Lesser known Russian/Soviet composers

[dhibbard]

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=585133162&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS992US992&tbm=vid&sxsrf=AM9HkKk58lKT73nwzTKLg-NDddcdEkS1iQ:1700861851576&q=Tiina+lydia+auster&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrh-aTzN2CAxUzkGoFHeKOA78Q8ccDegQIERAJ&biw=1536&bih=707&dpr=1.25#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d2cf1093,vid:uZo6OFO4ezw,st:0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R0B7sTJ-M0&t=11s

[Roy Bland]

Russian Organ
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1525896954403949/?locale=en_GB

[Symphonic Addict]

Listened to the symphonies 1 and 3 by Orest Yevlakhov (1912-1973) from these recordings, his only symphonies that are available on record. Two works very of their time (1946 and 1967 respectively), pretty brooding in nature and interesting overall. The 3rd made a more impactful impression on me, a seriously good piece.

[Roy Bland]

A directory on composer Bashkir/Chuvash etc..........................
https://ppt-online.org/782835

[pjme]

Andrey Filippovich Pashchenko (1885-1972) was a Russian composer, born in Rostov-on-Don. According to some sources he was born in 1883, according to others in 1885. In any case, he was a contemporary of Mikhail Bulgakov. He studied composition with Maximilian Oseevich Steinberg at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Petrograd, where he graduated in 1917. He moved to Moscow in 1961.

This 1923 "Mystery" for Theremin and orchestra may well be the first concertante work for this instrument and orchestra. The video features a rehearsal ....

Anyway, an interesting bit of "futuristic" music from the Roaring Twenties .  Theremin today + Pashchenko

[Cato]

Andrey Filippovich Pashchenko (1885-1972) was a Russian composer, born in Rostov-on-Don. According to some sources he was born in 1883, according to others in 1885. In any case, he was a contemporary of Mikhail Bulgakov. He studied composition with Maximilian Oseevich Steinberg at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Petrograd, where he graduated in 1917. He moved to Moscow in 1961.

This 1923 "Mystery" for Theremin and orchestra may well be the first concertante work for this instrument and orchestra. The video features a rehearsal ....

Anyway, an interesting bit of "futuristic" music from the Roaring Twenties .  Theremin today + Pashchenko

Many thanks for the information and the links!

[Cato]

Andrey Filippovich Pashchenko (1885-1972) was a Russian composer, born in Rostov-on-Don. According to some sources he was born in 1883, according to others in 1885. In any case, he was a contemporary of Mikhail Bulgakov. He studied composition with Maximilian Oseevich Steinberg at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Petrograd, where he graduated in 1917. He moved to Moscow in 1961.

This 1923 "Mystery" for Theremin and orchestra may well be the first concertante work for this instrument and orchestra. The video features a rehearsal ....

Anyway, an interesting bit of "futuristic" music from the Roaring Twenties . 

Theremin today + Pashchenko

Pashchenko (His name is misspelled on YouTube) needs to be explored: A German website lists 15 symphonies, 9 operas, tone-poems, movie scores, etc.

Not much information on him, and YouTube only offers the Theremin-decorated tone-poem above. 

Did Melodiya really not record much of his music?

He died in 1972. 

[T. D.]

Pashchenko (His name is misspelled on YouTube) needs to be explored: A German website lists 15 symphonies, 9 operas, tone-poems, movie scores, etc.

Not much information on him, and YouTube only offers the Theremin-decorated tone-poem above. 

Did Melodiya really not record much of his music?

He died in 1972. 

Is "Paschenko" really a misspelling? The Cyrillic character(Щ щ) is generally transcribed as "sch" these days, e.g. Konstantin Scherbakov, although Rodion Shchedrin sticks to the old way. I check for both when careful.

[Cato]

Is "Paschenko" really a misspelling? The Cyrillic character(Щ щ) is generally transcribed as "sch" these days, e.g. Konstantin Scherbakov, although Rodion Shchedrin sticks to the old way. I check for both when careful.

I was taught that it was a definite sh-ch sound, and not just "Sh", i.e. it was parallel with the "szcz" in Polish.

"Sch" in German of course is simply "Sh" in English.

[Cato]

Andrey Filippovich Pashchenko (1885-1972) was a Russian composer, born in Rostov-on-Don. According to some sources he was born in 1883, according to others in 1885. In any case, he was a contemporary of Mikhail Bulgakov. He studied composition with Maximilian Oseevich Steinberg at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Petrograd, where he graduated in 1917. He moved to Moscow in 1961.

This 1923 "Mystery" for Theremin and orchestra may well be the first concertante work for this instrument and orchestra. The video features a rehearsal ....

Anyway, an interesting bit of "futuristic" music from the Roaring Twenties .  Theremin today + Pashchenko

The work needs a better recording, nevertheless Pashchenko comes through as a composer worthy of our time!

The Theremin player is Olesya Rostovskaya who is also a composer: this is her Meditation in Memoriam Albert Leman for Theremin and Orchestra.

...and...


Gloria from her Missa Paschalis Electronica: a choir is involved, along with bells and percussion, and what sounds like a circus calliope!    

[ultralinear]

Pashchenko (His name is misspelled on YouTube) needs to be explored: A German website lists 15 symphonies, 9 operas, tone-poems, movie scores, etc.

Not much information on him, and YouTube only offers the Theremin-decorated tone-poem above. 

Did Melodiya really not record much of his music?

He died in 1972. 

He appears to have been another casualty - professionally at least - of the official doctrine of Socialist Realism.

Boris Schwarz's Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970 - published in 1972, when the Soviet Union and its policies were still very much in evidence - mentions him only once:

Among the early - often immature - attempts at creating a "Soviet" opera, two works, both staged in 1925, achieved more than passing attention - Orlinyi Bunt (Eagles in Revolt) by Andrei Pashchenko and Dekabristy (The Decembrists) by Vassily Zolotarev.

Pashchenko's opera was given for the first time at Leningrad's Maryinsky Theatre on 7 November 1925, the Eighth Anniversary of the Revolution.  The hero was the eighteenth-century cossack Emelian Pugachev who, in 1773-75, led the peasant uprising against Catherine II and was executed in 1775. Though the musical idiom was essentially traditional, the score found a strong defender in the unpredictable Asafiev.  Despite undeniable weaknesses, Orlinyi Bunt remained in the repertoire for some ten years and was performed in twenty-four cities.

From the contemporary documents in Marina Frolova-Walker's excellent Music and Soviet Power 1917-1932, he appears to have played a prominent role in Leningrad's music world through the 1920s - excerpts from Orlinyi Bunt were included in the Third Musical Olympiad in 1929, held in a stadium before an audience of 70,000 and featuring 5,000 performers - and it may have been that prominence, rather than anything in the music, which did for him when the iron fist came down, and anything and anyone associated with modernism was subject to official condemnation.  Books that cover this period are a roll call of now-forgotten composers and their works.

[Cato]

He appears to have been another casualty - professionally at least - of the official doctrine of Socialist Realism.

Boris Schwarz's Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970 - published in 1972, when the Soviet Union and its policies were still very much in evidence - mentions him only once:

From the contemporary documents in Marina Frolova-Walker's excellent Music and Soviet Power 1917-1932, he appears to have played a prominent role in Leningrad's music world through the 1920s - excerpts from Orlinyi Bunt were included in the Third Musical Olympiad in 1929, held in a stadium before an audience of 70,000 and featuring 5,000 performers - and it may have been that prominence, rather than anything in the music, which did for him when the iron fist came down, and anything and anyone associated with modernism was subject to official condemnation. Books that cover this period are a roll call of now-forgotten composers and their works.

The work above for Theremin and Orchestra has a foot in Scriabin's world: what a tragedy!  That era's effects on bodies and souls have been hellish.

[AnotherSpin]

The work above for Theremin and Orchestra has a foot in Scriabin's world: what a tragedy!  That era's effects on bodies and souls have been hellish.

Every era is hellish in Russia.

[pjme]

a circus calliope!

had to find out what it was :

[Cato]

Concerning a "circus calliope"... 

had to find out what it was :

It did not strike me that the circus calliope might have been an American phenomenon: it has a certain comical sound, but perhaps that comes from its association with the circus.

[Roy Bland]

Shirvani Chalayev
https://audio-paladin.ru/?mp3=%D0%A8%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8+%D0%A7%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2&ysclid=lr7a13sg1m817657739

[Cato]

Shirvani Chalayev

https://audio-paladin.ru/?mp3=%D0%A8%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8+%D0%A7%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2&ysclid=lr7a13sg1m817657739

I think the link might be broken, or at least it does not work for me.

These two minutes are the only thing I can find on YouTube:

[T. D.]

Long ago I purchased this obscure disc, which is not bad.

Not the conductor Lazarev but Eduard, a Moldovan (pre-USSR breakup).
Don't see his name upthread.
Will move this post if I find a Moldovan thread.

[AnotherSpin]

I think the link might be broken, or at least it does not work for me.

These two minutes are the only thing I can find on YouTube:

Quite funny. A representative of yet another nation invaded by the Russians is classed as a Russian/Soviet composer. What's more, the youtube link is to no thing other than the anthem of Dagestan....  

By the way, Dagestan was the birthplace of the great fighter against the Russians, Imam Shamil, who was one of the most important leaders of the North Caucasus resistance to the Russian opressors.

[Roy Bland]

I think the link might be broken, or at least it does not work for me.

These two minutes are the only thing I can find on YouTube:

Link works i checked and add "Cossack" opera of this interesting composer