Ethnomusicology - Soviet Music - Essay Example

Ethnomusicology [The of the appears here] [The of appears here] During the recent war Soviet music took on a special and dramatic significance for us and we were all stirred by certain works especially the songs of the Red Army, and Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, written during the siege of Leningrad which revealed how closely Soviet musicians were bound up with the life and struggles of their people. When the war broke out, composers, instrumentalists and performers of all kinds immediately took to making music for the war. And the Soviet government, realizing how powerful voice music was in rallying the people, never forgot even in the darkest hours to protect its musicians, and enable them to continue their work. All through the war, although half the nation was devastated, millions homeless and starving and the national finances sorely strained, the government continued to appropriate large sums every year to commission the writing of new symphonies, operas and concertos, and to ensure the performance of classic and modern music even though the orchestras and opera companies had to go to Central Asia to do it. 1 There is something awe-inspiring about a nation whose people are suffering untold misery and destruction, that yet continues to give badly needed funds so that artists may be protected and continue their work. And incidentally, the government refused to permit any composers to enter the armed forces feeling they were too precious to be exposed to danger although many volunteered for the Red Army. During the war we began to learn a little of how the Soviet composer lives and works. Life magazine carried pictures of Shostakovich, Gliere, Khatchaturian and other composers on the Composers Farm where they go each summer to raise pigs and write symphonies. We heard that Soviet composers live in a specially constructed house in Moscow, that they have written tremendous amounts of music for the war and other things. 2 Soviet music is organized under a sub-section of the All-Union Committee of Art, which is almost like a department of the government in our country. Each year the Music Section of this Committee of Art receives a certain sum of money from the national Treasury, which it allots among its various departments: orchestras, opera houses, music publication, composers, and so forth. The composers work through what they call the Union of Soviet Composers which is not a trade union in our sense, but a sort of combination of professional guild, commissioning body, an agency to secure performances and publications, a copying bureau, and a fraternal mutual aid society, all rolled into one. The Union consists of some 900 professional composers, both serious and popular composers. To become a member, you write a letter to Gliere, who is president of the Union, stating your qualifications and enclosing a few sample scores. If there is any doubt as to a young musician's eligibility, he is invited to appear in person before a committee on admissions and perform his own works. The Committee then decides; and if you don't get in one time, you can always apply again. The Union is not without standards, and the mere fact that your work is popular and widely performed does not automatically qualify you for admission. Peter Zburski wrote a song which became a tremendous hit during the war, called "The Blue Handkerchief." It was sung from one end of the country to the other. But he was not admitted to the Union of Composers. When a recognized composer wishes to write a work, he submits a project to the Union committee in charge of such things, with an estimate of the length of time it will take. Usually the plan is accepted without much discussion and the composer goes ahead to write his work. Sometimes, however, a composer gets too one-sided for a time, and then the Union committee will suggest that he develop another side of his talent for a time. If a man has been writing too many chamber or theatrical works, they may suggest that he write a symphony. Thus in the spring of 1944, the Union of Soviet Composers commissioned Prokofieff, who had not written a symphony since 1929, to write his Fifth Symphony. 3 The Union has a huge fund the Musfund at its disposal for commissioning new works. Last year it was 6 million roubles ($,200,000 at the official rate of exchange). When a composer's project is accepted, he is allotted a stipend for his support during the time he is writing the new work. The deadline for a symphony is usually six months, and the stipend between 8,000 and 16,000 roubles ($1600-$3200). Sometimes it is more. Khatchaturian was given 18,000 roubles ($3600) for his Second Symphony and completed it in three months. In addition, if the work turns out to be particularly good, the Union awards an additional 50% bonus after its first performance. This is an outright payment, not an advance, and has nothing to do with other fees that may be earned by the composer from this particular work. 4 After the Union has passed on the work the composer then signs two separate contracts: first, with a music publishing house, for its publication. A vast number of compositions written by Soviet composers is published even lengthy orchestral and opera scores for which there is practically no market, as the motive here is musical interest, not commercial profit. The publication contract gives the composer a lump sum for his work. Khatchaturian, who received $3600 from the Union for writing his Second Symphony, got $4000 more for the publication rights, so that he had an outright $7600 as a result of three months' work. Not bad for what would be called in this country a "long-haired composer." 5 The second contract a composer signs is with the Radio Committee and with each orchestra or opera house giving them the right to play his music. For each performance he receives a minimum of $40 to $100. When you realize that there are 70 orchestras in various cities of the USSR which regularly perform the works of living Soviet composers, you begin to see how Soviet composers are among the richest men in the Soviet Union-far more wealthy, for example, than the director of an automobile factory or the president of a railroad. Other services that the Union performs for its members include finding them apartments to live in, furnishing them with pianos or other musical instruments, sending them piano-tuners and piano-movers when needed. The Union maintains a copying bureau, where a composer may have his scores copied and instrumental parts extracted at no charge. This relieves the composer of a major headache. In addition, the Union maintains special stores for composers only where they may buy clothing, shoes, food at or below prevailing prices; and a special medical clinic, where they are given free medical care and this includes their wives and children too, if any. And incidentally, a composer retains perpetual copyright to his music, during his lifetime, and his heirs for fifteen years after his death. Composers are among the most honored men in the Soviet Union--the names of Gliere, Miaskovsky, Kabalevsky, Prokofieff, Khatchaturian and Shostakovich are known not only to music lovers but to tens of millions who play and sing their music in amateur music groups which are scattered through the land. Yet if anyone thinks that a good economic and social position has a bad influence on an artist, let him just look at the sheer quantity of work these men turn out each year. Prokofieff's music is the product of a rich and fertile genius which does not seem to be hampered, but rather immensely helped by favorable conditions of work. Nor does his genius seem to have suffered but rather blossomed forth since he has returned to the Soviet Union and worked as one of the 900 members of the Union of Soviet Composers. During the war a great wave of patriotic feeling swept all the people of the Soviet Union and it was not surprising that composers too should have felt it. Perhaps this has brought about certain changes in Soviet music a certain new warmth and human sympathy, and at the same time a new sense of the heroic that is perhaps without parallel in the contemporary music of any other nation. The feeling of unity and brotherhood among the Soviet peoples has led the composer to come even closer to the folk music of these peoples, and this has been a striking influence, even in a country where composers have long drawn upon the music of the people for their themes. The one thing that all Soviet composers seem to agree on is an opposition to what they call formalism or the kind of music that only the composer himself, and a few of his friends, pretend they enjoy. The composer Shebalin defined formalism as "music which is devoid of content, of idea, of emotion it is a search for tricks and an expression of extreme subjectivity. It is like a man who is empty in soul and puts on fancy clothes, hoping they will make people think he has a very fine soul." 6 Thus most of us can agree that the best Soviet music of today has plenty of what the Russians call "soul." Reference: 1. Irina Orlova. Notes from the Underground: The Emergence of Rock Music Culture; Journal of Communication, Vol. 41, 1991 2. Neil Edmunds. Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin: The Baton and Sickle; RoutledgeCurzon, 2004 3. Andrey Olkhovsky. Music under the Soviets: The Agony of an Art; Frederick A. Praeger, 1955 4. Theo Van Leeuwen. Music and Ideology: Notes toward a Sociosemiotics of Mass Media Music; Popular Music and Society, Vol. 22, 1998 5. Mikhail Ivanov. Music for Everybody; Russian Life, Vol. 40, February 1997 6. Alex Inkeles, Kent Geiger. Soviet Society: A Book of Readings; Houghton Mifflin, 1961 Read More