Nikolai Andreevich Roslavets (Russian: Никола́й Андре́евич Ро́славец) (4 January 1881 [O.S. 23 December 1880], Surazh,[1] then in Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire, now in Bryansk Oblast, Russia – 23 August 1944, Moscow) was a significant Soviet modernist composer. Roslavets was a convinced modernist and cosmopolitan thinker; his music was officially suppressed from 1930 onwards.
Among his works are five symphonic poems (three of them are lost), two violin concertos, five string quartets, two viola sonatas, two cello sonatas, six violin sonatas, and five piano trios. In his first piano sonata, he used a triple flat.
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There are three autobiographies by Roslavets that differ considerably from one another. In one of them, published 1924, the composer deliberately stylized his life in order not to be attacked by the "proletarian musician" faction (see below). According to archive materials, Roslavets was neither born in Dushatyn, nor came from a peasant poor family.[2] In the 1890s he was a clerk in the railway office in Konotop and in Kursk, where he began to study violin, piano, theory of music and harmony in Arkady Abaza's musical classes.[3] In 1902 Roslavets was accepted as a student at the Moscow Conservatory where he studied violin under Jan Hřímalý, free composition under Sergei Vasilenko, counterpoint, fugue and musical form under Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and Alexander Ilyinsky. He graduated in 1912, gaining a silver medal for his mystery Heaven and Earth after Byron's poetic drama.
In the 1910s Roslavets' compositions were published in Russian Futurist journals, and futurist artists designed some covers for his music. After 1917 the composer became one of the most prominent public figures of "leftist art" in Russia, together with Arthur Lourié, Kazimir Malevich, Vsevolod Meyerhold and others. Roslavets taught violin and composition in Elets, Kharkiv (then known as Kharkov, where he was director of the Musical Institute)[4] and Moscow. He had a position in the State Publishing House, edited the journal Muzykalnaya Kultura and was one of the leaders of the Association for Contemporary Music.
As a musicologist, Roslavets fought for professionalism, the best in Russian, Western classical and New Music; criticizing vulgar identifications of music with ideology (exemplified in his article ‘On pseudo-proletarian music’). He wrote the first Russian article about Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire.[5] This led to him being harshly attacked in the 1920s by the "proletarian musician" movement, especially by the representatives of the "RAPM" Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians and "Prokoll" (Production Collective of the Students at the Moscow Conservatory). Roslavets was accused of being a "counter-revolutionary" and "bourgeois" artist, "alien to the proletariat", as well as "formalist", a "class enemy" and in the late 1920s and early 1930s, a "Trotskyist", "saboteur"; etc.[6]
In 1928 Roslavets' cantata October was played in the concert in Moscow celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Revolution.[7] In 1930 Roslavets was accused of being a "protector" of the Association of the Moscow Authors which according to the "proletarian musician" was (propagating "light music" and "spreading of the counter-revolutionary literature"). The "Roslavets case" constructed by Viktor Bely, Alexandr Davidenko, V. Klemens, Yuri Keldysh, Semion Korev, Zara Levina, Georgi Polyanovsky, Alexey Sergeev and Boris Shekhter was crowned by a purge which resulted in a professional prohibition. In 1930 Roslavets was banned from obtaining a position as a political editor for two years. In order to save his life, Roslavets publicly repented his former "political mistakes".[8]
During 1932-33 he worked at the Musical Theater in Tashkent, now the capital of Uzbekistan; in 1933 the composer returned to Moscow, where earned a meager living teaching and taking occasional jobs. A victim of the political purges; Roslavets could get no official position for the remainder of his life. Roslavets was not admitted to the Composers' Union, instead he became a member of the Musical Fund. Punitive measures against him had been planned in 1938, and the former "proletarian musicians" had already spread disinformation about him; however Roslavets suffered a severe stroke in 1939 and was a semi-invalid until his death following a second stroke in 1944.[9] His last publication, a song, appeared in 1942.[10]
He is buried in Vagan'kov cemetery in Moscow, and the authorities have now granted permission to mark his grave.[11]
While still a student, Roslavets had been engaged in vigorous artistic debates provoked by Russian Futurism, and was close to artists such as Kasimir Malevich, Aristarkh Lentulov, Vasily Kamensky, David Burlyuk and others. Deeply influenced by the later works of Alexander Scriabin and his mystic chord, Roslavets' quest for a personal language began not later than in 1907; it led to his propounding a "new system of sound organisation" based on "synthetic chords" that contain both the horizontal and vertical sound-material for a work (a concept close to that of Schoenberg's twelve-tone serialism). Following an article of Vyacheslav Karatygin, published in February 1915, Roslavets was sometimes referred to as "the Russian Schoenberg," but in 1914 Nikolay Myaskovsky had already stressed the original nature of Roslavets' style. In an article published in 1925 the critic Yevgeni Braudo pointed out that this was no more helpful than calling Schoenberg "the German Debussy." Although in the 1920s Roslavets criticized Scriabin because of his "over-simplification", the “new system of sound organisation” was first of all inspired by Scriabin's ideas and concepts were transmitted by Leonid Sabaneyev, a close friend of both Scriabin and Roslavets.[12]
Though the "new system of sound organisation" regulates the whole twelve-tone chromatic scale, most of Roslavets’ "synthetic chords" consist of six to nine tones. In the 1920s Roslavets developed his system, expanding it to encompass counterpoint, rhythm, and musical form while elaborating new principles of teaching. In Roslavets' earlier romances and chamber instrumental compositions those sets were already elaborated side by side with expanded tonality and free atonality. The mature forms of this "new system of sound organization" are typical for the pieces composed between 1913 and 1917, such as Sad Landscapes (1913), Three Compositions for Voice and Piano (1913), String Quartet No.1 (1913), Four Compositions for Voice and Piano (1913–14), and the Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 (1914) and 2 (1916, reconstructed by Eduard Babasian), etc.[13]
After the Bolshevik revolution, Roslavets made an important contribution to the "revolutionary propaganda in music" in such compositions as the cantata October (1927) and numerous songs. However, his symphonic poem Komsomoliya (1928), demonstrates an extraordinary mastership, a very complex and highly modern compositional technique, far from the simplification typical for "propaganda works".[14]
In Tashkent, he turned for a while to working with folk material, producing among other works the first Uzbek ballet, Pakhta (Cotton). The works of his last years in Moscow show a simplification of his characteristic language to admit an expanded conception of tonality (for instance in the 24 Preludes for violin and piano), but are still highly professional.[15] Among Roslavets' later compositions, the Chamber symphony (1934–35) demonstrates one of the peaks of his "new system of sound organisation" in its later phase.
Upon Roslavets's death his apartment was ransacked by a group of former "proletarian musicians" who confiscated many manuscripts. Luckily, Roslavets's widow succeeded in hiding many manuscripts; afterwards she handed them over to TsGALI (Central state archive for literature and art, Moscow; nowadays called RGALI, or Russian state archive for literature and art). Some manuscripts were kept by Roslavets's favourite pupil, P. Teplov; nowadays they are in the State Central Glinka-Museum for Musical Culture. According to Teplov, Roslavets's enemies were hunting for his manuscripts after his death and destroyed some of them.
In 1967 the niece of the composer, Efrosinya Roslavets, undertook the first steps after the rehabilitation of her uncle; thanks to E. Roslavets, it has been found out that the composer had not submitted to the political repressive measures. This important step, that the refusal to play Roslavets's compositions was justified for the reason that Roslavets belonged "to the arrested peoples’ enemies," did not improve the situation; Roslavets's output was suppressed. In 1967 the employee of the Glinka-Museum, Georgi Kirkor, refused Efrosinya Roslavets access to the museum-cards; Kirkor declared Nikolai Roslavets "to be alien to the people" and accused the composer of "relations with the world of Zionism."[16] This dangerous accusation was caused by the fact that Leonid Sabaneyev, a close friend of Roslavets, and a keen enemy of Soviets, had propagated Jewish music; the ASM had also propagted Jewish composers. Since late 1970s, Roslavets's researcher and publisher, Marina Lobanova, was accused and prosecuted because of "Zionist activities" too, not least because of her relationship to one of the founders of the state of Israel. In 1967 the leading officials of the Soviet Composers' Union, Vano Muradeli and Anatoly Novikov, as well as the union’s chief, Tikhon Khrennikov, refused to meet Efrosinya Roslavets.[17] For thirty years, Roslavets's name, expunged from the musical dictionaries, was hardly mentioned in Soviet musical literature; even after perestroika began, scholars could only hear such comments as "Roslavets's works are not worth the paper they are written on." [16] His name reappeared in a Soviet musical dictionary in 1978 in a negative context. Typical of the highly negative official attitude towards Roslavets were sentences like those: "Roslavets is our enemy," "he is a composer whose music is not worth the paper on which it is written down," "Roslavets's tomb should be destroyed."[18]
In the West, Detlef Gojowy (1934–2008) struggled for a long time for Roslavets. For his activities Gojowy was constantly ideologically attacked due to the guidance of officials of the Soviet Composers' Union, many times personally by Tikhon Khrennikov, as well as by powerful enemies of Roslavets, their comrades, and the magazine "Soviet Music." Until 1989, Gojowy was treated as a "warlike anti-communist," a persona non grata. The copies of his articles which the journalist sent to his Soviet colleagues were confiscated by the Soviet duty; he was not allowed to get a Soviet visa.[19] As a result, Gojowy had to use secondary sources for his studies which did not always contain correct information. For example, conjectures appeared in some publications of Gojowy about the "Ukrainian" origin of Roslavets; non-critically reproduced by other writers, they became the basis for the distribution of one more myth about the composer.
On December, 27th 1980 a concert with M. Lobanova’s introductory took place place in Mark Milman's club for Chamber music; a section of this concert was devoted to Roslavets's music. According to Edison Denisov, the leaders of the Composers' Union of the Soviet Union banned a concert entirely devoted to the composer. After the first publication about Roslavets's original theoretical concept, based on archival materials (Lobanova 1983) had appeared, M. Lobanova's lecture on Roslavets's musical-theoretical system , declared in the program of the international conference "Musica nel nostro tempo" (Milan) was forbidden in 1984: leading functionaries of the Composers' Union of the Soviet Union had accused the researcher of "illegal contacts to the West." After that, dismissal by Lobanova from the Moscow conservatory was attempted as well as deprivation of her scientific degree and rights for teaching; soon, they tried to use an application of retaliatory psychiatry with the dissident diagnosis against Lobanova.[20]
In 1989 Efrosinja Roslavets requested the Moscow composer organisation, that had just proclaimed itself to be independent from Tikhon Khrennikov's Composers' Union of the Soviet Union, to reconstruct and publish Roslavets's works and to restore Roslavets's grave. Roslavets's niece entrusted officially M. Lobanova these tasks. In 1990, after a long struggle, including that against criminal structures, thanks to assistance of the head of the Moscow composer organisation, Georgi Dmitriev, Roslavets's grave was identified and restored according to Lobanova's plans authorised by the composer's niece.
In 1989 the Moscow publishing house "Music" printed the collection "Nikolai Roslavets. Piano compositions" ed. by Nikolai Kopchevsky, reproducing many typing errors of lifetime editions. The preface to the collection, written by Yuri Kholopov, caused indignation of Efrosinja Roslavets. In her letters dated with 28.01.90 to director of the State Central Glinka-Museum for Musical Culture as well as to the director of the publishing house "Music" and the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Soviet music," the niece of the composer protested against slander, discredit of Roslavets's relatives, false information to archives, Roslavets's creativity, etc. E. Roslavets's special concern was caused by false data on Roslavets's creativity and conditions of archival materials: from her point of view, a reasoning on chaotic conditions of archival materials and careless relatives could excuse possible plunder of Roslavets's heritage and its further falsifications. After refusal in the publication in the USSR and in Russia one of the letters of Roslavets's niece, who has closed access to her personal materials in the Glinka-Museum, nevertheless, has been published in Germany in 1995.".[21] The famous explorer of Russian avant-Garde, Nikolai Ivanovich Khardzhiev, expressed himself much sharper as E. Roslavets according Yuri Kholopov's preface (a letter from 5.12.1990 to M. Lobanova).
In 1989 M. Lobanova found out in archive the score of the First violin concerto by Roslavets; the score was declared to be lost in the diploma paper by A. Puchina written at the Moscow conservatory under the direction of Edison Denisov in 1981. In order of the publishing house "Le Chant du Monde", Edison Denisov was going to orchestrate the version of the First violin concerto for violin and piano published in 1927; however, the discovery of the score crossed out those plans. Soon after the world orchestral premiere of the composition played by Tatyana Grindenko under Fedor Glushchenko (Moscow, on November, 18th, 1989) an article in "RMG" ("The Russian musical newspaper," 1989, № 12, p. 8) appeared, containing false information about the authorship of archival discovery. Later, the newspaper published a refutation with regrets towards Lobanova ("RMG," 1990, № 5, p. 4). In 1989 the world premiere of Roslavets's symphonic poem "In the hours of the New moon" reconstructed by M. Lobanova was sabotaged in Moscow: the prepared and paid material disappeared from the Bureau for propagation of Soviet music. The world premiere of the poem executed by symphonic orchestra of Radio Saarbrücken under Heinz Holliger has taken place on June, 14th, 1990 in Saarbrücken in absence of the author of reconstruction: the Foreign commission of the Composers' Union of the USSR has forbidden Lobanova's travel, despite the official invitation of the publishing house B. Schott und Söhne (nowadays: Schott Musik International).
Although the discovery and introduction of Roslavets's earlier not known compositions as well beginning of publication of his heritage meant "Roslavets's revival," some of Roslavets's compatriots, among them composers of modern wing, stressed that Roslavets's work was of no interest for them: so, in an extensive discussion devoted to discovery of a heritage of Russian musical avant-garde (Heidelberg, 1.11.1991), it was Victor Suslin who categorically expressed that Roslavets's creativity was "of no importance" for him, and Elena Firsova underlined that Roslavets's music was "of no interest" for her.[22]
According to the Russian newspaper "Kommersant-Daily", the former editor in chief of the Moscow publishing house "Kompositor," Vladimir Pikul (*1937), helped in 1991 Efrossinya Roslavets by publishing of the works by Nikolai Roslavets in the publishing house B. Schott & Söhne. According to Vladimir Pikul he had received for his help a commission of 33,500 DM which he invested in the study of his children in Germany. When Tichon Chrennikov got to know that facts, he accused Vladimir Pikul of acquiring illegally 33,500 DM which would belong to the Soviet Composers' Union. On the 6th of May, 1991 a charge against W. Pikul because of "misappropriation of public money" was put by the Soviet Composers' Union at a Moscow district public prosecutor's office. Because a big sum in foreign currency was concerned and there was at that time still no moratorium for capital punishment in Russia, this accusation threatened Pikul the highest punitive measures up to the shooting. Further the inquiries against Pikul were stopped. Nevertheless, in March, 1992 the Composers' Union required new inquiries against Pikul, and a new penal procedure was carried out which was also stopped. At that time Pikul had lost his position to Grigory Woronow (1948–2008); he went to court and won two court procedures. In spite of these court decisions, Pikul did not get back his position, because it was "crossed out"; finally, Pikul required Pikul of Tichon Chrennikov compensation at the rate of 33,500 DM.[23]
In 1991 the left pro-soviet publishing house "Le Chant du Monde", privileged in the Soviet Union as a member of so called "VAAP-family",[24] declared seven unfinished compositions by Roslavets ostensibly completed by Alexander Raskatov: the vocal cycle "A. Blok in memorian," the symphonic poem "In the hours of the New moon," "Music for string quartet," Sonata № 1 (1925) and № 2 (1926) for viola and piano, Piano sonata № 6 and "Chamber symphony" (1926), besides a trancription of the song "Knock!" for baritone and percussions was mentioned.
Actually, the vocal cycle "A. Blok in memoriam" and the symphonic poem "In the hours of the New moon" were finished by Roslavets himself. Archival materials to the Sixth piano sonata contain no end; that makes authentic reconstruction impossible. "Music for a string quartet" is nothing but invention: Roslavets never wrote and was never going to write such a composition. Declared in the program of "Le Chant du Monde" "Viola sonata № 1" (1925) is actually a sketch which Roslavets refused to finish. Original Viola sonata № 1, wrongly named "Viola sonata № 2" in the list of "Le Chant du Monde," was finished by Roslavets in 1926. The draught copy did not need to be completed: Viola sonata № 1 was reconstructed and published by M. Lobanova. The original Viola sonata № 2 was composed not in 1926 as it was underlined in the list of "Le Chant du Monde," but in 1930s; it also did not require to be completed and was published by M. Lobanova. "Chamber symphony" (1926) in the list of "Le Chant du Monde" is actually a sketch which Roslavets refused to finish. The sketch does not allow authentic reconstruction of the cycle as well as of its parts; doubtful it is the instrumentation which Raskatov used: the marks in particello specified neither the harp, nor a piano, and six percussion instruments are completely alien to Roslavets's stylistics. The original Chamber symphony by Roslavets (1934–1935) has been written for 18 instruments, indeed; in the sketch of 1926 less instruments were marked.
All those circumstances caused chaos and strongly complicated studying and propagation of Roslavets's heritage. Severe misunderstandings arose in connection with viola sonatas by Roslavets and its records. So, it was falsely proclaimed, that "Viola sonata № 1 and 2" had been recorded on a CD ("Roslavets. Musique de chambre" [Harmonia mundi, LDC 288 047]): actually, it was the above mentioned sketch of 1925 and Viola sonata № 1 (1926), finished by Roslavets himself: in the contrary to statements in the CD-booklet, this composition had never required to be completed. Information about the reconstruction of a symphonic poem "In the hours of the New moon" and other compositions by Roslavets were spread by musical critics. So, Gerard McBurney reported in 1990 about the poem "In the hours of the New moon" finished by Raskatov on the basis of the incomplete score sketch; reconstruction of the work finished by Roslavets himself, has also been realized by M. Lobanova on the basis of almost complete set of orchestral voices, while the absent ones were reconstructed on a basis of the score sketch.[25] Anna Ferenc mentions Alexander Raskatov's reconstruction of the symphonic poem in a report on the state of Roslavets's rehabilitation in 1992.[26] In the booklet to the CD Hyperion (CDA 67484) written by Calum McDonald the record of the poem "In the hours of the New moon" performed by the BBC orchestra Scotland under Ilan Volkov was again attributed as a work completed by Raskatov; actually, the record based on M. Lobanova's reconstruction. Besides, in this booklet-text by Calum McDonald the world premiere of a poem "In the hours of the New moon" in Saarbrücken was wrongly connected with Raskatov, too. On January, 30th, 2009 the decision of the Hamburg court (GZ: 1004/08JB01 GK: 175) placed a ban on saling of CD Hyperion (CDA 67484) with the booklet containing the above-mentioned false information. According to the above mentioned facts, Hyperion Records, Ltd., changed the data about a poem "In the hours of the New Moon" on its site, naming the author of reconstruction, M. Lobanova. Recently, the booklet-text by Calum McDonald was also revided according to the true facts.
Mistaken information on Roslavets's life and creativity is also found in other sources such as the site http://home.wanadoo.nl/ovar/roslavetz.htm (Nikolai Andreevich Roslavetz. Internet Edition compiled by Onno van Rijen).
Recently there has been a trend to use Roslavets's works for nationalistic purposes.[27] These attempts contradict Roslavets's expressed view of himself as a cosmopolitan artist.
Today Roslavets's most important compositions have been published by Schott Musik International/Kompositor International, Mainz (See the site [1]), edited by M. Lobanova. For all her reconstructions M. Lobanova did not get any honorar. This edition aims to present an authentic reconstruction of Roslavets's heritage. A considerable part of this edition reproduces the works earlier stored in archives which required editorial preparation. Other parts are based on materials to the compositions, finished by the composer himself and supposing authentic reconstruction. By re-publication of compositions, published during lifetime of the author, typing errors have been corrected. The publishing program is far from end: many compositions are prepared for printing.
The concept of "New moon" and Roslavets's poem itself became cult status in recent years. The title "In the hours of the New moon" as well as Roslavets's poem was used in E. Kloke's musical-visual performance, realized in Germany in 2000 as a part of the EXPO 2000; a program title "New Moon" carried concerts of Basel Sinfonietta under Fabrice Bollon (on March, 21-23st 2009, Basel, Geneva, Zurich) in which Roslavets's poem has been executed. Roslavets's creativity was not ignored by the notorious piracy portal "The Pirate Bay," which offered internet users some compositions by Roslavets, including the poem "In the hours of the New Moon" conducted by Heinz Holliger.
Stage:
Vocal:
For voice and piano:
Orchestral:
Chamber music:
Violin and piano:
Viola and piano:
Cello and piano
Piano music: