Great Russian composers. Contemporary classical composers

The 20th century was quite fruitful for music. Music underwent various changes and was influenced by many events that took place at that time. Wars and revolutions had a rather tangible effect on musical works. In addition, another important factor was the emergence of cinema. In this regard, many Soviet composers of the 20th century took up writing music for various films and achieved excellent results in this area. Many Soviet composers of the 20th century became true professionals in the field of writing music for films. True, they have not yet passed, for the most part, sufficient test of time to be classified as "classical music". At this time, the Soviet composer M. Tariverdiev worked. The composer wrote musical accompaniment for such films as, for example, "The Deer King", "Love", "Irony of Fate". Then Doga worked. E.D. Doga is a Moldovan Soviet composer who wrote music for many famous films. Among them: "The camp goes to the sky", "Boulevard novel" and others. However, composers of the 20th century are by no means only composers famous for film music. The names of such composers as Kalman, Khachaturian, Puccini, Prokofiev, Debussy, Rachmaninoff are known to many connoisseurs of good music.

Such a rich repertoire is available only in the theater of the Moscow Council, although other theaters are also okay.

Rachmaninov's talent manifested itself early and brightly. By the time he graduated from the conservatory, he was already the author of several compositions, among which are the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor, the First Piano Concerto, and the opera Aleko. The Fantasy Pieces that followed them, the Suite for Two Pianos, "Musical Moments", romances - confirmed the opinion of Rachmaninov as a strong, deep, original talent. Decisive and powerful in performance and creativity, Rachmaninoff was by nature a vulnerable person, often experiencing self-doubt. The severe shock caused by the failure of his First Symphony in 1897 led to a creative crisis. For several years, Rachmaninoff did not compose anything, but his performing activity as a pianist became more active, and he made his debut as a conductor. Only in the early 1900s did Rachmaninov return to creativity. The new century began with the brilliant Second Piano Concerto. Contemporaries heard in him the voice of Time with its tension, explosiveness, and a sense of impending changes. A new stage begins in the life of Rachmaninoff. Rachmaninov's pianistic and conducting activities are universally recognized in Russia and abroad; in 1909 he composed his brilliant Third Piano Concerto. At the end of 1917, Rachmaninov and his family left Russia, as it turned out, forever. He lived in the USA for more than a quarter of a century, and this period was mostly full of exhausting concert activity, subject to the cruel laws of the music business. The first years of his stay abroad, Rachmaninov did not leave the thought of the loss of creative inspiration: "Having left Russia, I lost the desire to compose. Having lost my homeland, I lost myself." Only 8 years after leaving abroad, Rachmaninoff returns to creativity, creates the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Third Symphony, "Symphonic Dances". These works are the last, highest rise of Rachmaninoff. A mournful feeling of irreparable loss, a burning longing for Russia gives rise to an art of enormous tragic power, reaching its climax in the "Symphonic Dances". So through all the works of Rachmaninoff he carries the inviolability of his ethical principles, high spirituality, fidelity and inescapable love for the Motherland, the personification of which was his art.

Unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries, Chopin composed almost exclusively for the piano. He left no opera, no symphony or overture. All the more striking is the talent of the composer, who managed to create so many bright, new things in the field of piano music.

The concept of "composer" first appeared in the 16th century in Italy, and since then it has been used to refer to a person who composes music.

19th century composers

In the 19th century, the Viennese School of Music was represented by such an outstanding composer as Franz Peter Schubert. He continued the tradition of romanticism and influenced a whole generation of composers. Schubert created over 600 German romances, taking the genre to a new level.

Franz Peter Schubert

Another Austrian, Johann Strauss, became famous for his operettas and light musical forms of dance character. It was he who made the waltz the most popular dance in Vienna, where balls are still held. In addition, his legacy includes polkas, quadrilles, ballets and operettas.

Johann Strauss

A prominent representative of modernism in the music of the late 19th century was the German Richard Wagner. His operas have not lost their relevance and popularity to this day.

Giuseppe Verdi

Wagner can be contrasted with the majestic figure of the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, who remained true to operatic traditions and gave Italian opera a new breath.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Among the Russian composers of the 19th century, the name of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky stands out. He is characterized by a unique style that combines European symphonic traditions with Glinka's Russian heritage.

Composers of the 20th century

Sergei Vasilyevich Rahmaninov

One of the brightest composers of the late 19th - early 20th centuries is rightfully considered Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov. His musical style was based on the traditions of romanticism and existed in parallel with the avant-garde movements. It was for his individuality and the absence of analogues that his work was highly appreciated by critics around the world.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky

The second most famous composer of the 20th century is Igor Fedorovich Stravinsky. Russian by origin, he emigrated to France, and then to the USA, where he showed his talent to the fullest. Stravinsky is an innovator, not afraid to experiment with rhythms and styles. In his work, the influence of Russian traditions, elements of various avant-garde movements and a unique individual style can be traced, for which he is called "Picasso in Music".

People's Artist of the USSR,
laureate of the Lenin
and State Prizes

When asked what he dreams of, Rodion Konstantinovich replied: “So that the Lord gives me one more life - so many interesting and wonderful things in the world.”

Born December 16, 1932 in Moscow. Father - Shchedrin Konstantin Mikhailovich, theoretical musician, teacher, musical figure. Mother - Shchedrina Concordia Ivanovna (nee Ivanova). Wife - Maya Plisetskaya, prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater of Russia, People's Artist of the USSR, laureate of the Lenin Prize.

Shchedrin is one of the largest and most famous composers of the second half of the 20th century. Possessing a sharp modern musical language, he was able to create works accessible to a wide range of listeners. A deliberate anti-avant-garde attitude towards the listener permeates Shchedrin's work throughout his life: "great music must have a large audience." At the same time, he more widely than any of the composers of his generation developed Russian themes in his work: his operas and ballets were written almost exclusively on the plots of the largest Russian writers - N. Gogol, A. Chekhov, L. Tolstoy, V. Nabokov, N. Leskova, he is the author of the choral Russian liturgy "The Sealed Angel", concertos for the orchestra "Naughty ditties", "Rings", "Round dances", "Four Russian songs", etc.

As a future musician and Russian composer, Rodion Shchedrin was decisively influenced by his family. His grandfather was an Orthodox priest in the city of Aleksin, Tula province, and the parishioners dubbed the path to the church where he served the service "Shchedrinka". The composer's father, K. M. Shchedrin, was born in the village of Vorottsy, Tula province, spent his childhood in Aleksin. He was gifted with rare musical abilities - a "tape" memory (he memorized music from one time), absolute pitch. His abilities were noticed by the actress V.N. Pashennaya, who came to the city, who at her own expense sent the boy to Moscow, where he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory.

R. Shchedrin was surrounded by music since childhood: he heard his father play the violin, an instrumental trio consisting of his father and his brothers. In 1941 he was sent to the Central Ten-Year Music School at the Moscow Conservatory. In reality, he began to study piano privately with M. L. Gekhtman. But the Great Patriotic War began, and many schools in Moscow were closed. In October 1941, the Shchedrin family was evacuated to Kuibyshev, a city of highly classified administrative significance. There was also D. Shostakovich, who completed his famous Seventh Symphony; young Rodion had a chance to hear it at the dress rehearsal conducted by S. Samosud. The Bolshoi Theater was also evacuated there. D. Shostakovich and K. Shchedrin worked in the Union of Composers, the first - as chairman, the second - as executive secretary. Shostakovich carefully helped the Shchedrin family in difficult domestic and other circumstances.

When the opportunity arose to return to Moscow, Rodion was again sent to the Central Music School (1943). But the boy had already developed his own ideas about life: he was not interested in scales at a music school, but in real, serious matters. He twice ran away to the front, and the second time he got from Moscow to Kronstadt. After that, the parents did not find anything better than to assign their son to the Nakhimov Naval School in Leningrad - and sent his documents there.

Meanwhile, an event occurred that ultimately led to the appearance of the composer Rodion Shchedrin. In late 1944 - early 1945, a new educational institution was opened in the USSR - the Moscow Choir School (boys). Its founder and first director, the famous choirmaster A. Sveshnikov, invited Father R. Shchedrin there to teach music history and musical-theoretical subjects, and he, in turn, asked to take his son to study. Rodion had absolute pitch, a fairly acceptable voice, and he was finally determined by the musical specialty (December 1944).

At the Choir School, for a boy who had already seen something, a sphere opened up that he did not suspect. Later, R. Shchedrin recalled: "Singing in the choir captured me, touched some deep inner strings ... And my first composing experiments (as well as the experiments of my comrades) were connected with the choir." (Rodion Shchedrin. Conversation with L. Grigoriev and J. Platek // Musical Life, 1975, No. 2, p. 6). The whole history of this art was sung in the choir class: from the 16th-century "strict style" masters Josquin de Pres, Palestrina, Orlando Lasso to Russian sacred music - Chesnokov, Grechaninov, Kastalsky, Rachmaninov.

The composition of music was not specially taught at the school, however, the high total musical training allowed students to make experiments in musical composition. To encourage their work, Sveshnikov gave the opportunity to immediately perform his compositions. In 1947, a competition for composition works was held at the Choir School. The jury, headed by A. Khachaturian, awarded the first prize to R. Shchedrin, and this was his first notable success in this field.

At the Choir School. Sitting (from right to left): I. Kozlovsky, director of the school, A. V. Sveshnikov with teachers of the school. Far right (standing) - the composer's father, K. M. Shchedrin. Behind the piano is the future composer. 1947

The students of the Choral School had the opportunity to meet with the greatest musicians: D. Shostakovich, A. Khachaturian, I. Kozlovsky, G. Ginzburg, S. Richter, E. Gilels, J. Flier. “In our school there was a suffocating passion for music, including the pianoforte,” recalled Shchedrin. His piano teacher was the famous teacher G. Dinor, who assigned his students works of deliberately overestimated complexity. As a result, at the end of the school, Rodion had a program worthy of a concert pianist (Bach fugues, virtuoso pieces by Chopin and Liszt, Rakhmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini), but not done properly. The teacher, thinking about the admission of his student to the Moscow Conservatory, decided to show him to Professor J. Flier. From the performance of the program, he did not come to delight, but approved of Shchedrin's compositions and agreed to take him as his student.

In 1950, Shchedrin entered the Moscow Conservatory at the same time in two faculties - piano, in the class of J. Flier, and theoretical composition, in the class of Professor Yu. Shaporin in composition.

Classes with Yakov Vladimirovich Flier, where the "feast of music" reigned, were so fascinated by Shchedrin that he was thinking of parting with the specialty of composing, but the pianist teacher did not advise this. In the piano class, the rising musician not only acquired first-rate pianist art, but also made significant progress in his general musical tastes and knowledge. Shchedrin trusted his teacher so much that he was the first to demonstrate his new opuses both in his student years and in later years. According to the composer, Flier's piano endured the "blows" of all his major works. Shchedrin remained a professional pianist all his life, successfully performing on the concert stage with the performance of his technically difficult works.

In the composition class of Yuri Alexandrovich Shaporin, his human personality was attractive first of all - an erudite in Russian literature and poetry, a storyteller and wit, a man who communicated with A. Blok, A. N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, K. Fedin, A. Benois , K. Petrov-Vodkin. He did not impose on his students any one and only path, believing that in music there can and should be any kind of opposites.

Intensively developed at the Moscow Conservatory and such a fundamental area of ​​Shchedrin's interests as Russian folklore. Fundamentally alien to the ethnographic approach, Shchedrin managed to use folklore elements in an extremely original way throughout his entire creative career, organically fusing them with the latest composer finds in the musical world. And in this synthesis he has no equal in his generation. The obligatory subject for students-composers "Folk Art" required participation in folklore expeditions, with independent recordings of folk songs on a tape recorder. R. Shchedrin made a trip to the regions of the Vologda Oblast, which turned out to be extremely rich in ditties (the expedition leader recorded over a thousand of them). After all, the ditty not only entertained and developed the ability for instant improvisation, but was a biting feuilleton, a people's newspaper - everything that lived among the people, not fitting into the official ways of expressing opinions. Shchedrin carried his love for chastushka throughout his life: he called his First Concerto for Orchestra in 1963 "Naughty Chastushki", and in 1999 he presented its version - "Chatushki", a concerto for piano solo.

The whole sound environment of folklore turned out to be deeply close to Shchedrin, which he perceived both through trips to Aleksin, a city above the Oka, and through various trips "into the outback", hearing peasant singing and playing the pipes. "For me, folk art is a shepherd's cry, monophonic strumming of an accordion player, inspired improvisations of village mourners, tart male songs ..." (Rodion Shchedrin. Conversation with L. Grigoriev and J. Platek // Musical Life, 1975, No. 2 p. 54).

The first piano concerto, created by Shchedrin during his student days (1954), was, in turn, the work that created Shchedrin. It highlighted everything that was the personality of the author in his younger years and that sprouted later in his further work, including the motor skills of rhythm and tartly pointed "Russianisms". At the conservatory, he seemed too "formalistic". But one of the professors recommended that the Union of Composers include the concerto in the program of the next plenum. The author performed it with brilliance and soon received a letter that he, a 4th year student, was accepted into the Union of Composers (even without an application).

He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory Shchedrin in 1955, with honors, in two specialties - composition and piano. Further, until 1959, he completed postgraduate studies in composition with Y. Shaporin.

The year 1958 in Shchedrin's life was outlined as the most romantic and truly fateful: he married the ballerina Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya, who had already gained fame at that time. The history of their acquaintance was as follows. The composer visited the house of Lily Brik, Mayakovsky's muse in the past, and her husband, writer and literary critic V. Katanyan, for whose play "They knew Mayakovsky" he wrote music. Once, as a curiosity, the owners of the house gave him a tape to listen to, where Plisetskaya sang (!) the music of Prokofiev's ballet Cinderella. The composer was amazed: the most difficult melodies were reproduced exactly and in the appropriate keys.

Rodion and Maya first met in person when J. Philip was received in the same house. Shchedrin played a lot of his music, which captivated the audience. He, then a rare owner of his own car (purchased with a fee for the film "Height"), had the gallant duty to take the guests of honor home. Plisetskaya, saying goodbye, asked him to write down the theme from the film "Ramp Lights" for a ballet number from the disc (the number did not work later). They were finally brought together by the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse, which in 1958 decided to stage at the Bolshoi Theatre. Here, 25-year-old Shchedrin first saw Plisetskaya at a rehearsal, where she, for her part, brought down on him "a hurricane of Freudian motives." Although Plisetskaya was already gaining notable artistic fame, she was under great suspicion in the KGB, and the surveillance car constantly followed Shchedrin's new acquaintance. But no power had the power to separate them. After a paradise summer in Sortaval (House of Composers' Creativity) on Lake Ladoga, their honeymoon trip was a trip by Rodion's car from Moscow to Sochi via Tula, Kharkov, Rostov-on-Don and other cities. Due to an unregistered marriage, they were denied all hotels, and only a car served as a shelter. The marriage of Plisetskaya and Shchedrin was registered in Moscow on October 2, 1958. There were no children in this marriage - such was the great sacrifice of the great ballerina. But the unique "marriage in art" was preserved for life. All Shchedrin's ballets are connected with Plisetskaya's dance - and this is a whole ballet culture.

At the end of graduate school in 1959, Shchedrin had in his creative assets the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse (1955), piano compositions, choirs, and the First Symphony (1958). And these are not only the milestones of his biography. The Little Humpbacked Horse, in which Plisetskaya danced the Tsar Maiden, has become a regular performance for children and is still being staged at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater. In 1999, for a production at the Bolshoi Theater, the author made a new version of the ballet, which turned it into a dazzling Russian extravaganza (artist - B. Messerer). "Humoresque", infecting with a purely Shchedrinian "lukavinka", almost half a century later became a favorite concert "encore" (also in arrangements for various instruments). Thanks to such plays, at one time even the image of Shchedrin began to take shape as the embodiment of ebullient vitality, humor, and jokes in music. Shchedrin's well-known song from the music for the film "Vysota" (1957) - "The Cheerful March of High-Rise Installers", which became widely known, sounded in such a tone, and firmly rooted in mass hearing. These ideas about the composer were unexpectedly destroyed by the First Symphony, with its breakthrough into a harsh military tragedy, which caused great displeasure of critics ("one Shostakovich is enough for us").

The turbulent 60s of the domestic "sixties" came. During this decade, Shchedrin created his most performed work - the ballet "Carmen Suite", first turned to opera ("Not Only Love"), began a series of works in a genre to which he gave a new meaning - concertos for orchestra ("Naughty ditties" and "Rings"), composed two major oratorios ("Poetoria" and "Lenin in the heart of the people") and his most ambitious work for piano solo - 24 preludes and fugues, carried out a bold stylistic synthesis in the Second Piano Concerto. At the same time, he worked especially carefully on polyphony, the technique of series, and combinations of many musical themes. In parallel, he performed as a pianist and taught at the Moscow Conservatory.

The opera Not Only Love (1961, 2nd edition - 1971) was written based on the stories of S. Antonov, with the inclusion of ditty texts in the libretto; dedicated to M. Plisetskaya. “I am writing a collective-farm “Eugene Onegin,” the author said and compared the main character even with Carmen. In designing the opera for the Bolshoi Theater, he sought to get away from the monumental extras with banners then accepted on this stage into the chamber sphere, with the experiences of ordinary people. But although the premiere the performance was designed by the artist A. Tyshler, and conducted by E. Svetlanov, it was still not possible to break the customs of the theater. However, the productions of "Not Only Love" were held simultaneously in Perm and Novosibirsk. The adequacy of the concept and embodiment of Shchedrin's first opera was achieved much later - in the chamber , studio, student realizations.An important milestone was its appearance on the new theater stage - the Moscow Chamber Musical Theater directed by B. Pokrovsky, as the first performance of this theater (1972).

In Shchedrin's work, a bright streak of humor and satire, peculiar to him by nature, sets in: in 1963, the aforementioned Mischievous Chastushki (First Concerto for Orchestra) and Bureaucratiada (Spa Cantata) were published from his pen. In "Mischievous Chastushkas" the author reproduced by symphonic means the ditty manner of the alternate introduction of a new participant against the background of a continuous accordion tune. And it was a new musical form with a complex combination of not two or three themes, but about seventy. Not to the liking of academic orchestral musicians, Chastushki aroused ardent delight among the general public, especially on the periphery. Among the foreign musicians, they were played by the American conductor and composer L. Bernstein. The cantata "Bureaucratiade", written on the text of "Reminder to the Vacationer", full of fresh wit, was a satire on something more than the restrictive order in the boarding house. At the same time, it was an encyclopedia of modern composition - it absorbed techniques that remain new to this day.

The center of the composer's polyphonic work was a huge cycle for piano - 24 preludes and fugues (1963-64 - volume 1, 1964-70 - volume 2). A purely academic genre, established in his time by J. S. Bach, continued by D. Shostakovich, Shchedrin saturated with modern virtuosity and sophisticated writing technique. He himself became its first performer.

And just as before, the composer crossed out his humorous line with the purely tragic Second Symphony (1965), with echoes of the war (the roar of aircraft, the rattle of tank tracks, the groans of the wounded), with an epigraph from A. Tvardovsky "On the day the war ended" . At the same time, he again introduced a new symphonic form: 25 preludes (author's subtitle).

In 1966, Shchedrin embarked on an experiment that surpassed everything else in Soviet music in boldness. Possessing modern dodecaphone technique, he decided in the Second Piano Concerto (1966) to combine it with the diametrical opposite - the music of jazz improvisation. The Union of Composers did not support either one or the other, and the combination together gave such a flashy contrast that even the most left-wing colleagues argued about it. Life has proven the author right: the Second Concerto has become a classic studied in the history of music. The very same technique of polystylistics (and collage) used there then became a trend of the times for many Russian authors. Shchedrin resorted to it in the future.

Great Hall of the Conservatory. Premiere of the Second Piano Concerto. Soloist - author. 1966

In 1964-69 Shchedrin taught composition at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his students were O. Galakhov (later - the chairman of the Moscow Investigative Committee), B. Getselev, Bulgarian G. Minchev. The teacher was able to accurately "diagnose" the compositions of his students, taught, among other things, to skillfully build the dramaturgy of the whole. It is noteworthy that he considered the speed of composition to be an important ability. Shchedrin stopped working at the conservatory, having come into conflict with the party leaders of the theoretical and composing department.

Maya Plisetskaya - Carmen Suite (1978)

The ballet "Carmen Suite" (1967) outwardly arose as a result of the composer's emergency help to his wife, when she ignited with an irresistible desire to embody the image of Carmen in the choreography of the Cuban choreographer A. Alonso. In 20 days, Shchedrin created his famous transcription of numbers from G. Bizet's opera "Carmen", using not a symphony orchestra, but strings and 47 percussion instruments, achieving a fresh modern sound coloring. Plisetskaya danced the ballet about 350 times. "Carmen Suite" and now reigns all over the world, performed on stage, in concert or on the radio almost every day.

Shchedrin's long-standing friendship with the poet A. Voznesensky, who in the 1960s was the idol of Soviet youth, the kinship of their artistic worldview led to the appearance of "Poetoria" - a Concerto for a poet, a mixed choir and a symphony orchestra on his texts (1968). The poet himself acted here as a reader. Innovative, with rich alliterations, Voznesensky's poems ("I am Goya, I am Woe. I am a voice ...") were answered by Shchedrin's innovatively interpreted orchestra and choir, in methods close to the most leftist Polish finds. But Shchedrin deepened the style and concept of the work with his own personal musical techniques, especially the introduction of a kind of folk lament based on the famous songwriter L. Zykina.Discussion in the UK revealed the most controversial opinions about the work.

He was also in a difficult situation as a public figure. In 1968, he (like K. Simonov and A. Tvardovsky) refused to sign a letter in support of the entry of troops of the Warsaw Pact countries into Czechoslovakia. Radio station "Voice of America" ​​began to regularly broadcast about it, calling their names. Shchedrin was forced to compromise - in the form of the oratorio "Lenin in the Heart of the People" (1969), just as Shostakovich wrote "Song of the Forests" in his time. But unlike Shostakovich, Shchedrin never joined the CPSU. Avoiding a pompous tone, Shchedrin used everyday prose in his oratorio - the story of a Latvian shooter, a factory worker, in addition - the words of a contemporary storyteller M. Kryukova. And in terms of musical language he continued "Poetoria". The talented oratorio for the 100th anniversary of V. I. Lenin straightened the official position of the non-party author so much that he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1972) for it and the opera Not Only Love. Abroad, she had great success in Paris, London, Berlin.

Shchedrin's work of the 1970s and 1980s was marked by his constant artistic inventiveness, but did not contain those sharp stylistic turns depending on the changing fashion that became the lot of many composers in the West and in the USSR (leaps from avant-garde to "new simplicity" and to attempts to synthesize extremes). Elements of both avant-garde sophistication and folk simplicity have always coexisted in his music, and he constantly synthesized them. Back in the 60s, he formulated the thesis about his own path: "In art, one must go one's own way. It can be short, and long, and wide, and narrow, but it must be one's own" (Soviet music, 1963, No. 6 , p. 12). In keeping with his own composer's individuality, Shchedrin stood firmly in the center, still rising invisibly above the seething torrents of opposing currents.

In 1973, Shchedrin was elected to an important leadership position - chairman of the Union of Composers of the Russian Federation, to which he was blessed by D. Shostakovich, its founder and first chairman. In this capacity, he worked until 1990, voluntarily leaving him, after which he was left in the role of honorary chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee. The fact that for so many years a serious composer of an innovative orientation was at the head of a huge Russian composers' organization played an extremely progressive role. Great was his personal assistance - to composers, musicologists, conductors. “For a long time, Shchedrin headed the Union of Composers of Russia, and few people know how many young talents, outcasts, persecuted by the authorities, this person helped,” says Vladimir Spivakov (Rodion Shchedrin. Self-portrait. Booklet of the music festival for the 70th anniversary of the composer. M ., 2002).

The composer writes dozens of literary works, revealing a vivid sense of the word. He creates librettos for his stage works: the operas Dead Souls (later also Lolita), the ballets The Seagull (together with V. Leventhal), The Lady with the Dog. Publishes dozens of articles - about J. Flier, Y. Shaporin, O. Messiaen, L. Bernstein, A. Sveshnikov, K. Eliasberg, A. Borodin, A. Webern, I. Stravinsky, preface to the novel by V. Orlov "Violist Danilov ".

His collaboration with M. Plisetskaya continues: the ballets Anna Karenina, The Seagull and The Lady with the Dog are dedicated to her. In "Anna Karenina" after L. Tolstoy (1971), only a love affair was selected and the subtitle "Lyrical Scenes" was given - like P. Tchaikovsky in his opera "Eugene Onegin". The idea of ​​Tchaikovsky was also reflected in the musical style of the ballet, right down to the applications of his compositions, written at the very time when Tolstoy was working on this novel. In the ballet "The Seagull" by A. Chekhov (1979), Shchedrin appeared both as a composer and as a librettist (co-author), and Plisetskaya danced the main character, Nina Zarechnaya, and embodied the symbolic Seagull, and for the first time became the sole choreographer of the performance. Using the orchestra, the composer created the sharply expressive "cry of a seagull", which carried through the entire ballet, giving it an increased tragedy. The “shot” fates of the characters were well guessed in it, and the stage drama projected the “scream” in time. The musical form of the ballet became innovative - a cycle of 24 preludes with the addition of three interludes and one postlude. When an English film group was preparing a television program about the development of musical art, they filmed "The Seagull" for the "Music of the Future" part.

Anna Karenina - Rodion Shchedrin (ballet film)

A significant milestone in Shchedrin's musical and theatrical work was the opera "Dead Souls" after N. Gogol (1976, staged in 1977), to the composer's libretto. The author introduced into the opera such an innovation as replacing the violins of the orchestra with a chamber (second) choir, and most importantly, dividing the stage into two parallel scenes, stratifying the opera into two autonomously running operas - “folk” and “professional”. This parallel dramaturgy of the performance, first performed at the Bolshoi Theater, formed the core of the semantic concept of the work: the opposition of Russia of the people and the "dead souls" of the landowners. In the "folk opera" the composer used Russian folklore texts, folk timbres of voices, but did not quote genuine melodies. He gave a symbolic meaning to the phrases of the peasants, especially to the question "Will he get there or not?" At the same time, he saturated the folk elements with the sharpest modern dissonances and clusters. "Professional Opera" - the grotesque world of Gogol's landowners - Shchedrin sustained in a style close to work with vocals in Rossini's operas. If the music of Russian folk was in smooth, drawn-out legato singing, then in the parts of the parodied landowners, the bouncing staccato was quite noticeably used. Their arias are sophisticated and extremely difficult to sing: Chichikov's virtuoso passages, Korobochka's patter, Sobakevich's sweeping melody jumps, etc. The vocal ensembles are impressive - in seven, eight, ten and twelve voices. In the guise of two opera-antitheses, entities of a higher order appeared: the contrast of the eternal, unchanging and vain, mortal.

"Dead Souls" staged by the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on June 7, 1977 was a masterpiece of theatricality. The director was B. Pokrovsky, the stage designer was V. Leventhal, the choirmaster was V. Minin, the singers participated: A. Voroshilo (Chichikov), L. Avdeeva (Korobochka), V. Piavko (Nozdrev), A. Maslennikov (Selifan) and other. Conductor Y. Temirkanov conducted 42 rehearsals, after which he transferred the opera to the Kirov (Mariinsky) Theater in Leningrad. The domestic performance conducted by Temirkanov, recorded by Melodiya, was released abroad by BMG and won the Critics' Prize. "He embodied the unique Gogol intonation in music with extraordinary accuracy and at the same time managed to write a sharply modern work. It was the music of the country in which we lived then: sharp, angular and incredibly hopeless," writes A. Voroshilo (Rodion Shchedrin. Self-portrait Music festival booklet, Moscow, 2002).

Menuhin and Schedrin

Shchedrin's year 1981 was marked by the creation of masterfully honed choral and piano compositions: "Eugene Onegin's stanzas" - six choirs to poems by A. S. Pushkin from his novel in verse, "The Execution of Pugachev" - a poem for choir a ca-ppella to words from "Pugachev's Stories" by A. S. Pushkin, "Notebook for Youth", 15 pieces for piano. The choral opuses are also accompanied by "Concertino" of 1982 (without words). The composer is still immersed in Russian literature and the Russian theme. In particular , the idea of ​​Russian bells runs through all the works: at the end of "Onegin's stanzas", in the episodes of "The Execution of Pugachev", in No. 11 "Russian chimes" from "Notebook for Youth" and in the finale of "Concertino" - "Russian bells".

Shchedrin's plans in 1983-84 stood out for their special scale and seriousness, which was also associated with dedications to his holy name - J.S. Bach on the 300th anniversary of his birth (1985). In 1983, in his honor, he erected a musical monument in the form of a super-long work - for 2 hours and 12 minutes - "Musical Offering" for organ, three flutes, three bassoons and three trombones. This was an innovative concept of musical meditation, when people had to not only listen to music, but also to perform an act of collective worship to the one to whom it was dedicated. In the first version, due to the overextension, the work went far beyond the usual norms of concert perception. The author himself was convinced of this, speaking as an organist at the premiere in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory (1983): the audience began to leave the hall little by little. In other conditions, it was perceived adequately (for example, at the Bach Marathon in Germany). The author made a compact version of "Offering" - for an hour and a half, with a recording of the sound of the work on a disc in the Riga Dome Cathedral (1987). By title, Shchedrin's work was deliberately associated with Bach's "Musical Offering", which he made in 1747 to the Prussian king and composer Frederick II. Shchedrin's reverence for Bach was expressed in many analogies with the great composer and his era: direct quotation of the master's two organ preludes, a texture like Bach's preludes, various polyphonic devices, an ingenious "shell-shaped form", Bach's motif-monogram - V-A-S- N. In the spirit of Bach's times, "The Offering" is permeated with symbols - like no other work by Shchedrin: the names Bach, Berg and Shchedrin are encrypted in the form of letter-notes, even the date of birth and height of the composer, the melody of R. Ale's chorale, used by both Bach and Berg, is quoted, at a certain point in the score it is indicated - "kiss the instrument" (for bassoons and trombones). The organ solos running through the whole piece create a reminiscence-prayer mood, and three trios of wind instruments (3×3 are also sacred numbers) draw some pictures of the religious plot. Shchedrin's gigantic musical fresco is unparalleled among famous musical dedications.

Shchedrin's other composition for the 300th anniversary of Bach was "Echo Sonata" for violin solo (1984). The real echo here was expressed in the form of a technique of playing the violin, with its quiet sound “shadow” detached from the violinist’s musical “speech”, and brief applications from Bach’s famous works appeared as a symbolic echo - crystals of harmonious classics, detached from the sharply dissonant modern musical sonority. The sonata became a repertoire for violinists from different countries - it was performed by U. Hölscher, M. Vengerov, D. Sitkovetsky, S. Stadler and others.

In 1984, Shchedrin wrote "Self-portrait" for a symphony orchestra. Psychologically, he is diametrically opposed to the established image of Shchedrin as a carrier of exciting energy, a master of humor and jokes. This is the author's most gloomy and tragic work, so its premiere at the grand opening of the II Moscow International Music Festival (1984) ran counter to the atmosphere of the composer's holiday. In the title of the play, Shchedrin proceeded from the experience of painting: “I was inspired by the example of painters. Almost all of them painted their portraits: perhaps this reflected their perceived need to know themselves. frames for a portrait // Music in the USSR, 1985, April - June, p. 15). In the author's annotation, he talks about "imitation of the dreary sounds of a lonely balalaika, the muttering of a bassoon "in the hops" (as if singing an old chant of kalik passers-by), ... the endless, even and sad landscape of my country." Shchedrin reacted to what was happening around him with all the strings of his soul. 1984 is the extreme point of the Soviet stagnation, which seemed insurmountable. A year later, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU M. Gorbachev came up with the idea of ​​perestroika under the threat of economic and general collapse of the country.

Created in 1985, the ballet "Lady with a Dog" based on the story of the same name by A. Chekhov was inspired by the 60th anniversary of M. Plisetskaya. The libretto was written by R. Shchedrin and V. Leventhal, M. Plisetskaya was both the choreographer and the leading lady Anna Sergeevna, for whose part the costumes were created by the famous Parisian couturier P. Cardin. The pure lyricism of the plot was realized as a one-act ballet for 45-50 minutes, consisting of five extended dance duets - pas de deux. The musical structure of the ballet, embodying the play of the lyrical feelings of the characters, is imbued with a captivating melody, the orchestra is transparent - only a string group with the addition of two oboes, two horns and a celesta, the musical form of the whole is harmonious. With Shchedrin, this is the most poetic and lyrical ballet work.

Gorbachev's perestroika, which began in 1985, dramatically changed the life of the entire Soviet intelligentsia, in particular, opened up unprecedented opportunities for contacts with foreign countries. In 1988, a new type of event took place - the Soviet-American festival "Making Music Together". At first, the Americans wanted to hold a festival of Shchedrin alone, but the USSR Ministry of Culture did not give consent to this. Then an international forum was organized with the maximum representation from the USSR. About 300 people arrived in Massachusetts, including A. Schnittke, S. Gubaidulina, A. Petrov, G. Kancheli, B. Tishchenko, V. Laurushas. Black singers participated in the production of Shchedrin's "Dead Souls". The world resonance of the festival, both artistic and political, was enormous.

The wave of perestroika led people as active as Shchedrin to rise to power. The composer also became an effective politician. In 1989, from the Union of Composers, he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In addition, having his own political program, he joined the well-known Interregional Group of People's Deputies for Perestroika in the USSR, whose members were academician A. Sakharov, the future first President of Russia B. Yeltsin, the future mayor of Moscow G. Popov, philosopher Y. Afanasiev. In particular, they demanded a multi-party system and alternative elections, which did not suit the party authorities at all. On television, one could watch the fight between Shchedrin, who was heading for the podium, and Gorbachev, who did not give him the floor. Shchedrin participated in the rehabilitation at home of M. Rostropovich and G. Vishnevskaya, expelled from the country.

With the onset of another significant date - the 1000th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity in Russia - Shchedrin wrote essays that showed all the deep meaning of this topic for him, the grandson of a priest and himself, baptized in childhood: "Stichera for the Millennium of the Baptism of Russia" (1987) and "The Sealed Angel" (1988).

The orchestral "Stichera for the Millennium of the Baptism of Russia" was written on the basis of an ancient primary source recorded with hooks - the stichera for the feast of the Vladimir icon by Tsar Ivan the Terrible, which the composer set out in his interpretation. Shchedrin recreated the world of ancient Russian singing — its quietness, unhurriedness and tranquility, its reflection of the Russian flat landscape, which affected the smoothness of the melody, flowing without pauses, and the variability of the choruses. The score indicates the moments of singing along with the voices of the musicians to their parts. The composer sent the work for the first performance in the USA to Rostropovich, to whom he dedicated it. He regarded such an act as a civic feat and was able to make the premiere at the Washington Kennedy Center (1988). The first Russian CD was released at home - with a recording of Shchedrin's Stikhira and Ivan the Terrible's stichera.

The Russian liturgy "The Sealed Angel", or choral music according to N. Leskov to canonical Church Slavonic texts for mixed choir a cappella with a pipe (flute) in 9 parts, was first performed in Moscow, by two choirs - the Moscow Chamber and the Academic Russian Choir under management of V. Minin. The 60-minute composition is a choral masterpiece that has an impact not only musical, but also spiritual and ethical, like a service for parishioners. It was also officially noted: in 1992, the State Prize of the Russian Federation was awarded for it, one of the first in the new Russia.

Leskov's story "The Sealed Angel" did not serve as a program for Shchedrin's music, separate elements were taken from it: the title, the text for No. 1 ("The Angel of the Lord"), the image of the flute, the plot "circle of purification" - the icon is clean, burned with a seal and again clean. At the request of the conductor, texts from Leskov could be inserted (such is the recording on a CD in the USA). And in relation to the liturgy, the composer did not aim to reproduce its entire sequence, but selected only a number of texts (from Everyday life, Menaia, Triodion) with rearrangements and abbreviations. Stylistically, the principles of Russian Znamenny chant are used in the music - the smoothness of singing, the "flatness" of the melody, and the absence of pauses. In terms of choral techniques, this is an encyclopedia of Russian choral writing, which, in addition to znamenny-type melody, also included folk undertones, a sonorous chord warehouse, the color of bass octavists, a solo of a treble boy, the effect of "temple echo" and imitation of bell ringing. "The Sealed Angel" became an outstanding choral work of the 20th century and Russian sacred music.

Since the late 1980s, Shchedrin began to receive more and more creative proposals from abroad, responding to them by creating compositions on his favorite Russian theme, thereby widely distributing it in different parts of the world: his musical "Nina and 12 months" was staged in Japan (1988) and performed "Khorovody" (Fourth Concerto for Orchestra, 1989), for the 100th anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, "Old Music of Russian Provincial Circuses" was written (Third Concerto for Orchestra, 1989), chamber pieces were composed for Finland and Paris. Regarding "Music of the Circuses", Shchedrin pointed out (in the annotation): "In this work, I deliberately strive for colorfulness, for musical painting, humor, for spectacular, external, entertaining .... "Circus" was written during the years of perestroika, in the years of hopes and faith in the emancipation and reorganization of Russian society. Perhaps the feeling of hope for good changes charged me with energy and optimism? professionals call it a modern orchestra, meaning maximum sound expressiveness with maximum concentration and cost savings" - this is how M. Rostropovich speaks of Shchedrin (Rodion Shchedrin. Self-portrait. Booklet of the music festival, 2002).

The beginning of the 1990s, along with the break in the entire social structure of the country - the collapse of the USSR, the formation of a new state - the Russian Federation - brought significant changes to Shchedrin's life. The weakened economy and serious material problems created such a clear threat to creativity that the composer was forced to move to Germany, to Munich (1991-92). He was followed by his wife, M. Plisetskaya. Both retained Russian citizenship. Ties with Western publishing houses and performers began to strengthen. At the same time, the composer retained and strengthened the most important properties of his style - the democratic breadth and Russian orientation of the subject. But the choice of musical genres became different: no new ballets appeared (only team music), one opera appeared - "Lolita", but concerts for soloists with an orchestra - for piano, violin, viola, cello, trumpet - as a result of contacts with major musicians, flourished unusually peace. The vast majority of the works turned out to be connected with the Russian theme, and the importance of the lyrical beginning increased. In connection with Shchedrin's anniversaries, major festivals were held in his honor - at home and in many countries of the world. He became a recognized classic of Russian and world music.

The opera "Lolita" based on the novel of the same name by V. Nabokov to the libretto of the composer himself (1994) could not be staged in the main world languages ​​due to a copyright problem, and then the idea arose of staging at the Royal Swedish Opera - in Swedish. The premiere took place in Stockholm on December 14, 1994: conductor - M. Rostropovich, Lolita - L. Gustafson, Humbert Humbert - P.-A. Wahlgren, Quilty - B. Howgan. The scandalous atmosphere that always accompanied this Nabokov plot was expressed here in public demonstrations for the cancellation of the performance and calls for artists to refuse to participate in it. But the production was a great success, with reviews in the press around the world.

Although it is the opera that has the ability to remove the naturalism of any plot, Shchedrin tried to deepen the moral side of the novel both in the libretto and in the music. In the Prologue, Humbert is already sitting in a prison cell, and a choir of Judges blaming him passes through the entire opera, and in contrast, the choir of Boys in the church sings an enlightening prayer. To defuse the tragic tension of the drama, the lively duets of the Advertisement are inserted in contrast. The high spirit of the opera reigns in the long, slow love scenes of the two main characters, in the sublime musical sound of the scene "Humbert's Sin". Shchedrin created bright vocal parts - the young Lolita, with her singing in a high silvery register, the aging seducer Quilty with his falsetto or animal cry. The opera ends with a cathartic epilogue that deepens Nabokov's finale. According to the writer's son, D. Nabokov, "if my father saw this, he would be happy."

Anxiety and pain for the hardships of Russia brought to life the string music "Russian Photos", dedicated to the orchestra "Moscow Virtuosi" conducted by V. Spivakov (1994). These are pictures of Russian life at different times. 1 hour - "The Old City of Aleksin", in memory of grandfather and childhood, 2 hours - "Cockroaches in Moscow", when the attack really took place, although the music is not pictorial, 3 hours - "Stalin Cocktail", with the image of trills drums, groans of victims, echoes of executions, with quotes from the cantata about Stalin by A. Aleksandrov and "March of Enthusiasts" by I. Dunayevsky, 4 hours - "Evening Bells", with a mood of desolation, confusion in the heart and singing the words "Eternal Memory".

At the center of the period of the 90s are three significant concerts - for cello, violin and viola, dedicated to outstanding contemporary musicians.

The cello concerto "Sotto voce concerto" (dedicated to M. Rostropovich, 1994) according to the concept belongs to works with an eternal theme - life and death. The subtitle refers to Shchedrin's favorite idea of ​​the drama heard through the wall, as well as to a special pianissimo performed by Rostropovich. Vivid tragic episodes are recorded in the music, but an innovative overcoming of earthly tragedy is given - as an exit to the non-human world thanks to the use of recorders with their reed sound, like a Russian flute.

Concerto for violin and string orchestra "Concerto cantabile" (dedicated to M. Vengerov, 1997) is a neo-romantic work, stylistically not similar to the "early" and "middle" Shchedrin. It is comparable only with the lyrics of his "Lady with a dog". "By the word" cantabile "I mean, first of all, the tone of the state of the soul, partly - the manner of sound. As well as interlacing, crossing, merging, agreement, dispute, counter-movement of the singing lines of the soloist and the orchestra" (from the author's abstract). As "my diary of feelings" the composer described his concerto in the Swiss film about him by J. Gachot.
"Concerto dolce", a concerto for viola accompanied by a string orchestra and a harp (1997), was prepared both by my father's playing this instrument, and Shchedrin's preface to "Violist Danilov" by V. Orlov, and, of course, by the unique skill of Yu. Bashmet, to whom the dedication has been made. Although the concerto is called "Dolce", it does not begin or end with this character. The large episode of dolce is located in the center of the form and is especially reserved for reprise. Purely Russian elements are inlaid into the music, designated as "balalaika" and as "sleigh bells" - both were included in the work for the viola for the first time. It is characteristic that Shchedrin closes the concerts "Dolce" and "Cantabile" with an energetic strong-willed coda.

The chamber works of the mid-90s are marked by Shchedrin's inventions in the nature of musical sound: "Music from afar" for two recorders and the Second Piano Sonata (1996), "Balalaika" for solo violin without a bow (1997), continuing the idea of ​​"Russian Tunes" for cello solo (1990).

In 1997, on the occasion of the composer's 65th birthday, festivals of his music were held in Finland, France, Germany, and in Russia celebrations were held for 19 days in four cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara.

On the Edge of the Millennium (1999), Shchedrin received an honorable offer from Germany: to write an orchestral Prelude to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a landmark work for the entire German culture. For its anniversary, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra commissioned an essay, which became "Symphonie con-certante" (Third Symphony) "Faces of Russian Fairy Tales" (2000), reflecting the images of "Two-horned pipes", "Alyonushka's sister and Ivanushka's brother", "Princess- frogs" and others. In 1999, Shchedrin created one of his most impressive concertos, the Fifth Piano Concerto (dedicated to the Finnish pianist O. Mustonen), which, after its premiere in Los Angeles (1999), began its confident journey through the world's pop music. Commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, "Lolita Serenade" from Opera Music (2001) was born.

The composer's 70th birthday in 2002 was marked by a magnificent festival in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which demonstrated the vitality of his work over the years and the inexhaustible potential in creating new works (among the Russian premieres are "Parabola concertante", "Concert parable" for cello, string orchestra and timpani, 2001). The premiere of symphonic studies for orchestra "Dialogues with Shostakovich" (2002) took place at Carnegie Hall. The Lincoln Center in New York hosted the world premiere of Shchedrin's opera for the concert stage "The Enchanted Wanderer" based on the novel by N. Leskov (December 19, 2002): the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, choir, singers - A. Anger, L. Paasikivi, E Akimov, conductor L. Maazel.

“I am a Russian person, all my roots are here. Even if I were somewhere in Tierra del Fuego, I would remain so,” Shchedrin says about himself (R. Shchedrin. Someone decided to re-educate the Russians ... Conversation with S. Biryukov. // Labor, 22.12.95). With great ingenuity, he was and is able to introduce Russian elements into his musical language, reproducing stichera, prayers, ditties, shepherd tunes, bell ringing, voices of mourners, circus music, balalaika strumming, gusell busting, a gypsy song, applications from Tchaikovsky, etc. At the same time, the whole aura of his compositions is typically modern: the sharpness of dissonant sound pairings, the play of musical stage spaces, collage technique, extremely diverse articulation and innovative methods of performance on all instruments.

Shchedrin's music is charged with that sunny vitality, which the art of the 20th century largely lacked for people. That is why the human response all over the world to his "musical offering" is so great. Throughout his life, going his own way, he took a stable position in the very center of musical culture, and, in the words of R. W. Emerson, "the hero is he who stands motionless in the center."

COMPOSERS: Rodion Shchedrin (Video)

The creative merits of R. K. Shchedrin were awarded numerous honorary titles and prizes: People's Artist of the USSR (1981), Lenin Prize (1984), State Prize of the USSR (1972), State Prize of Russia (1992), Order of Merit for the Fatherland III degrees (2002). Winner of the D. D. Shostakovich Prize (Russia, 1992), Crystal Award of the World Economic Forum (Davos, 1995), Honorary Professor of the Moscow Conservatory (1997), "Composer of the Year" of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2002).

Corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (1976), honorary member of the F. Liszt Society (USA, 1979), honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the GDR (1982), honorary member of the International Music Council (1985), member of the Berlin Academy of Arts (1989).

Books are dedicated to him: I. Likhachev. Musical Theater of Rodion Shchedrin (Moscow, 1977); V. Komissinsky. On the Dramatic Principles of R. Shchedrin (Moscow, 1978); M. Tarakanov. Creativity of Rodion Shchedrin (M., 1980); H. Gerlach. Zum Schaffen von Rodion Schtschedrin (Berlin, 1982); Y. Paisov. Choir in the work of Rodion Shchedrin (Moscow, 1992); V. Kholopova. Center path. Composer Rodion Shchedrin (M., 2000); she is in the German version - V. Cholopova. Der Weg im Zentrum (Mainz, Schott, 2002) and others. In 2002, a book by the composer himself was published: R. Shchedrin. Monologues of different years (M., 2002).

20-09-2006

As soon as I found myself "joining" the delightful almanac SWAN not from the very beginning of its appearance on the Internet, but five years later, I inadvertently became interested in articles on musical topics posted before my coming. I was interested in Dmitry Gorbatov's article about Shostakovich in the 194th issue of the almanac.

What was written in the article about Shostakovich was perceived by me as normal, and not classifying him as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, as well as the author's explanations on this matter, did not cause rejection.

But appendix 1 to the article contains a list of the greatest composers of the 20th century, which surprised me and made me laugh until colic. At the same time, not only me alone, but also my friend, a professional musician and composer.

From an article by D. Gorbatov

One glance at the list was enough to notice a heading that did not match the list. The fact is that we know the names of composers who are the greatest. And the definition greatest, i.e. the greatest, cannot be tied to any age. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven were and remain the greatest composers, but they lived in different centuries. Therefore, any late-time composer, in order to be called the "greatest", must have the merits that would allow him to be on a par with the named composers. And all sorts of pygmy composers of the twentieth century, who found or discovered something ^new^ in Music, but did not make a revolution in it, but only left traces somewhere (sometimes dirty) greatest to call absolutely illegal and unfair.

In the above list, none of the named composers for the title greatest does not pull, so each of them needs to be dealt with and assigned the appropriate status, starting from great and below.

But before we do this interesting thing, let's try to deal with the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, who was transferred by the author from the 19th century to the 20th century for some special merits with the assignment of the status greatest composer of the twentieth century.

Beginning in 1908, for almost a quarter of a century in the West, leading opera houses in many countries staged performances of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, with the great Chaliapin as Tsar Boris. The poor orchestration of the composer himself was unsuccessful and the opera was performed in a brilliant orchestration by the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The success of the opera everywhere and always has been enormous. And when the opera in some opera houses was also in luxurious scenery, it was a sensation.

In the post-Shalyapin Soviet era, there were also magnificent performances of "Boris Godunov" at the Bolshoi Theater with Alexander Pirogov in the title role and Ivan Kozlovsky as the Holy Fool.

But suddenly, in some musical spheres, through the efforts of intriguers and speculators, they began to criticize the excellent orchestration of Rimsky-Korsakov, and some pygmy composers began to offer their own versions. At the same time, they began to accuse Rimsky-Korsakov that by his orchestration he emasculated the beautiful music of Musogsky: music, better than which, allegedly, there is nothing better in Russian music.

In the forefront, of course, was Shostakovich, who even made two orchestrations of Boris Godunov.

He poked his head towards "Boris" with orchestration -
Blasphemous soviet perestroika
And crippled the opera pretty,
Putting fetters on the music in a row.

Time has passed, and much has been sorted out. And only donkey opera figures can afford to turn to Shostakovich's version during the next production of Boris. Even Rostropovich, for all his celebrity, would hardly have been able to push through this.

Now about the true greatness of Mussorgsky as a Russian composer.

I offer my own version.

Without a doubt, the great Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky is no better than Glinka, or Dargomyzhsky, or Rimsky-Korsakov, or Tchaikovsky, or Rachmaninoff. And Tchaikovsky, in my opinion, he is much inferior.

For the music in the operas "Boris Godunov" and "Khovanshchina" he should not be considered innovator. In these operas, as will become clear from further reasoning, Mussorgsky showed himself to be outstanding and good. compiler.

Mussorgsky knew well innovative opera by Alexander Dargomyzhsky "The Stone Guest", and when the composer composed it, he actively participated as a singer. He also knew Verdi's opera Il trovatore, which is evidenced by N. Rimsky-Korsakov in his book Chronicle of My Musical Life. It should be assumed that the opera Rigoletto was also known to Mussorgsky.

A very long acquaintance (50 years) and frequent listening to the opera "Boris Godunov" made me think that Godunov's excellent recitatives are a creative artistic Russian-Italian fusion of the recitative styles of "The Stone Guest" and

"Rigoletto". Thus, traces of Rigoletto's monologue Pari siamo, with careful repeated listening to Boris's recitatives, can be found throughout the opera, starting with Boris's monologue "I have reached the highest power."

Turning with a similar analysis to Mussorgsky's next opera Khovanshchina, one can notice a significant departure of the composer from the musical structure of Boris Godunov in the direction of a greater ariosity of the vocal flesh. At the same time, some arias, monologues and even individual fragments, even more than in Boris Godunov, resemble some arias from Verdi's Troubadour. For example, Martha's aria (^fortune-telling^) in the first part resembles Azucena's aria Stride la vampa, and in the cantilena (^disgrace threatens you^) is close in structure to Azucena's solo in the last act of Si; la stanchezza mopprime; and the melody of Shaklovity's aria ^...you are unfortunate in fate, dear Russia^ is close to the melody of Manrico's aria Ah! Si, ben mio.

But it turns out I'm not the only one so smart: in the Soviet libretto with the full text of "Khovanshchina", published in 1929 (with an introductory article and notes by Sergei Bugoslavsky), there are two curious notes. One is in front of the text of the cantilena from Marfa's ^fortune-telling^: ^a wide mournful melody in the Russian-Italian style^, and the other is a footnote referring to the text of Shaklovity's aria: ^Aria of the Italian-Russian warehouse in the manner of Glinka of the period of "Ivan Susanin"^.

It can also be added to everything written that Mussorgsky was so keen on composing phrases with melodies in the Italian style that Martha's solo in the skete (address to Andrey Khovansky): ^Have you heard far away, beyond this forest^ - a brilliant example of Italian recitative, which could well would organically fit into the party of Azucena in Il trovatore.

In connection with the above my version of the Mussorgsky phenomenon, I completely reject the assertion of the author of the article that Musical science and aesthetics largely reasonably attribute the work of M.P. Mussorgsky to the 20th century. as well as all the author's arguments on this matter, set out in the article.

In my opinion, at some point in Soviet musicology, a pathologically unhealthy attitude developed towards the great Russian composer Mussorgsky, attributing to him some special musical merits and innovative talent, which he did not have. According to D. Gorbatov, some musicologists even "found" traces of Mussorgsky's work in Verdi's operas and in Hindemith's music, which by no means could need any borrowings.

An analysis of the music of "Khovanshchina" shows that in it the composer sharply deviated from the recitative style of constructing the monologues of "Boris Godunov", which successfully approached Pushkin's text. Perhaps Mussorgsky felt the inexpediency of repetition.

And this confirms the absence of an innovative principle of composition, in mastering which there is no need for cardinal changes when moving on to the next composition of the same profile and scale.

An interesting definition emphasizing the difference between “Khovanshchina” and “Boris Godunov” is found in the aforementioned introductory article by S. Bugoslavsky to the libretto of the opera: , song beginning ... ^. Such a composer's "step back" also refutes attempts to present Mussorgsky as an innovative composer who stepped over from the nineteenth into the twentieth century.

I will welcome those musical figures who are in a position to be ready to agree with my version, which also contains a call to abandon fictions about the past of Russian music and absurd attempts to pervert real cultural values, by analogy with attempts to present Russia as the homeland of elephants.

And in accordance with this, the recognition of the enormous and brilliant work of the great Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, as the ONLY necessary for Modest Mussorgsky's operas, and not subject to anyone else's ^creative^-fraudulent interference.

Based on the foregoing, I take the liberty of excluding Mussorgsky from the list of composers of the twentieth century. But at the same time, let me note that in the nineteenth century, the composer still created, and, moreover, greatest, who, if necessary (?), would be more worthy than any other, with all his compositions, to be among the composers of the twentieth century. This is Richard Wagner.

I now allow myself to review the list of the remaining 18 ^greatest^ composers of the twentieth century in order to establish the level of their reasonable greatness: from great and below. I will try to assess the level of compliance of each of these composers with one of three values: great, especially outstanding and outstanding.

In my opinion, when establishing the level of greatness of any composer, one cannot ignore his popularity among classical music lovers. At the same time, one should be sure that the composer's popularity is not artificial, exaggerated, akin to Shostakov's, which will undoubtedly gradually fade over the course of the 21st century. For truly great composers, popularity should only increase over the centuries.

Great composers of the 20th century

• Bela Bartok (1881–1945) Hungary
• Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) England
• Claude Debussy (1862–1918) France
• Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) France
• Alexander Scriabin (1871–1915) Russia
• Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russia
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Austria
• Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Germany

(I took the liberty of adding the names of three great composers, omitted by D. Gobatov, probably due to the inexpediency of classifying them as the "greatest").

Particularly outstanding composers of the 20th century

• Charles Ives (1874–1954) US
• Alban Berg (1885–1935) Austria
• Anton Webern (1883–1945) Austria
• Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) Germany

(Here I have chosen not to expand the list, although I would like to add Hans Pfitzner's name to them).

These composers that I have named especially outstanding, in my opinion, cannot be called great only due to lack of popularity. Is it possible to consider and call composers great when the majority of classical music lovers do not know either their names or their compositions.

Outstanding composers of the 20th century

• Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994) Poland
• Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) France
• Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Russia

(Here I decided to confine myself to the names from the list of D. Gorbatov, although it would be quite possible to add another 2-3 dozen names).

The music of Witold Lutosławski is sound, although it does not shine with special originality (sometimes one can feel the influence of Debussy, sometimes Bartok or Stravinsky).

Especially for Fischer-Dieskau, he wrote a concerto for baritone and orchestra.

Olivier Messiaen, educator of the "creators" of anti-music (Xenakis, Stockhausen, Boulez), was a highly gifted musician and inventor of new technological systems of sound matter. His musical compositions, mainly of a religious nature, are specific and very popular in France. For inexperienced lovers of the classics, listening to Messiaen's music is a difficult task. In his opera-oratorio “St. Francis of Assis” signed Fischer-Dieskau.

The prolific Russian-Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev, along with human symphonies, piano concertos and plays, composed a lot of, in my opinion, colorless, annoying and anti-vocal music (the operas “Fiery Angel”, “Semyon Kotko”, “The Gambler” and the Classical Symphony) , as well as the now useless Soviet politicized musical rubbish.

Now about the remaining avant-garde composers on Gorbatov's list:

Edgar Varese, who ^updated^ the musical language with the help of modern production techniques and musical noises;

John Cage, who created sonic anarchy;

Yanis Xenakis, who used. aleatoric techniques, the abstract nature of sound combinations (his music was intended for an unusual instrumental composition and tape recorders);

Györde Ligeti, who experimented in the field of musical instrumental ^theater of the absurd^;

Luigi Nono, who used serial technique and aleatoric;

Steve Reiche, the minimalist composer who ^created^ music with two tape recorders turned on at the same time - should they be classified as any groups at all real composers of the 20th century? (Aleatorics is the principle of chance in the process of ^creativity^ and performance).

In 1951, Cage organized concerts in New York using 12 radios tuned to 12 different radio stations.

Stravinsky called aleatoric composers "the walking enemies of art".

This is a very correct remark, according to which, presumably, they should neither be considered nor qualified as composers of the 20th century.

Finishing the article, I would like to draw the attention of readers to one significant circumstance: when compiling a list of the ^greatest^ composers of the 20th century, D. Gorbatov for some reason omitted the name of the only real greatest composer of this century: Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).

Giacomo Puccini is by far the greatest of all composers of the 20th century.

Puccini is an innovator. His highly artistic principle of organic fusion of the sound of the orchestra and the voices before him was not achieved by any composer.

Puccini is the greatest melodist of the 20th century. He is the composer of the most beautiful melodies of the century.

Puccini is the creator of the most popular operas of the 20th century, and his operas will always bring joy to people. His "Tosca" is the most popular opera among all the operas staged by the largest opera houses in the world.

Puccini is a real composer of the 20th century, and the quartet from Bohemia” and the tercets from “Turandot” are harmonic masterpieces of the music of the 20th century.

Puccini is the composer of the most beautiful ensembles in his operas.

Puccini, better than any of all foreign composers, managed to capture the national flavor and create vivid music in the opera Madama Butterfly (a monument was erected in Japan in honor of the composer in gratitude for its creation) and his own, typically Puccini, but absolutely American country music in the opera The Girl from the West."

The melodies and songs of the Russian people inspired the work of famous composers of the second half of the 19th century. Among them were P.I. Tchaikovsky, M.P. Mussorgsky, M.I. Glinka and A.P. Borodin. Their traditions were continued by a whole galaxy of outstanding musical figures. Russian composers of the 20th century are still popular.

Alexander Nikolaevich Skryabin

Creativity A.N. Scriabin (1872 - 1915), a Russian composer and talented pianist, teacher, innovator, cannot leave anyone indifferent. Mystical moments can sometimes be heard in his original and impulsive music. The composer is attracted and attracted by the image of fire. Even in the titles of his works, Scriabin often repeats such words as fire and light. He tried to find a way to combine sound and light in his works.

The composer's father, Nikolai Alexandrovich Scriabin, was a well-known Russian diplomat, a real state adviser. Mother - Lyubov Petrovna Scriabina (nee Shchetinina), was known as a very talented pianist. She graduated with honors from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Her professional career began successfully, but shortly after the birth of her son, she died of consumption. In 1878, Nikolai Alexandrovich completed his studies and was assigned to the Russian embassy in Constantinople. The upbringing of the future composer was continued by his close relatives - grandmother Elizaveta Ivanovna, her sister Maria Ivanovna and father's sister Lyubov Alexandrovna.

Despite the fact that at the age of five, Scriabin mastered playing the piano, and a little later began to study musical compositions, according to family tradition, he received a military education. He graduated from the 2nd Moscow Cadet Corps. At the same time, he took private lessons in piano and music theory. Later he entered the Moscow Conservatory and graduated with a small gold medal.

At the beginning of his creative activity, Scriabin consciously followed Chopin, choosing the same genres. However, even at that time, his own talent was already evident. At the beginning of the 20th century, he wrote three symphonies, then "The Poem of Ecstasy" (1907) and "Prometheus" (1910). Interestingly, the composer supplemented the score of "Prometheus" with a light keyboard part. He was the first to use light music, the purpose of which is characterized by the disclosure of music by the method of visual perception.

The composer's accidental death interrupted his work. He never realized his plan to create the "Mystery" - a symphony of sounds, colors, movements, smells. In this work, Scriabin wanted to tell all mankind his innermost thoughts and inspire him to create a new world, marked by the union of the Universal Spirit and Matter. His most significant works were only a preface to this grandiose project.

Famous Russian composer, pianist, conductor S.V. Rachmaninov (1873 - 1943) was born into a wealthy noble family. Rachmaninoff's grandfather was a professional musician. The first piano lessons were given to him by his mother, and later they invited the music teacher A.D. Ornatskaya. In 1885, his parents assigned him to a private boarding school to the professor of the Moscow Conservatory N.S. Zverev. The order and discipline in the educational institution had a significant impact on the formation of the future character of the composer. He later graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with a gold medal. While still a student, Rachmaninoff was very popular with the Moscow public. He has already created his "First Piano Concerto", as well as some other romances and plays. And his "Prelude in C-sharp minor" became a very popular composition. Great P.I. Tchaikovsky drew attention to the graduation work of Sergei Rachmaninov - the opera "Oleko", which he wrote under the impression of A.S. Pushkin "Gypsies". Pyotr Ilyich got it staged at the Bolshoi Theatre, tried to help with the inclusion of this work in the repertoire of the theater, but died unexpectedly.

From the age of twenty, Rachmaninov taught at several institutes, gave private lessons. At the invitation of the famous philanthropist, theatrical and musical figure Savva Mamontov, at the age of 24, the composer becomes the second conductor of the Moscow Russian Private Opera. There he became friends with F.I. Chaliapin.

Rachmaninov's career was interrupted on March 15, 1897 due to the rejection of his innovative First Symphony by the St. Petersburg public. Reviews for this work were truly devastating. But the composer was most upset by the negative review left by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, whose opinion Rachmaninoff greatly appreciated. After that, he fell into a protracted depression, from which he managed to get out with the help of a hypnotist N.V. Dahl.

In 1901 Rachmaninoff completed his Second Piano Concerto. And from that moment begins his active creative work as a composer and pianist. Rachmaninoff's unique style combined Russian church hymns, romanticism and impressionism. He considered the melody to be the main leading principle in music. This found its greatest expression in the author's favorite work - the poem "The Bells", which he wrote for the orchestra, choir and soloists.

At the end of 1917, Rachmaninoff left Russia with his family, worked in Europe, and then left for America. The composer was very upset by the break with the Motherland. During the Great Patriotic War, he gave charity concerts, the proceeds of which were sent to the Red Army Fund.

Stravinsky's music is notable for its stylistic diversity. At the very beginning of his creative activity, she was based on Russian musical traditions. And then in the works one can hear the influence of neoclassicism, characteristic of the music of France of that period and dodecaphony.

Igor Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum (now the city of Lomonosov) in 1882. The father of the future composer Fyodor Ignatievich is a famous opera singer, one of the soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre. His mother was pianist and singer Anna Kirillovna Kholodovskaya. From the age of nine, teachers taught him piano lessons. After completing the gymnasium, at the request of his parents, he enters the law faculty of the university. For two years, from 1904 to 1906, he took lessons from N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, under whose leadership he wrote the first works - the scherzo, the piano sonata, the Faun and the Shepherdess suite. Sergei Diaghilev highly appreciated the composer's talent and offered him cooperation. The joint work resulted in three ballets (staged by S. Diaghilev) - The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring.

Shortly before the First World War, the composer left for Switzerland, then to France. A new period begins in his work. He studies the musical styles of the 18th century, writes the opera Oedipus Rex, music for the ballet Apollo Musagete. His handwriting has changed several times over time. For many years the composer lived in the USA. His last famous work is Requiem. A feature of the composer Stravinsky is the ability to constantly change styles, genres and musical directions.

Composer Prokofiev was born in 1891 in a small village in the Yekaterinoslav province. The world of music was opened for him by his mother, a good pianist who often performed works by Chopin and Beethoven. She also became a real musical mentor for her son and, in addition, taught him German and French.

At the beginning of 1900, young Prokofiev managed to attend the Sleeping Beauty ballet and listen to the operas Faust and Prince Igor. The impression received from the performances of the Moscow theaters was expressed in his own work. He writes the opera "The Giant", and then the overture to "Desert Shores". Parents soon realize that they can no longer teach their son music. Soon, at the age of eleven, the novice composer was introduced to the famous Russian composer and teacher S.I. Taneyev, who personally asked R.M. Gliera to engage in musical composition with Sergei. S. Prokofiev at the age of 13 passed the entrance exams to the St. Petersburg Conservatory. At the beginning of his career, the composer toured and performed extensively. However, his work caused misunderstanding among the public. This was due to the features of the works, which were expressed in the following:

• modernist style;
• destruction of established musical canons;
• extravagance and inventiveness of composing techniques

In 1918, S. Prokofiev left and returned only in 1936. Already in the USSR, he wrote music for films, operas, ballets. But after he was accused, along with a number of other composers, of "formalism", he practically moved to live in the country, but continued to write musical works. His opera "War and Peace", the ballets "Romeo and Juliet", "Cinderella" became the property of world culture.

Russian composers of the 20th century, who lived at the turn of the century, not only preserved the traditions of the previous generation of the creative intelligentsia, but also created their own, unique art, for which the works of P.I. Tchaikovsky, M.I. Glinka, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov.