Alexander Lazarevich Lokschin

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Alexander Lokschin, portrait by Tatjana Apraksina, 1987

Alexander Lazarevich Lokschin ( Russian Александр Лазаревич Локшин ; born September 19, 1920 in Biysk , † June 11, 1987 in Moscow ) was a Russian composer .

Life

Alexander Lokschin, whose parents were of Baltic Jewish origin, began playing the piano at the age of six. From 1930 he attended the music school in Novosibirsk , where the family moved after his father had lost his small property and cattle breeding through nationalization. The piano teacher was Alexej Stein, a former professor of the Petersburg Conservatory exiled to Siberia. From 1936 Lokschin studied at the music school attached to the Moscow Conservatory and, after passing the entrance exam to the Conservatory with its director Heinrich Neuhaus, was directly admitted to the second year of Nikolai Miaskovsky 's composition class in 1937 . His graduation thesis, the vocal symphonic poem " Les fleurs du mal " based on poems by Charles Baudelaire, displeased the political censors because of the western decadent subject. Lokschin was therefore not admitted to the exam in 1941, despite Miaskovsky's intercession.

During the Second World War, Lokschin did brief military service in the Red Army , was discharged due to illness, worked as an anti-aircraft helper and returned to Novosibirsk, where he performed in a military band. In 1944, after the successful performance of a vocal symphonic work by Yevgeny Maravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic , who had been evacuated to Novosibirsk , he was able to finish his composition studies in Moscow. From 1945 to 1948 Lokschin worked as a lecturer for instrumentation at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1948 Lokschin had to undergo a gastric resection . Shortly afterwards he fell out of favor again in Stalinist cultural policy and was suspended from the conservatory because he had dealt with western-oriented music by composers such as Gustav Mahler , Alban Berg , Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich .

Lokschin returned to Siberia and made his living as a freelance composer mainly through film music. Despite recognition from internationally renowned composer colleagues such as Shostakovich and Tishchenko or conductors such as Mrawinsky and Barschai (who premiered six of Lokschin's eleven symphonies), his “serious” compositions were hardly performed during his lifetime, sometimes even posthumously. After Stalin's death, the - inaccurate - assertion of the dissident Alexander Jessenin-Wolpin that Lokschin was responsible for his arrest as a KGB agent resulted in a considerable discrediting of Lokschin, also in artistic circles.

plant

Alexander Lokschin left 11 symphonies, all of which - with the exception of the 4th symphony " Sinfonia stretta " from 1968 - also include vocal parts . The choice of text was often in stark contrast to the official state ideology. The 1st symphony with the Latin requiem text (1957; 1967 with a rewritten Russian text) was considered religious propaganda and was only heard in the original version after Lokschin's death in 1988 in Poole, England . Symphony No. 3 (1966) uses verses from poems by Rudyard Kipling . At the beginning the first two verses of the Song of the Dead can be heard . This is followed by the first ballad Danny Deever from the Barrack Room Ballads , which describes the morning of the execution of the soldier Danny Deever. Then the poem Boots sings of the march of the infantry column. The symphony closes with the song Mother O'Mine and other verses from the Song of the Dead .

Symphony No. 7 (1972) uses verses from classical Japanese poets. Symphony No. 10 (1976) is based on verses by Nikolai Sabolozki . The 11th symphony was written in 1976. In the same year his 9th symphony based on poems by Leonid Martinov was premiered in Russia, where it was subsequently put on the index.

He also wrote orchestral suites, cantatas and chamber music (including 3 quintets). In his music, which is close to Expressionism , Lokschin saw himself from 1957 strongly influenced by Franz Schubert , Johannes Brahms , Alban Berg and Gustav Mahler . Margarete's songs (1973) based on verses from Goethe's Faust were translated by Boris Pasternak . In 1983 Lokschin set three poems by Fyodor Sologub to music .

Rudolf Barschai said in 1989, two years after Lokschin's death: “ For me Lokschin is one of the greatest composers of our century. His time is now, and it is up to us musicians to work to ensure that his works are played properly ”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Alexander Lazarevich Lokshin: Lyrics used in works (accessed December 7, 2016).
  2. ↑ cit. n. CD supplement BIS-CD-1156 (Lokschin: 4th Symphony, etc.), text by Marina Lobanova, 2001

literature

  • Yury Ivanovich Paisov:  Lokshin, Aleksandr Lazarevich. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  • Marina Lobanova (ed.): An unknown genius: the symphonic composer Alexander Lokschin . Ernst Kuhn, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-928864-85-8 .
  • Boris Yoffe : Alexander Lokschin . In: In the flow of the symphonic . Wolke, Hofheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-95593-059-2 , pp. 307-345 .
  • CD supplement BIS-CD-1156 (Lokschin: 4th Symphony, etc.), text by Marina Lobanova, 2001
  • CD supplement BIS-CD-1456 (Lokschin: Symphonies 5, 9 and 11), text by Josef Beheimb, 2006

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lokschin, Alexander Lazarevich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Локшин, Александр Лазаревич (Russian); Lokshin, Aleksandr
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian composer
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Biysk
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1987
Place of death Moscow