Sergei Vladimirovich Protopopov

Sergei Protopopov ( Russian Сергей Владимирович Протопопов ; born March 21 ^{. Jul} / 2. April  1893 ^greg. In Moscow ; † 14. December 1954 ) was a composer of the Russian avant-garde in the 1920s.

Life

Protopopov first studied medicine at Moscow University , but then moved to the Kiev Conservatory , where he graduated in 1921 as a student of Boleslaw Jaworski , who had already taught him during his medical studies. For some time he worked at the Kiev Conservatory and then moved to Moscow, where he worked as a choir conductor at the Bolshoi Theater . His progressive composition technique as well as his lively contact with the Association for Contemporary Music (ASM) ensured that he soon became one of the leading composers of the young Soviet Union. Although he composed very little during this time, six works were also published in Vienna as part of the cooperation between the Soviet State Publishing House and Universal Edition that began in 1927: the song Gänseblümchen op.3 for voice and piano trio, the song cycles op.8, op. 10, op. 11 for voice and piano and the piano sonatas No. 2 (op. 5) and 3 (op. 6), with the 2nd piano sonata even being engraved in Vienna. The distribution of the sheet music from Vienna ultimately also ensured performances in western countries. In 1930 he published a work on elements for the construction of musical language , in which he a. a. suggested a 72-part microtonal tone scale.

The cultural system change, which became noticeable by 1932 at the latest, was also felt by Protopopov. Protopopov was arrested on March 4, 1934 for homosexuality - he had been in a relationship with his teacher and friend Boleslaw Jaworski since 1918 - and convicted on April 4, 1934 in absentia and without a defense. First he was in a camp in Mariinsk (in Siblag ), later in Dmitlag , a penal camp in Dmitrov near Moscow, whose inmates were forced to build the Moscow-Volga Canal . As a medical assistant he had a very privileged position in both camps, which allowed him to continue to be musically active; only briefly was he used to do heavy labor. He was allowed to receive a relatively large number of parcels of food, in Mariinsk he was allowed to go into the city without guarding, and in the Dmitlag he was allowed to receive visitors.

After his deportation to Mariinsk (he probably arrived there on April 29, 1934) he was initially unable to be musically active, as there was only one stage with a piano, but numerous other musicians. But he gave his first concert in May, where he made his own compositions together with a baritone. The direction of a small camp orchestra, which he took over on orders from November 1934, in turn hampered his compositional activity, as he had to arrange operas and orchestral works for the available reduced cast.

On November 12, 1935, he was transported to Dmitlag, which promoted musical and artistic activities even more than the camp in Mariinsk. With the Dmitlag they wanted to create a showcase gulag that increased morale among the inmates through a wide range of cultural activities. A sham competition, in which the allegedly culturally uplifting life in the camp was demonstrated, brought Protopopov, who had to sift through the "submissions", not only his early release on June 11, 1936, but also an award and a 100 ruble reward. After his end of detention he stayed in Dmitrov until early 1938 before returning to Moscow.

From 1938 to 1943 Protopopov taught at the Moscow Conservatory and at the Moscow School of Music Education. His friend Dmitri Shostakovich had campaigned for his employment and was particularly concerned about him after Jaworski's death in 1942. Protopopov died in Moscow on December 14, 1954.

plant

Protopopov's oeuvre contains piano compositions, songs and choirs, later also folk songs and orchestral pieces. As with other composers of his generation (e.g. Alexander Mossolow ) one has to separate the works in before and after 1932 ( socialist realism becomes the generally applicable artistic guideline).

Before 1932, Protopopov was at the zenith of his compositional skills and was a virtuoso of modern and progressive means. From the 1910s and 1920s there are therefore 11 avant-garde works with opus numbers (in Gojowy's list, however, op. 2 and op. 9 are missing). His 3 piano sonatas (op. 1, 1920–1922, op. 5, completed in 1924 and op. 6, 1924–1928) are considered key works. Particularly in the pianistically very demanding sonatas No. 2 and 3, which are often notated on 3 notation systems, he uses a progressive tonal language based on the theories of his teacher Jaworski. They are based on tone complexes that are dominated by the tritone , and the sound comes closer to Alexander Scriabin's late work . In places they are without bars, passages reminiscent of bird calls seem to anticipate Olivier Messiaen in places , as it were, his 2nd piano sonata is composed with the same sound material that later also defines Messiaen's 2nd mode with limited transposition possibilities (a direct connection is extremely questionable) .

In the 1930s he had to moderate his style, especially while in prison. He began collecting and setting many folk songs to music, arranged operas and orchestral works for the Mariinsk camp orchestra, while still continuing his opus count. Although he summed up that the "decisive experiences of the last two years [in prison] had a certain positive effect on my work, in which they made it deeper" (Klause 2014, p. 235), they can be found in his later works hardly any hints of the avant-garde phase of the 1920s.

At the beginning of 1936, Protopopov had to take part in a big feint in the Dmitlag: It was a song composition competition that was advertised among the prisoners. Above all lay people should take part, and an external jury (including Dimitri Kabalewski , for example ) assessed the work. Dmitri Shostakovich , who was not part of the jury, was delighted with the “fresh ideas that have been composed by talented people” (Klause 2010, p. 140). Kabalewski made a similar statement - albeit in a more matter-of-fact tone. The aim was to present the Dmitlag to the outside world as if the conditions were so edifying that even laypeople would suddenly find the muse to compose. Officially, Protopopov and the pianist Aleksandr Rozanov only wrote the piano accompaniments for the winning compositions published in the Muzyka trassy (music of the canal). A closer look at the circumstances, including witness reports, reveals, however, that the two listened to the songs sung on the construction site, refined the melodies musically and provided them with a piano setting, in short: Rozanov and Protopopow actually provided a collection of their own folk song arrangements for publication.

Like Shostakovich, he had to keep a double catalog raisonné, so to speak, from the 1930s onwards. B. with the march betonschtschikow (march of the concrete workers, composed in the Dmitlag) political compliance, on the other hand compositions were deliberately kept under lock and key (e.g. the five preludes for piano op. 32, also composed in prison). His own catalog raisonné is also incomplete, probably to exclude critical works.

media

Steffen Schleiermacher recorded Protopopov's 2nd Piano Sonata on CD for the first time in 2003 . In 2013–2016, Thomas Günther made the first complete recording of all three sonatas.

Five of the six works printed in Vienna were reprints of the Russian first edition, the 2nd piano sonata op. 5 was edited and engraved in Vienna. The sheet music is currently (2018) not available in normal music stores, but can be delivered as a custom-made product upon direct request to Universal Edition.

Furthermore, the Soviet State Publishing House published both avant-garde works at the beginning, and later the moderate works. Given the circumstances, Protopopov's avant-garde works were of course no longer available in Russian music stores in the 1930s.

literature

• Detlef Gojowy: New Soviet Music of the 20s , Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1980, ISBN 3-9215-1809-1
• Inna Klause: Sergej Protopopov - a composer in the Gulag in: Die Musikforschung, 63rd year, issue 2 , Bärenreiter, Kassel 2010, ISSN 0027-4801
• Inna Klause: The sound of the gulag. Music and musicians in the Soviet forced labor camps from the 1920s to 1950s, V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8471-0259-5
• Marina Lobanova:  Protopopov, Sergei Vladimirovič. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 13 (Paladilhe - Ribera). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1133-0  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
• Larry Sitsky: Sergei V. Protopopov: The Post-Scriabin Composer . In: Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929 . Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 1994, ISBN 0-313-26709-X , pp. 283–290 (English, google.com [accessed December 21, 2018]).

Web links

• Sound carrier by Sergei Wladimirowitsch Protopopow in the catalog of the German National Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Sergei Vladimirovich Protopopov in the International Music Score Library Project
• Biography, All Music Guide (English)
• Acknowledgment from Anton Rovner (Russian)