GMG Classical Music Forum

The Music Room => Composer Discussion => Topic started by: Sandra on June 05, 2011, 04:26:38 AM

Title: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: Sandra on June 05, 2011, 04:26:38 AM
Revol Bunin (1924-76)

A brilliant Russian composer I never heard of! (The internet is a great place to discover new music.)

He was one of Shostakovich's most successful students. I read a very touching fact about him on Wikipedia. Turns out he wrote a lot of music for other "composers" who got the credit themselves and some of them won Stalin Prizes. He was basically a hired hand for more accepted composers, because he couldn't cope with the system and the bureaucrats.

Not much of his stuff is available, but here's a lovely piece (you can tell Shostakovich's influence right away).

http://www.youtube.com/v/ipQqBvmqi9s
Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: cilgwyn on June 05, 2011, 08:53:49 AM
No replies yet? I quite like Khrennikov (his music NOT him!) and Lyatoshinsky,so why not Bunin? I remember a cd,which included a Bunin symphony (or two?) being given an enthusiastic review on Musicweb quite a whilwe back now. Maybe it's still there,although the cd has been deleted. I also recall seeing Melodiya Lp's of Bunin in the old Collets & Russian Record Company Catalogue years ago & wondering if they were worth buying. The Mongolian composer Gonchiksumla (spelling?) was another!
  Unfortunately,second tier Soviet composers of this kind tend to get negative responses from Forum users & Western European cd/record buyers,partly because we fail to understand the system under which these composers laboured,partly because we are so used to writing,composing,painting or saying anything we like. Also because we are hard wired to hate or feel contempt for any kind of system other than our own,particularly if it's 'communist'. The fact that the Soviet Union weren't Communist and never have been and that they just hijacked an ideology as a cover for a brutal dictatorship is neither here nor there to these people.
Take Lev Knipper for example. A capable but not first rate composer who was favoured & highly regarded by the Soviet authorities. A composer of twenty symphonies amongst numerous other works,yet rubbished in the West on the basis of his Fourth Symphony. This is a populist work written to please the authorities & I would be the last person to say that it is a good piece of music.In fact,as a symphony,it's pretty awful. But, the fact that it isn't very good doesn't mean that every one of Knipper's remaining nineteen symphonies are all rubbish. I mean,let's face it,we don't judge Shostakovich or Prokofiev on the basis of their propaganda output,do we? (Although, I very much doubt that anything in Knipper's output approaches their level of inspiration) Also,the only other cd of Knipper's extensive output available (his eighth & Violin Concerto) is so badly performed and recorded it really doesn't do much to improve our picture of this neglected but once lauded composer. Furthermore,while Knipper doesn't sound like the nicest of people,I rather doubt that even a composer as favoured as he was could write exactly the sort of music he wanted to. I mean,let's face it,we're dealing with a system that couldn't even handle the Beatles!
Fortunately the fall of the USSR gave them the Cheeky girls!!!

PS: I'm not a Communist!

Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: eyeresist on June 05, 2011, 05:41:00 PM
Communists wrote the awesomest music! The devil has the best tunes, after all.

Link to the musicweb review:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/feb99/russian.htm
Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: Sandra on June 05, 2011, 10:05:55 PM
Quote from: cilgwyn on June 05, 2011, 08:53:49 AM

Take Lev Knipper for example. A capable but not first rate composer who was favoured & highly regarded by the Soviet authorities. A composer of twenty symphonies amongst numerous other works,yet rubbished in the West on the basis of his Fourth Symphony.
Fortunately the fall of the USSR gave them the Cheeky girls!!!

PS: I'm not a Communist!

Wow! I didn't know Knipper until now. Thank you. I checked his stuff out and he certainly sounded more imaginative than Kabalevsky, for instance. As a big fan of Russian music, I may be biased to favor this kind of stuff, I admit.

BTW, nothing in your post suggested that you might be a communist. Why justify yourself?!  :D
Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: Sandra on June 05, 2011, 10:09:05 PM
Quote from: eyeresist on June 05, 2011, 05:41:00 PM
Communists wrote the awesomest music! The devil has the best tunes, after all.

Link to the musicweb review:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/feb99/russian.htm

I know you're joking, but we have to learn to understand the difference between people who live and work in a communist societies and people who use the ideal of communism to maintain power and restrict freedom.
Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: cilgwyn on June 06, 2011, 02:50:34 AM
Thank you 'eyeresist' for you're help in providing the link. That is the very cd I was referring to. I remember my Collets and Russian Record Company catalogues,big fat things,full of stuff like that,most of it unavailable now. If you sent off for one you could be waiting for months. The compensation was waiting for you're Melodiya Lp to arrive from behind 'enemy lines'. Unfortunately,as a teenager,with only so much pocket money,I had to resist most of it.
I wonder if there will ever be a cd box set of all twenty Lev Knipper symphonies and whether it will be worth the outlay of buying it? The Fourth symphony is a bit of a 'howler' & I believe you can  listen to it, for free, online.
Must say,you've got to love that name. Lev Knipper! Cool man!
It would be interesting to see some of Melodiya's more esoteric back catalogue being released,somehow. The revived Melodiya label seem more interested in reissuing their more mainstream fare. But perhaps they'll get around to it.


Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: Roy Bland on January 29, 2020, 05:46:43 PM
A cd with his  music:
(https://www.russiandvd.com/image/cache/catalog/products/59950-500x500.jpg)
Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: Irons on January 30, 2020, 12:44:32 AM
As Sandra said in the opening post Bunin was a student of Shostakovich. He must have hung on to the great man's every word, but not only that, he grew to look like him! The 8th Symphony proves he is a fine composer in his own right.

(https://i.imgur.com/9dR0vph.jpg)
Title: Re: Revol Bunin (1924-76)
Post by: relm1 on January 30, 2020, 05:41:08 AM
Quote from: Irons on January 30, 2020, 12:44:32 AM
As Sandra said in the opening post Bunin was a student of Shostakovich. He must have hung on to the great man's every word, but not only that, he grew to look like him! The 8th Symphony proves he is a fine composer in his own right.

(https://i.imgur.com/9dR0vph.jpg)

What the hell, he looks just like Shostakovich!  They most have shopped at the same manic soviet composer fashion store.

(https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2012/338/953_135469071208.jpg)