Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0397/03971.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 26KB | 434 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03971}
$Pretitle{295}
$Title{Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Music}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Hippocrene Books, Inc}
$Affiliation{Embassy of USSR, Washington DC}
$Subject{art
soviet
museum
russian
artists
moscow
museums
works
exhibitions
music}
$Date{1990}
$Log{Various Modern Art*0397101.scf
}
Country:     Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Book:        USSR Yearbook '90
Author:      Hippocrene Books, Inc
Affiliation: Embassy of USSR, Washington DC
Date:        1990

Music

     The changes under way in the country have also extended to the music
world. Composers who were until recently "in disgrace", such as Denisov,
Schnitke and Gubaidulina, and whose works were mainly performed only in the
West, can now hear their compositions played at concert halls.

     Concerts have become much more diverse, especially in Moscow. As usual,
Vladimir Spivakov, Mikhail Pletnev, Yevgeni Kisin, Yevgeni Svetlanov, Irina
Arkhipova, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Yelena Obraztsova and Yevgeni Nesterenko
performed to a full house. There were also many foreign performers on tour.
For instance, concerts given by Gidon Kremer, Yehudi Menuhin and Leonard
Bernstein were big events. The performances of Milan's La Scala company at the
Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, opening with Vincenzo Bellini's lyrical tragedy
Capuletti and Montecchi, were a great success. At the same time the Bolshoi
Theatre singers and musicians performed at the La Scala theatre. Their tour
began with the opera by prominent Russian composer Mikhail Glinka A Life for
the Tzar as it was composed originally. The operas Duenna, Boris Godunov and
Mlada were also performed.

     Nevertheless, with the exception of such traditional centres of musical
culture as Leningrad, Kiev, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Odessa and
cities in the Baltic Republics, the musical life in other regions leaves much
to be desired. There are not enough concert halls or good musical instruments,
and sometimes the performers have no audience to perform to, because many
people, especially young ones, prefer pop music or rock.

     Church music. Until recently this could be heard only in churches:
secular choirs were recommended not to perform church music. But everything is
changing and in early 1989 the first festival of Russian church music, in
which both church and secular choirs took part, was held in Moscow. Included
in the programme were little-known works by Dmitri Bortnyansky and Pavel
Chesnokov, and ancient Russian hymns. Soviet musical culture now has access to
the high-mindedness, nobleness and powerful spirit inherent in church music.

     Rock music. For many years rock music in our country encountered
obstacles, but it existed and continued to develop. Now it is generally
recognized that rock music is a serious and bold art form which tried, even
before perestroika, to tell people the truth about many negative phenomena in
our life. Among the vast number of Soviet rock groups DDT, Nautilus Pompilius,
Brigade S, Kalinov Bridge, Neskuchny Garden and Black Coffee have become
widely known.

     There is a growing interest in Soviet rock music abroad. Records of rock
groups Mu Sounds, Cruise, Centre, Auction, Cinema and others have appeared in
the West, and Soviet rock musicians have taken part in many international
festivals in the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Spain and Finland. The listeners were able to acquaint themselves
with a wide range of styles - from art rock as presented by Nicolaus
Copernicus to such musical performances as those given by AVIA of Leningrad.
BAP, the leader of West German alternative rock, and the Soviet Brigade S
went on a joint tour of the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany. The
interest in Soviet rock music is growing in the world-only time will tell how
long it will last. One thing is certain: the period of apprenticeship is
over, and rock music in the country has turned from the overt copying of
Western rock music patterns (which prevailed two or three years ago) to the
creation of its own art form.

     An important musical event was the international rock festival, with the
participation of world superstars, that took place in August 1989 in Moscow.
About one billion TV viewers all over the world watched that impressive rock
show thanks to the American company MTV which broadcast it via communication
satellites. The receipts from the festival were channelled by its organizers
and participants into combatting drug addiction and alcoholism.

     Pop music. For many years our people knew the names of only a few
performers, who became widely known then and continued to be stars for
decades. Lyrics and music were written specially for them and they were
awarded prizes and decorations. This gave the impression that there were no
talented singers, with few exceptions. Now, in just a few years, the people
have come to know hundreds of new names. This has been mainly due to various
festivals and contests. One of the most popular ones is the Jurmala All-Union
Contest of Young Performers. Only singers under 30 who have not yet taken part
in all-Union song festivals can participate in it. The Jurmala TV contest was
held for the first time in June 1986. No other contest produced so many young
talents as that one: Rodrigo Fomins, Alexander Malinin, Aziza Mukhamedova and
Larisa Konarskaya, among others.

     In the summer of 1989 the 4th All-Union Contest of Young Pop Singers,
Jurmala-89, again helped many talented singers to become known to the public.

FINE ARTS

[See Various Modern Art: Courtesy Embassy of USSR, New York City.]

     The fine arts in the Soviet Union today are going through what is
virtually a Renaissance. It is not by chance that many art critics compare the
current situation with that of the 1920s, when very diverse and contradictory
avant-garde artistic schools and trends emerged in Russia in the wake of the
Great October Socialist Revolution.

     Later on, however, especially beginning in the mid-1930s, when all
spheres of life in the country, including culture, came under the total
domination of Stalin's personal power, art was bound by certain limitations
and set standards were imposed on artists. These factors, naturally, curbed
the creative fantasy of artists. Showiness, pomposity and portrayals of the
pseudo-prosperous life of the people began to prevail in the officially
accepted painting, sculpture and graphic art.

     Of course, in those years there were also artists who searched for their
own ways in art and developed modern styles and trends. But they were kept out
of the Union of Soviet Artists and were not allowed to participate in
exhibitions. They attempted to unite, holding their own semi-official
exhibitions, which, incidentally, sometimes drew thousands of viewers, but
were never mentioned in the press, and which usually were closed down by the
authorities as soon as they opened.

     As a result, a phenomenon that can only be called underground art
appeared, that is, art which, though not officially banned, has a semi-legal
status and is known only to art lovers.

     It was not until the mid-1980s, with the introduction of perestroika,
broad democratization and glasnost, that the general public in this country
has discovered the existence of paintings, graphic art and sculpture of
diverse, remarkable and original schools and trends.

     Pluralism in artistic styles. The year 1988 became a turning-point in
this country's cultural life. Within this year, differences between the
encouraged and the persecuted, that is, between official and unofficial art,
were completely obliterated. Now, in addition to the art in the traditions of
socialist realism, three powerful and hitherto crudely rejected trends have
been recognized: Russian and Soviet art of the 1910s and 1920s, Soviet
unofficial art from the 1950s to the 1970s and modern art of Western Europe
and America.

     Exhibitions displaying works by the leading artists of unofficia