Alexander Wassiljewitsch Mossolow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexander Vasilyevich Mosolov ( Russian Александр Васильевич Мосолов ;. Scientific transliteration Aleksandr Vasil'evič Mosolov ; born July 29 . Jul / 11. August  1900 greg. In Kiev , † 12 July 1973 in Moscow ) was a Russian composer .

Life

Mosolov spent most of his childhood and youth in Moscow, where he came into contact with the latest trends in the Russian music scene. Before starting his studies, he fought in the Red Army from 1918 to 1920 . From 1921 to 1925 he studied piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory . Reinhold Glière and Nikolai Mjaskowski were among his teachers . In the 1920s he often performed as a pianist and was a reviewer. Mossolow was very involved in the ASM (Association for Contemporary Music) founded in 1924 , which earned him hostility to representatives of the RAPM (Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians) , by whom he was publicly defamed. At times his works were no longer performed.

When this problem was resolved with the dissolution of both associations in the early 1930s, Mossolow came into conflict with the state because his personal style could not be reconciled with the aesthetics of socialist realism . Already in 1936 excluded from the composers association for alleged public drunkenness and disturbance of the peace, Mossolow was arrested as a supposed counterrevolutionary and sentenced to eight years of hard labor. But in August 1938 his teachers Glière and Mjaskowski obtained through personal intervention that he was pardoned and that his sentence was reduced to a five-year banishment from Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. From that time on, Mosolov frequently visited remote areas of the USSR such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to collect folk songs. He later settled in Moscow again and led an inconspicuous life without again coming into conflict with the state. Of course, only a few of his compositions were performed. After his death, Mossolow was rehabilitated.

style

While some of his first works are still influenced by the late Romantic era or have Scriabin's influences , Mossolow quickly developed his very own, new style in the 1920s. This is constructivist, anti-romantic, anti-emotional and provocative in its radicalism. In many works, Mossolow avoids euphony and overrides almost all the rules of tradition. Atonality is very common in his works from this period. Sawod (German actually "factory", but in the West known as Die Eisengießerei ; the only section from the ballet Stahl that went beyond the planning stage) gained particular fame . Inspired by Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231 , Mossolow transforms the sounds of an iron foundry into music as faithfully as possible. This dissonance-rich, piercing rhythmic “machine music” is typical of Mossolow's joy in experiments, with which he also influenced other young composers at the time. The iron foundry also found recognition outside the Soviet Union ; For example, it was performed in Liège in 1930 and in the Hollywood Bowl in 1932 . At that time Mossolow was one of the pioneers of the musical avant-garde in Russia. After his imprisonment, however, he was forced to distance himself from all modernist tendencies. From this time on he wrote tonal and in all areas very traditional music, which corresponded to the demands of socialist realism. The theme is based on folk songs in particular from the North Caucasus and Central Asia. He worked a lot with folk instrument orchestras and folk choirs. Many of his later compositions have political references in that they glorify the Soviet state system. Mossolow's musical historical importance is based primarily on his early work, which was downright shocking in its radicalism for the time.

Others

At documenta 8 in Kassel in 1987 , recordings by Alexander Mossolow were presented as an official contribution to the exhibition as part of the "Archeology of Acoustic Art 2: Dada Music".

Works

  • Orchestral works
    • "The tractor brigade enters the kolkhoz" (1926)
    • Symphony op.20 (1927/28, lost)
    • "Anti-religious symphony" (1931)
    • Symphony in E major (1944)
    • Symphony No.2 in C major (1946)
    • Symphony No. 3 in B flat major "Lied Symphony" (1949/50)
    • "Weekend in the Park" (1952)
    • Symphony in C major (1959/60)
    • Symphony No. 4 in A minor (1959/60)
    • Symphony No.5 in E minor (1965)
    • Symphony No. 6 (until 1973, unfinished)
    • “Soldier songs”, suite for folk instrument orchestra
  • Concerts
    • Piano Concerto No.1 op.14 (1927)
    • Piano Concerto No.2 op.34 (1932)
    • Violoncello Concerto No. 1 (1935 ?, lost)
    • Violoncello Concerto No. 2 in C minor (1945/46)
    • Elegisches Poem for violoncello and orchestra (1960/61)
    • Harp Concerto (1939)
  • Stage works
    • "Stahl", ballet op.19 (1926–28), from it: "Die Eisengießerei"
    • "Der Held", chamber opera op.28 (1928)
    • "Der Staudamm", opera op.35 (1929–31)
    • "Signal", opera (1941, lost?)
    • "Masquerade", opera based on Lermontow (1944)
  • Vocal music
    • "Heldenstädte", oratorio for solos, choir and orchestra (1945)
    • "Ehre dem great October" for baritone and orchestra (1947)
    • "Heimat", oratorio for solos, choir and orchestra (1948/49)
    • "Honor of the City of Moscow", oratorio for choir and orchestra (1967)
    • "Volksoratorium über GI Kotowski" for soli, choir, reader and orchestra (1970)
    • “Kolkhoz fields”, 8 choirs
    • several other choirs
    • Songs
    • Folk song arrangements
  • Chamber music
    • String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 24 (1926)
    • String Quartet No. 2 in C major "Suite on themes of patriotic soldiers and partisan songs from 1812" (1943, rev. 1963)
    • Legend for violoncello and piano op.5 (1924)
    • Two pieces for violoncello and piano (1947)
    • "Dance suite" for harp (1940s)
  • Piano music
    • Sonata No.1 in C minor op.3 (1924)
    • Sonata No.2 in B minor op.4 (1923/24)
    • Sonata No.3 op.8 (1924, lost)
    • Sonata No.4 op.11 (1925)
    • Sonata No.5 in D minor op.12 (1925)
    • Two nocturnes for piano op.15 (1926)
    • "Turkmen Nights" (1928)
    • more pieces

Note: This catalog raisonné cannot claim to be correct. Each source has different dates and different works. This has not least to do with the fact that many of Mossolow's works have been lost, but also with the fact that very few have so far been made public. Sometimes it cannot even be perfectly clarified whether a work is missing or not. At present (2006) numerous questions in this context are open.

For the status of research in November 2017, see the article by Anastassia Boutsko Kampfkantata mit ungodless choir , in the FAZ from November 24, 2017 on page 12.

literature

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Kerstin Holm: Music of the Revolutionary Era: Life is getting better and happier, comrades , faz.net from November 15, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b Anastassia Boutsko: Combat cantata with godless choir in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of November 24, 2017, p. 12.
  3. ↑ Anastassia Boutsko: World premieres by the composer Mossolow cause a stir on: deutschlandfunk.de on October 2, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Mossolow, Alexander Wassiljewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Мосолов, Александр Васильевич (Russian); Mosolov, Aleksandr Vasil'evič (scientific transliteration)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiev
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1973
Place of death Moscow