Chevengur: Russian Music after Communism

Galina Ustvolskaya: Symphony No. 4
Aleksey Syumak: Letters Without words *
Vladimir Tarnopolski: Chevengur *
Dmitry Kourliandski: Innermost Man *
Aleksandr Vustin: Chevengur's Songs *
Alla Kesselman: Islands of Silence *
Vladimir Nikolaeyev: Quick Amokus *

* indicates a UK premiere

Studio for New Music, Moscow, conducted by Igor Dronov
Friday, 24th May 2002 - Jacqueline du Pre Music Building, Oxford

Summary for Those Who Weren't There: exceptional musicianship
communicates!

In the continuing series of performances of new Russian music offered by
Oxford Contemporary Music 2002, this concert reminded me forcefully of one
fundamental truth.  No matter how good a recording you listen to, there is
absolutely no substitute for seeing and hearing the music live if you want
to experience the full gamut of the composer's intent.  I say 'seeing' as
well as hearing advisedly, for as you will see below, some of these pieces
approach musical theatre in their performance requirements.  As one
commentator at the concert had it - "If I had been given a CD of these
works I doubt whether I would have listened to the end - but I am really
glad I came to see this tonight." This was a rich and densely packed
evening's entertainment, with some truly wonderfully talented musicians
providing translation facilities for the less well educated.

The evening began with a brief discourse and a conversation with
composer Vladimir Tarnopolski, Artistic Director of the Studio for New
Music, examining the importance for Russian composers of the writing
of Andrey Platonov.  Described in the programme notes as "...one of the
greatest writers of the first half of the 20th century...", Platonov seems
to have been very much a diamond in the rough, eschewing the formality and
elegance of traditional literary expression for a more earthy, vernacular
and spiritual approach to story-telling.  Tarnopolski claims Platonov was
the inspiration he needed in order to break the mould of his 'Soviet'
artistic training and head off in new directions - searching for The
Truth as well as truth!  The language is apparently very dense and rich -
difficult even for Russians to read - but the intent of the author is to
provide perceptions of reality through an alternative language and in this
I suppose he is no different from our own Dylan Thomas or James Joyce,
both of whose literary works have inspired similarly exploratory musical
offerings.  This seems to be an author who, as an inspirational source,
deserves further investigation on behalf of understanding 'new' Russian
music more fully.

Ustvolskaya was one of only two composers known to me before the concert
(the other being Tarnopolski) and I thought I knew what to expect.  But
even this foundation of 'knowledge' was to be denied me, since to my
surprise only five musicians mounted the stage for the performance of
her Symphony No. 4 - and one of those was the conductor!  A student of
Shostakovich, Galina Ivanova Ustvolsakaya soon left his influence far
behind and, in the words of one critical essay, her work has "...remained
independent of current compositional techniques." Evidence of this abounds
in the symphony - both in choice of instrumentation and content.  Scored
for soprano, trumpet, piano and percussion, this is a brief excursion
into a sound world with three distinct components.  The soprano murmurs
(but occasionally blares forth unexpectedly) to a text drawn from
mediaeval Latin literature - the content itself not important, but
the speaking/murmuring style of the voice acting as a critical part of
the unfolding counterpoint.  The principal musical motif is a slow and
plaintive three-note cry - rising in the piano when falling in the trumpet
and vice versa; simple, effective and eminently memorable.  The most
obvious departure from 'normal' music, however, is the pianist.  While the
right hand picks out the three-note motif, the left hand - or left fist,
forearm and elbow, more accurately - draw crashing, harsh but somehow
completely appropriate dissonance from the instrument's lower register.
This was a powerful rendition - with minute forces - of a fabulously
interesting piece of musical expression that has immediately gone to an
'I want a recording of this' list.

Syumak's Letters Without Words creeps up on you, starting as it does
with mosquito-like murmurings in the upper strings - I would imagine marked
ppppp.  This was the first example of a theme that would run through the
evening and reinforce the impression of the skill of these musicians - the
ability to make even the quietest sound penetrate throughout the hall.
Harmonics played right up at the bridge are a feature of this work (as,
indeed, of several others during the concert), and these are punctuated by
rude blats of sound from the brass, piano and bass drum.  Having crept up
on you at the beginning, these sudden events are the sonic equivalent of
being mugged by stealth - so unexpected are they.  There is some relentless
horsetrading for thematic material between the instruments and an
impassioned percussion cadenza featuring a virtuoso performance on
woodblocks.  This is also the first time I have noticed the effort it takes
a flautist to bend notes.  An altogether impressive piece of atmospheric
music, with its chief memorable component being an exercise in
inaudibility, Letters was written in 2001 when Syumak was a 25-year-old
student at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire.  And for a work only a year old,
the scores are in terribly battered condition, hopefully a testament to the
number of performances they see.

Tarnopolski's Chevengur was undoubtedly the intellectual heavyweight of
the evening and demands tremendous flexibility from the small forces it
is written for, with several players doubling up on instruments.  The
full scoring is soprano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, percussion,
clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, bass flute, piccolo, trombone and
accordion.  The strings literally drag sound from their instruments,
producing a grating background against which the soprano squeaks, sneezes
and wails her way to prominence, with several incredibly demanding
glissandos.  Soloist Svetlana Savenko (who struck me as a Russian version
of Edith Piaf throughout the evening) demonstrated the incredible range and
versatility required of a vocalist performing this type of music - and did
it faultlessly.  Fleeting impressions of orchestral texture include a real
siren sound achieved in the trombone and some brutal punctuating chords
from the accordion.  As if their playing was not enough, Tarnopolski calls
on the musicians to join their voices to the mix as well!  Truly a piece
that demands great study, Chevengur is based on Platonov's anti-utopian
novel of the same name.

Kourliandski is another student in his mid-twenties, this time from the
Moscow Conservatoire, having studied with Louis Andriessen, among others,
and winner of a diploma from the All-Russia Competition of Young Composers
in 1999.  His The Innermost Man is also based on Platonov's writing - from
his novels Chevengur and Kotlovan - and is music from the depths of the
asylum.  The pianist spends far more of his time with hands inside the
piano than on the keyboard, the brass players achieve percussive effects by
slapping their open palms on their mouthpieces and the percussionist plays
his cymbal with what appeared to be a double bass bow.  The players indulge
the composer's obvious sense of whimsical adventure by parading round the
stage - the trombone player looking like some great brass pachyderm - and
the horn player and trombone swap instruments at one point!  This is a work
of tremendous imagination and lyricism, though I couldn't help feeling the
soprano was a little lost amid the chaos from time to time.  She does,
however, literally have the last word - a most effective little sigh after
the music has finally ground to a halt.  Kourliandski, I suspect, is a
composer to be watched.

At the outset of the evening, Tarnopolski had told us that Aleksandr
Vustin had come closest, in his opinion, to providing a universally
acceptable musical translation for Platonov's writing.  In Chevengur Songs,
written in 2001, he certainly provides a titanic backdrop to the densely
Russian emotion of lyrics such as "Our turn to die came long ago - It's
shame to live, it's sad being dead." Scored for soprano, accordion,
clarinet, viola, cello and double bass, this work puts huge demands on the
soloist, which Svetlana Savenko met seemingly effortlessly.  From softly
lyrical passages to huge explosions of sound at both ends of the register
- sung without the benefit of any orchestral backing in the third and final
song - her performance was a tour de force that reminded the audience
forcefully of the long traditions of Russian song.  Especially attractive
in the middle of this work is a completely seamless hand-off of melody from
soprano to clarinet.

"The musical staff is the rainbow of silence" is the quote heading the
title page of Islands of Silence.  Composer Alla Kesselman, a student of
Tarnopolski's, was commissioned to write this work by Belgian ensemble
Oxalys in 1999 and has produced a work of intensely concentrated beauty in
a very short space of time.  Scored for piano, flute, clarinet, violin,
viola and cello, it consists of isolated 'raindrops' of sound falling into
the practically still waters of almost inaudible harmonics.  These isolated
sounds then seem to radiate - like circular waves in a pond - until they
encounter competition in the form of an intricate pizzicato counterpoint
or other, less traditional sounds like those caused by bouncing the wooden
edge of the bow off the strings, or tapping the body of the flute with the
open palm.  This is a truly fascinating work, which among other things
succeeds in a tremendously realistic impression of birdsong in the string
writing.

The closing piece, Nikolayev's Quick Amokus, is an exercise in producing
the most unlikely sounds possible from each instrument.  The flute produces
an asthmatic wheezing but no musical sound - until tempted into competition
with the horn to see which can produce the loudest note lasting less than
a quarter second.  The horn itself produces an astonishing variety of
strangled sounds until lured into the same competition.  The pianist runs
rapidly up and down the entire length of the keyboard, without depressing
a single key except occasionally, producing thereby an exceptionally
attractive rustling sound underpinning the anarchy reigning supreme
elsewhere in the orchestra.  There is huge room for comedy in this piece -
of which the players availed themselves eagerly with voice and instrument,
bringing to an enthusiastically-appreciated close an evening of education
and entertainment that was truly revealing.  Anybody doubting the health
and vitality of the musical world in the post-Soviet Russian Federation can
rest assured.  The legacy of Glinka, Balakirev, Glazunov, Shostakovich,
Prokofiev and Schnittke is being well cared for by a vibrant, talented and
committed group of composers, supported and interpreted by extraordinarily
capable musicians, of which the Studio for New Music is a prime example.

Tim Mahon
[log in to unmask]