Theramin) and Orchestra

Symphonic Poems
The Giants
The Bacchantes
Scherzo Harlequin and Columbine
Suite in the Classical Style
Legend for orchestra.

9 String Quartets

Lieder
"Nad okoshkom mesjac" text of Sergei Aleksandrovich Esenin (1895-1925)

Film Scores
Dom zhadnosti (1933)
Dubrovskiy (1936)
Chuzhaya rodnya (1955)

[Luke]

The only recording I could find of anything Pashchenko is "Kalinka" - a CD of Russian Folksongs, sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky, on the Philips label. Even then, only track 13 bears reference to him, and furthermore, he is only the arranger of the folksong in question.

I am sure I came across another recording though. A CD of music for theremin? But perhaps I'm confusing myself in my own zeal!

Russian Music From the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century, (1953), by  Boris V. Asaf'ev (Igor' Glebov), translated from the Russian by Alfred J. Swan, makes mention of a work of Pashchenko's called Suites from Russian songs - I suspect the translation is a little crude here - as well as a Moonlight Sonata for a cappella chorus.

The Free Dictionary (online) also lists two oratorios: The Liberation of Prometheus and Lenin, and 3 pieces for a band of folk instruments.

An online word document on Russian & Soviet piano music lists a Sonata-Fantasie.

[Luke]

Based on my reading of a list of operas supplied at www.opera.stanford.edu/composers/P.html, it would seem that the list you've given, Amphissa, contains 2 duplications. I think that Orlinïy bunt and The Revolt of the Eagles are, in fact, the same work. As are Tzar Maximillian and Emperor Maximillian.

I hope you don't mind the fact that I've highlighted this. You did a good job getting the list 

[Amphissa]

 
Thanks, Luke for the clarification. I rather suspected that some English and Russian titles might apply to the same works, but since I don't read Russian, I never know. I should have noticed the Tzar/Emperor Max, though.

I am just perplexed that there is so little information about a composer who wrote so much. Perhaps, though, it was just awful music that everyone ignored. If that is the case, we are probably better off without it. I certainly do not want to spend more money on recordings that bore me.

[Hovite]

I wonder if we can find a listing of all his works. Here is a beginning:

Opera
The Revolt of the Eagles (1925)
Emperor Maximilian (1927)
The Pompadours, aka Pompadurï (after Saltikov-Shtchedrin's story, 1939)
Radda and Loyko (after Gorki's story Makar Tchudra, 1957)
Orlinïy bunt (7.11.1925 Leningrad)
Tsar Maximilian (1930)
The Black Cliff (12.6.1931 Leningrad)
Svad'ba Krechinskovo (1947)
Jester Balakirev (1949)
The Capricious Bride, aka The Stubborn Bride (1956)
Nila Snishko (1961)
Velikiy soblasnitel (1966)
Alpïskaya balada (1966)
Woman, This is the Devil (1966)
African Love (1966)
The Horse in the Senate (1967)
Portret (1968)
Master i Margarita (1971)

Orchestral
Requiem in memory of the heroes of the great war
15 symphonies (1915–70)
Solemn Polonaise
Festive Overture
A Symphonic Mystery for Termenvox (Theramin) and Orchestra

Symphonic Poems
The Giants
The Bacchantes
Scherzo Harlequin and Columbine
Suite in the Classical Style
Legend for orchestra.

9 String Quartets

Lieder
"Nad okoshkom mesjac" text of Sergei Aleksandrovich Esenin (1895-1925)

Film Scores
Dom zhadnosti (1933)
Dubrovskiy (1936)
Chuzhaya rodnya (1955)

The Handbook of Soviet Musicians (1943) lists the following:

Orchestral Music
Symphony No 1
Symphony No 2
Symphony No 3
Symphony No 4
Symphony No 5
Symphony No 6
Symphony No 7
Solemn Polonaise
Festive Overture
The Street is Gay
Ukrainian Rhapsody
Oriental Rhapsody

Vocal Music
The Liberation of Prometheus
Requiem

Opera
The Revolt of the Eagle (1925)
Tsar Maximilian (1927)
The Black Cliff (1930)
Pompadour (1936)

Film Music
Dubrovsky

"His compositions bear signs of the influence of Wagner and Scriabin."

For those that have not seen it, the The Handbook of Soviet Musicians gives biographies and lists of works for 40 Soviet composers, some now famous, others forgotten:

Alexander Vassilyovich Alexandrov (born 1884)
Anatole Nikolaevich Alexandrov (born 1888)
Boris Vladimirovich Assafiev (born 1884)
Victor A. Bely (born 1904)
Anatole V. Bogatyrev (born 1913)
Isaac O. Dunayensky (born 1900)
Ivan I. Dzerzhinsky (born 1909)
Uzeir-Abdul-Hussein-Ogli Gadzhibekov (born 1885)
Rheinhold M. Glier (born 1875)
Michael F. Gnessin (born 1883)
Michael M. Ippolitov-Ivanov (born 1859, died 1935)
Dmitri B. Kabalevsky (born 1904)
Grigori V. Kiladze (born 1905)
Aram I. Khachaturian (born 1904)
Tikhon N. Khrennikov (born 1913)
Victor S. Kossenko (born 1896, died 1938)
Lev K. Knipper (born 1898)
Marian V. Koval (born 1907)
Alexander A. Krein (born 1883)
Boris N. Liatoshinsky (born 1895)
Konstantin Y. Listov (born 1900)
Nina V. Makarova (born 1908)
Nicolai I. Miaskovsky (born 1881)
Alexander Vassilevich Mossolov (born 1900)
I. Muradeli (born 1908)
Andrei F. Pashtchenko (born 1883)
Dimitri I. Pokrass (born 1899)
Leonid A. Polovinkin (born 1894)
Gavriel N. Popov (born 1904)
Sergei S. Prokofiev (born 1891)
Lev. N. Revutzin (born 1889)
Yuri A. Shaporin (born 1889)
Vissarion I. Shebalin (born 1902)
Dimtri D. Shostakovitch (born 1916)
Vladimir V. Shtcherbatchev (born 1889)
Aro l. Stephanyan (born 1897)
Maximilian O. Steinberg (born 1893)
Eugen K. Tikotzy (born 1893)
S. N. Vassilyenko (born 1872)
Assaf Zeinally (born 1909, "untimely death")

Most of the biographies are short; those considered worthy of more than two pages were just Prokofiev and Shostakovitch. The author of the book was Igor Fedorovich Boelza (born 1904), whose own works are described as "atonal and polyphonic". The translator was Alan Bush, an English communist composer of revolutionary songs and opera.

[Hovite]

Sorabji is fascinating but he often makes absurd demands on listeners and performers (the 2nd organ symphony lasts 6 hours - and the 3rd one even longer!).

Sorabji was his own worst enemy. He seems to have gone out of his way to make his works unperformable. Not only were they enormously long, but he actually banned any performances for 40 years (1936 to 1976). He was also willfully offensive toward the country of his birth. He stated "English law decrees that a kitten born in a kennel is a puppy, a piglet born in a stable a horse". He regarded himself as Persian, but his ancestors left Persia in the seventh century. His rather awful four hour Opus Clavicembalisticum was written, he claimed, "amidst the most barbaric and crapulous Britons". He lived, he said, in "a Tower of Granite with plentiful supplies of boiling oil and molten lead handy to tip over the battlements on to the heads of unwanted and uninvited intruders on my privacy and seclusion".

Besides his solo piano works (which apparently include a concerto and six symphonies), there are three organ symphonies, and two symphonies for piano, organ, chorus, and orchestra.

(This information comes from Opus Est by Paul Rapoport, which also contains chapters on Matthijs Vermeulen, Vagn Holmboe, Havergal Brian, Allan Petterson, and Fartein Valen).

[JimL]

For those that have not seen it, the The Handbook of Soviet Musicians gives biographies and lists of works for 40 Soviet composers, some now famous, others forgotten:

Alexander Vassilyovich Alexandrov (born 1884)
Anatole Nikolaevich Alexandrov (born 1888)
Boris Vladimirovich Assafiev (born 1884)
Victor A. Bely (born 1904)
Anatole V. Bogatyrev (born 1913)
Isaac O. Dunayensky (born 1900)
Ivan I. Dzerzhinsky (born 1909)
Uzeir-Abdul-Hussein-Ogli Gadzhibekov (born 1885)
Rheinhold M. Glier (born 1875)
Michael F. Gnessin (born 1883)
Michael M. Ippolitov-Ivanov (born 1859, died 1935)
Dmitri B. Kabalevsky (born 1904)
Grigori V. Kiladze (born 1905)
Aram I. Khachaturian (born 1904)
Tikhon N. Khrennikov (born 1913)
Victor S. Kossenko (born 1896, died 1938)
Lev K. Knipper (born 1898)
Marian V. Koval (born 1907)
Alexander A. Krein (born 1883)
Boris N. Liatoshinsky (born 1895)
Konstantin Y. Listov (born 1900)
Nina V. Makarova (born 1908)
Nicolai I. Miaskovsky (born 1881)
Alexander Vassilevich Mossolov (born 1900)
I. Muradeli (born 1908)
Andrei F. Pashtchenko (born 1883)
Dimitri I. Pokrass (born 1899)
Leonid A. Polovinkin (born 1894)
Gavriel N. Popov (born 1904)
Sergei S. Prokofiev (born 1891)
Lev. N. Revutzin (born 1889)
Yuri A. Shaporin (born 1889)
Vissarion I. Shebalin (born 1902)
Dimtri D. Shostakovitch (born 1916)
Vladimir V. Shtcherbatchev (born 1889)
Aro l. Stephanyan (born 1897)
Maximilian O. Steinberg (born 1893)
Eugen K. Tikotzy (born 1893)
S. N. Vassilyenko (born 1872)
Assaf Zeinally (born 1909, "untimely death")

Most of the biographies are short; those considered worthy of more than two pages were just Prokofiev and Shostakovitch. The author of the book was Igor Fedorovich Boelza (born 1904), whose own works are described as "atonal and polyphonic". The translator was Alan Bush, an English communist composer of revolutionary songs and opera.

I wonder why Nikolai Roslavets is missing?

[Hovite]

I wonder why Nikolai Roslavets is missing?

Because he was "a formalist, class enemy, Trotskyite and anti-Soviet".

http://www.naxos.com/composerinfo/Nikolay_Andreyevich_Roslavets/16334.htm

Or, to put it another way, he did not compose in the required Soviet Realist style. Stalin wanted music that he could hum.

The biography of Shostakovitch in the Handbook of Soviet Musicians contains this explanation:

"In the beginning of 1936 there appeared in Pravda critical articles on Lady Macbeth and on the then recently completed ballet Clear Brooks. These articles contained a number of interesting statements of principle on the subject of the realistic orientation of Soviet art, and a warning against the danger of even the most talented artists succumbing to the temptation of destroying the realities of life in their creative work. Realism in art can have an infinite variety of forms of expression and styles — both 'right' and 'left' — but will admit of no falsehood. Innovations in art must be warranted by a new intrinsic element in the creative work, and not be a mere predominance of a formal novelty. The foundation of truthfulness in art lies in the close bond between the artist and contemporary life."

Shostakovitch supposedly heeded the warning: "he abandoned the expressionist grotesque, the formalistic 'aberrations' of youth".

[ahinton]

Sorabji is fascinating but he often makes absurd demands on listeners and performers (the 2nd organ symphony lasts 6 hours - and the 3rd one even longer!).

The first symphony is around two hours, the third is anticipated to be around 6½ hours and the second, due for its world première on 6 June 2010 in the Memorial chapel of Glasgow University, is anticipated to come in at around 8 hours. The demands that the composer placed on listeners and performers may perhaps be judged by the fact that some 70 or so of his 100+ works have been performed in around 30 countries and there are more than 30 CDs of his works around.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Sorabji was his own worst enemy.

Unproven and unexplained.

He seems to have gone out of his way to make his works unperformable.

He "went out of his way" to do no such thing, actually.

Not only were they enormously long

Some are indeed so, yet around two thirds of his pieces would fit into a conventional length concert programme.

but he actually banned any performances for 40 years (1936 to 1976)

Not true.

Besides his solo piano works (which apparently include a concerto and six symphonies), there are three organ symphonies, and two symphonies for piano, organ, chorus, and orchestra.

Full details at www.sorabji-archive.co.uk.