# In Search of Lost Time



## Forss (May 12, 2017)

My quest is simple: I am in search of the Russian-Soviet spirit in the sphere of (classical) music, the same spirit that I find in the writings of, say, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn and Svetlana Alexievich, i.e. in the good Russian world of the humanities. What composer - if any - has captured this spirit, or experience, in his or her music? Is it at all possible? Ah, I long so _very_ much to hear what this remarkable spirit _sounds_ like! (My own studies in music have primarily revolved around the Austro-German tradition and hence my knowledge of the Russian tradition is rather insufficient...)


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Maybe a good way to start would be to focus on a key figure, like a spider at the center of its web, and then follow the various strands that lead away from that figure to the several Russian/Soviet(?) composers linked thereto and listen to their major works. Other links will then suggest themselves. The impresario Sergei Diaghilev is one such central figure; there is a recently-published good biography.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Diaghilev

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/books/26book.html


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Start by listening to "Boris Godunov." It may not be exactly what you are looking for, but nothing in music is more spiritually Russian.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

In addition to _Boris_, or in place of it if you don't particularly care for opera, listen to Stravinsky's _Firebird_, about as Russian a thing as can be imagined. Read about the story it tells, and then about Stravinsky and Diaghilev and the relationship formed between them to do more ballets, leading to _Le Sacre_; Prokofiev's jealousy/admiration of Stravinsky, and subsequent ballets for Diaghilev; the other Russian composers' works staged by Diaghilev (Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov); the links to French composers at the time--it just goes on and on. One thing leads to another, both forward and backward in time, until "all" of Russian music is laid before you.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Forss said:


> My quest is simple: I am in search of the Russian-Soviet spirit in the sphere of (classical) music, the same spirit that I find in the writings of, say, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn and Svetlana Alexievich, i.e. in the good Russian world of the humanities. What composer - if any - has captured this spirit, or experience, in his or her music? Is it at all possible? Ah, I long so _very_ much to hear what this remarkable spirit _sounds_ like! (My own studies in music have primarily revolved around the Austro-German tradition and hence my knowledge of the Russian tradition is rather insufficient...)


I know nothing about Russian classical music so I can't help you there I'm afraid, but I'm curious about something, why did you call the thread "In search of lost time"? Is it a reference to Proust?

(Actually, though I never listen to Russian classical music any more, one name to explore maybe is Anatoly Grindenko, the CD called Suprasl, for example. Whether this captures something which you're finding in Russian novelists, I cannot say.)


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Tchaikovsky immediately springs to mind, at least for Tsarist-era Russia. I am unsure to what extent his music was inspired by the Russian experience captured by his literary counterparts, but I imagine he comes pretty close to what you're looking for. I do know that he was forced to conceal his homosexuality for much of his life due to the homophobic nature of Russian society at nearly all levels, and this frustration appears in his music occasionally. Try Romeo and Juliet as a starting point; although based on a literary work much older than Tsarist Russia, the music is quite original and has been interpreted as autobiographical. For completely original works, try his latter 3 symphonies (especially the Pathetique). 
For the Soviet era, I think Shostakovich is a wonderful place to start. If you want to know what the Soviet-era Russian experience _sounded_ like, listen to his fifth symphony. Besides that, there are so many to choose from. I recommend his string quartets (especially 8), his 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, and other symphonies (especially 7 and 10).


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> In addition to _Boris_, or in place of it if you don't particularly care for opera, listen to Stravinsky's _Firebird_, about as Russian a thing as can be imagined. Read about the story it tells, and then about Stravinsky and Diaghilev and the relationship formed between them to do more ballets, leading to _Le Sacre_; Prokofiev's jealousy/admiration of Stravinsky, and subsequent ballets for Diaghilev; the other Russian composers' works staged by Diaghilev (Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov); the links to French composers at the time--it just goes on and on. One thing leads to another, both forward and backward in time, until "all" of Russian music is laid before you.


Thank you so much, Strange Magic! I am starting to think that ballet is _the_ quintessentially Russian musical expression - and "Firebird" by Stravinsky (certainly) among its finest.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I know nothing about Russian classical music so I can't help you there I'm afraid, but I'm curious about something, why did you call the thread "In search of lost time"? Is it a reference to Proust?


Yes, it is a reference to Proust, but I was just being silly: it has no deeper meaning whatsoever. (I never know what to name new threads.)


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

Gordontrek said:


> Tchaikovsky immediately springs to mind, at least for Tsarist-era Russia. I am unsure to what extent his music was inspired by the Russian experience captured by his literary counterparts, but I imagine he comes pretty close to what you're looking for. I do know that he was forced to conceal his homosexuality for much of his life due to the homophobic nature of Russian society at nearly all levels, and this frustration appears in his music occasionally. Try Romeo and Juliet as a starting point; although based on a literary work much older than Tsarist Russia, the music is quite original and has been interpreted as autobiographical. For completely original works, try his latter 3 symphonies (especially the Pathetique).
> For the Soviet era, I think Shostakovich is a wonderful place to start. If you want to know what the Soviet-era Russian experience _sounded_ like, listen to his fifth symphony. Besides that, there are so many to choose from. I recommend his string quartets (especially 8), his 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, and other symphonies (especially 7 and 10).


Thank you, Gordontrek! Prokofiev has always been my favourite among the Russian composers, but I will certainly dig deeper into Shostakovich's music for the specific Soviet-era experience.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'd check out Modest Mussorgsky's songs (he wrote nigh-on 80 all told), beginning with the three principal cycles (_The Nursery/Sunless/Songs and Dances of Death_). He was a gifted songsmith, and the vast majority of his chosen texts are from Russian sources - as a body of work it represents a creative highpoint along with _Boris Godunov_, _Night on Bald Mountain_ and _Pictures at an Exhibition_.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The Shostakovich quartets. Someone, a Russian professor, once said to me that the music is so full of Russian folk rhythms that it really is impossible for a non Russian to play them idiomatically. I don't know whether this makes any sense.

In Boris Godonov there's a character, The Holy Fool. It's very moving. Nothing could be closer to some of the ideas in the Brothers Karamazov.

I'd also think about Shostakovich 14, which is about Death, which may have something to do with War and Peace.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Another key idea running through Russian music is "orientalism", whether expressed as fantasy (in the operas and their suites by Rimsky-Korsakov), or as history: Borodin _Prince Igor_, or as plain scene-painting (Ippolitov-Ivanov, Borodin), or again as just really neat music (Khachaturian, Prokofiev string quartet #2, Borodin string quartet). Then we get into "Romantic" history/fantasy: Glazunov _Stenka Razin_, Gliere _Ilya Muromets_, Shostakovich _Year 1905_, Prokofiev _Alexander Nevsky_.....


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

_The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn_ (2008) by Solomon Volkov has lots of interesting information that would help connect music to the other arts.

If you're a piano lover like me, I'd suggest beginning with solo works of Rachmaninoff (Preludes, Etudes, Moments musicaux) for the "spirit" toward the end of Imperial Russia into the Emigration, and Prokofiev (Visions fugitives, Sonatas e.g. Nos. 3, 5, 6-8) for WWI up to WW II or for Russians, The Great Patriotic War.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I'd also think about Shostakovich 14, which is about Death, which may have something to do with War and Peace.


Why? What's the link? That some of the protagonists of the novel die?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Roger Knox said:


> _The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn_ (2008) by Solomon Volkov has lots of interesting information that would help connect music to the other arts.
> 
> If you're a piano lover like me, I'd suggest beginning with solo works of Rachmaninoff (Preludes, Etudes, Moments musicaux) for the "spirit" toward the end of Imperial Russia into the Emigration, and Prokofiev (Visions fugitives, Sonatas e.g. Nos. 3, 5, 6-8) for WWI up to WW II or for Russians, The Great Patriotic War.


I'll have to check out Volkov's book! Another good one is by Suzanne Massie. Massie was also a Russophile. She knew the culture inside-out, even counseling President Ronald Reagan on matters Russian. She was married to another expert on Russia, Robert Massie, whose book Nicholas and Alexandra remains a widely-read text on that happy/unhappy, fatuous couple. Suzanne Massie wrote what I consider the best single volume on Russian art for the lay reader, _Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia_. It is a summary of Russian history with overriding adoring emphasis on the richness of its cultural heritage. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who loves Russian music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> Why? What's the link? That some of the protagonists of the novel die?


The way they accept death maybe,


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I've long associated Borodin with Chekhov, in sense of spirit. Both (men of science) seem in their art to lament the loss of the traditional Russian world on the verge of Revolution. I can't read _The Cherry Orchard_ or _Uncle Vanya_ without feeling a deep sense of loss of "what was" and a frightening sense of "what is to come"; nor can I hear the Borodin string quartets with any greater assurance. In my work in the theatre I've longed to design sound for Chekhov utilizing only Borodin's music. Alas, I never got the opportunity for this particular project. But I've read the Chekhov plays many times and always is Borodin either in the background from my stereo or from my memory of his scores.

Dostoyevsky is, of course, a more tragic writer -- darker than Chekhov who at least maintains a comic spirit. Some of the music of Taneyev certainly captures the attitude of the author of _Crime and Punishment_. Mussorgsky certainly does. And the final three symphonies of Tchaikovsky, especially Four and Six, seem resplendently Dostoevskian.

I would suggest that Solzhenitsyn is well represented musically in the works of Shostakovich. I've long felt that one knows more about the experience of life under Stalinistic Communism from listening to Shostakovich than by reading any amount of history or non-fiction on the matter. If you really want to plumb the experience of the gulag, however, you need to turn to the Symphony No. 5 "Amen" by Galina Ustvolskaya. That's a piece that serves well as incidental music to a reading of _The Gulag Archipelago._


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

Being Russian, I find it so sad that Chekhov is better known in the West as a playwright than as the author of arguably the most extraordinary body of short fiction in world literature alongside Kafka. Even his finest stab at dramaturgy, The Seagull, has maybe an act and a half that's masterful and plenty that's ham-handed and melodramatic. But this kind of thing is catnip to most theater goers who are very much into the claptrap about "the Russian soul."



Mandryka said:


> The way they accept death maybe,


I'd recommend then to look into Tolstoy's short novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, it's the kind of work you get goosebumps just thinking about.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I started to think about this when Teodor Currentzis released his Shostakovich 14. People complained that it was too "happy" -- and then I heard someone, a Russian, point out that one can happily accept death. I don't know that there's anything Russian in that point of view really -- I think you have similar ideas in Marguerite Yourcenar for example, in L'Œuvre au noir.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I would strongly recommend any of the Russian composers being performed by native Russian musicians. For instance, there is nothing to me like the virility of the male Russian voices that I find unique, especially in the baritone and bass register. I find it the opposite of the Austro-German tradition. So, it's not just the composer or work, no matter what the era, but the performers for the authentic sound. This is not to suggest that there haven't been fine performances by non-Russians, perhaps just not as subtly idiomatic in sound.

There have been giants in Russian literature and music, perhaps because their history has been so rich and turbulent, so the subject is a huge area. For those writers who were religiously inclined, I'd also suggest exploring the sacred masterpieces of the Russian Orthodox Church that have the essence of the genuine Russian voices. But for starters, as others have mentioned, Mussorgsky's _Boris Godunov_ is incredibly Russian in flavor and not to be missed. I've long considered him the musical counterpart of Dostoevsky. There's a similar rawness and honesty in both.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I am not a devoted reader of fiction. I prefer nonfiction, recalling Mark Twain's remark that the difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction must attempt to be believable. But Russian literature is something else again--it never disappoints in its often idiosyncratic situations, locales, plots, discussions of important issues, and I get pulled in every time. My most recent exploration were some of the stories and novellas of Alexander Kuprin, some truly engrossing and bizarre material. I loved the note in the introduction that Kuprin hated life under the tsar, then after the revolution he hated life under the Soviets. He then emigrated to France and found he hated living as an exile. So he returned to the USSR, and died a broken, embittered man a year or so upon his return.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> I'd check out Modest Mussorgsky's songs (he wrote nigh-on 80 all told), beginning with the three principal cycles (_The Nursery/Sunless/Songs and Dances of Death_). He was a gifted songsmith, and the vast majority of his chosen texts are from Russian sources - as a body of work it represents a creative highpoint along with _Boris Godunov_, _Night on Bald Mountain_ and _Pictures at an Exhibition_.


An excellent suggestion. I am an avid fan of Mussorgsky's songs, and can heartily recommend this set:


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Those of you who are fans of Russian song should check out Rostislav Boiko's "Vyatka Songs" (for orchestra and voice) available on RUSSIAN DISC RD CD 11 045.















My favorite remains the final song, number 13, "As the Linnet Was Walking in the Boyar's Yard". If this doesn't convince you that Russian song is worth seeking out, you have no ears.

By the way, that Boiko Symphony No. 2 is pretty good, too!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> Being Russian, I find it so sad that Chekhov is better known in the West as a playwright than as the author of arguably the most extraordinary body of short fiction in world literature alongside Kafka. Even his finest stab at dramaturgy, The Seagull, has maybe an act and a half that's masterful and plenty that's ham-handed and melodramatic. But this kind of thing is catnip to most theater goers who are very much into the claptrap about "the Russian soul."
> 
> I'd recommend then to look into Tolstoy's short novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, it's the kind of work you get goosebumps just thinking about.


The Chekhov short stories are very good, though I'm more interested in Kafka's modernism. The plays are an enigma, I mean, why don't those thee sisters just pull themselves together - they've got a nice house and a good family and friends, and they're not short of a bob or two, what's to be so miserable about?

You know, I've always avoided Tolstoy's late works because of the way he caught religion, but what you've written will prompt me to give it a try sometime (at the moment I'm reading more French than Russian, I'm reading a lot of Claude Simon and Richard Millet)


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Forss said:


> My quest is simple: I am in search of the Russian-Soviet spirit in the sphere of (classical) music, the same spirit that I find in the writings of, say, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn and Svetlana Alexievich, i.e. in the good Russian world of the humanities. What composer - if any - has captured this spirit, or experience, in his or her music? ...


Mussorgsky, Shostakovich.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

One of my favorite short stories of all time remains "Bezhin Meadow" (or "Bezhin Lea") by Ivan Turgenev, whom some of you will know from the novel _Fathers and Sons_ (1862). "Bezhin Meadow" is from the collection _A Sportsman's Sketches_ (1852), a milestone of Russian realism. If I were to equate this story (and others from _A Sportsman's Sketches_) to a sound from some Russian composer, I might turn to the orchestral music of Anatoly Liadov whose short tone poems "Baba Yaga", "Kikimora", and "The Enchanted Lake" may have little to do with Turgenev realism but certainly do reflect the "sounds" I hear when I read the story. Maybe the novel _Fathers and Sons_ is better served by the symphonies of Boris Lyatoshinsky. But I, for one, have been reading for years, and often seek appropriate music to filter the background. These are some of my picks for the Russian Turgenev.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

WildThing said:


> An excellent suggestion. I am an avid fan of Mussorgsky's songs, and can heartily recommend this set:


What do you think of the posthumous orchestration of some of the songs - yea or nae? In a way I wish the famous (but slightly less complete than Leiferkus) Boris Christoff set would have all been for piano only.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

SONNET CLV said:


> I've long associated Borodin with Chekhov, in sense of spirit. Both (men of science) seem in their art to lament the loss of the traditional Russian world on the verge of Revolution. I can't read _The Cherry Orchard_ or _Uncle Vanya_ without feeling a deep sense of loss of "what was" and a frightening sense of "what is to come"; nor can I hear the Borodin string quartets with any greater assurance. In my work in the theatre I've longed to design sound for Chekhov utilizing only Borodin's music. Alas, I never got the opportunity for this particular project. But I've read the Chekhov plays many times and always is Borodin either in the background from my stereo or from my memory of his scores.


Borodin's two string quartets are really out of this world: so refined, so subtle, so... _elevated_. I have just spent the last couple of days absorbing his wonderful music: a truly rewarding experience.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> What do you think of the posthumous orchestration of some of the songs - yea or nae? In a way I wish the famous (but slightly less complete than Leiferkus) Boris Christoff set would have all been for piano only.


I'm somewhere in between I suppose! The posthumous orchestration or reorchestration of several of his works, in addition the songs -- like Boris Godunov, Night on Bald Mountain -- give them a kind of polish and flair that is foreign to Mussorgsky's more rustic, folky aesthetic I feel. But taken for what they are I think they are still colorful showpieces worth listening to.


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