Lines Oscar Davydovich

Main article: History of music in Russia

Oscar Davydovich Strok is a Soviet composer of Jewish origin from Latvia.

Biography

Born on January 6, 1893 in the Vitebsk province of the Russian Empire in a musical Jewish family and was the youngest of eight children.

1904: Training and work in St. Petersburg

At the age of 10, he composed his version of the romance "I loved you" to the verses of Alexander Pushkin, and at the age of 11 he was admitted to the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the piano class of Nikolai Dubasov.

In 1912, the first romances of Strok were published, and in 1913, his first waltzes "Dream in the trenches" and "Dream in a foreign land." In the same years, Strok worked in cinemas as a pianist-illustrator and performed on stage, accompanying Plevitskaya, Smirnova, Figner, Nezhdanova.

1917: Moving from St. Petersburg to Riga

Before the October Revolution itself, Strok moved to Riga. In the 1920s became famous as the author of romances (they were sung by A. D. Vyaltseva, N. V. Plevitskaya).

1931: Discovery and ruin of dancing. Debt prison

September 15, 1931 Strok opens his own dancing "Barberina" on the street. Brivibas 31. On the ground floor of the new house of Gen. Snicker, built in a fashionable functionalist style near the church of Alexander Nevsky. The opening of the dancing is celebrated magnificently. Interior in the art deco style. The Oscar Strok Orchestra, the gerls quartet, Hawaiian singers, dancers, Peter Leshchenko, host Elsa Bush, screenwriter Leri (Vladimir Vladimirovich Klopotovsky) are involved - the author of many pop diversions, as well as musical reviews, performances, etc., which were staged, in particular, on the stage of the Russian Drama Theater. An elongated hall adversely affects pop singing without a microphone. Leshchenko has no success, his voice seems weak and inexpressive. The economic crisis in Latvia and the unsuccessful management of the restaurant complete the picture.

Without lasting three months, dancing fails. On Saturday night, November 28, 1931, Strokov on Mariinsky 64 was searched. On the same night, the composer was arrested. The court acquitted Strog on 11 counts, but on the two remaining counts he goes to a debt prison for 7 months. The wife of the composer sells property. In the camera, Strok writes "My last tango." After an incomplete month, the musician was released on bail and, together with his family, left for Berlin for a second time, a city that already in 1933 he finally left, moving to Kaunas, and then returning to Riga.

1933: Pianist in restaurants

The 1933 season at the Riga Sea was especially rich in events. Strok opens his new cafe, followed by the famous world attraction - dancing "Lido," Leshchenko also works in summer restaurants. Two Englishmen liked the singer's performance. From this apocryphal moment, his "Colombian" discography counts: Leshchenko has engagements related to recordings at the studios of the British company Columbia in Vienna and Bucharest, participation in London secular ruts, and the musical broadcasting of BiBSI. String has another trouble. Thanks to the denunciation (as if a Finnish citizen was playing in the Strok chapel without permission), the institution is visited by a police officer. Having ordered liquor, he draws up a protocol on the illegal sale of alcoholic beverages. The case is referred to the court and a fine is imposed on the Line.

Strok served as a pianist and bandmaster not only in his own cafes. Over the years, he plays in the Riga and world restaurants Parnas, Foxtrot-Dile, Rococo, Alhambra, Femina, Casino, Lido, Mascotta, plays solo, with violinist J. Levinson or his music cappella-quartet, gives art lessons to publishers according to contemporaries, regular clients for the most part are young ladies interested in fashionable songs from abroad (publisher addresses: st. Brivibas 10, st. Tirgonu 5, st. Gogol 13-5, st. Elizabetes 85). "

In March 1934 - another tour in Riga of the "Kursk nightingale" - the famous performer of Russian romances and songs Nadezhda Plevitskaya. (According to some reports, the singer toured in Riga repeatedly, including in 1924 and 1930.) It is known that of all the accompanists proposed to her, she already on her first visit to Riga chooses the Line, which she knew back in St. Petersburg.

1935: Far Eastern Tour

In Riga, Strok was absent all the first half of 1935. Directly to the Far East, Strok went by steamer from Naples (to Naples - by train, according to some reports through Paris). He planned to move to Tokyo or Harbin, "write" his family there. But he abandoned this venture. He returned to Riga by train through Moscow.

In the pre-war period, Strok and his orchestra toured around the world and recorded huge copies of records with leading world companies. Strook became a fashion legislator in the field of pop music for a long time. His famous sentimental-romantic tangos ('Black Eyes', 'Blue Eyes', 'My Last Tango', 'Tell me why...') received international recognition, and the composer was nicknamed the 'King of Tango'.

Strok spent the years of World War II in Central Asia in evacuation to Alma-Ata, where he works as a pianist at a film studio (Mosfilm and Lenfilm were evacuated here and temporarily merged here). With the arrival of Claudia Shulzhenko, who was the artistic director of the Semenov Orchestra, Strok begins to work in this collective. In 1944 he became the second pianist in the ensemble of V. Coralli and K. Schulzhenko. "Former Hobby" is the last String tango, which gained fame even before the composer's disgrace.

The line created many patriotic songs (among which - "We will win," "Front chauffeur"). During these war years, Oscar Strok had a joint tour with Claudia Shulzhenko. He performed as a composer, soloist and accompanist, took part in the competition for the creation of the National Anthem of the USSR and in work on music for the movie "Kotovsky." In this film, Strok starred in the episodic role of an accompanist in the White Guard tavern.

In 1944-45 Strok lives in Moscow, collaborates with Utesov, Tsfasman. After the war, new and old works of Strok are successfully performed by Troshin, Gulyaev, Lazarenko, Sikora, Kobzon, Nikitsky and other singers.

1948: Exclusion from the Union of Composers and Opal

At the insistence of his son, Strok returns to Riga. The Cold War begins, accompanied by campaigns to combat low worship before the West, loyalty, decline, foreigners, "alien influences," formalism, cosmopolitanism. Many performers and authors of jazz and light music fall under fire. Strings are a convenient target. Through the efforts of some functionaries (publications in the press, etc.) in December 1948, Strok was expelled from the Union of Composers of Latvia (one of the accusations put forward is unprofessionalism). From this moment, Strok until the end of the 1960s becomes a "default figure."

The composer died on June 22, 1975 in Riga.

Works

• 1928 - "Black Eyes" (tango, words of Alexander Perfiliev, performed by P. Leshchenko)

• 1930-1931 - "Blue Eyes" (tango, words of O. Trok). "Blue eyes" were made to order - The line was ordered by one of the fans of the wife of the owner of the Riga cinema "Splendid Palast" Emelyanov, a beautiful Estonian with blue eyes. The notes came out with a dedication: "M. I. Em-woi." The text of this melody in Yiddish composed by Igor S. Korn-Tayer is better known (Igor S. Korntayer, it is Igor S. Korn-Teuer, I. Korntayer, I. M. Korentajer, M. Korn-Teuer, S. Korn-Teuer, Samuel Korn-Teuer) for Menashe Oppengeym - וווהין זאל א' ך ג "ן ("Vuhin zol ikh gein?" - "Where to me to go?"). Korn-Thayer (1890-1941) worked as an actor and author of variety theaters, first in Lodz, then in Warsaw. Got into the Warsaw ghetto, died in Auschwitz. There is a record on Oppenheim's 1941 record (Asch Recordings, New York, 1941, No. H-6003 A). In the 1950s the song was sung by the Berry sisters, in 1963 in the English translation was sung by Ray Charles ("Where Can I Go?").

• 1931 - "When spring comes again" (tango, the words of O. Trok). Tango was written in 1931 specifically for Yuri Morphessy. From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008):

"In Berlin, Stroke heard the ensemble" Weintraub Synkopatrs "with Eddie Rosner. This ensemble then performed the song "When spring comes again and if you will be with me again..." Paul Abraham, a composer whose work Stroke praised highly and whose fate he later often compared with his own (the premiere of Abraham's operetta "Ball in Savoy" took place in Berlin in 1932, a year later the composer was forced to flee to Vienna). The song is fun, major. Strok wrote a sad tango, the chorus of which begins with a melodic turn, rhythmically and intonationally related to the beginning of the chorus of the tango "Black Eyes." He wrote it specifically for the performer of Russian romances Yuri Spiridonovich Morphessy, whom the composer knew back in St. Petersburg. In Riga, Morphessy became very interested in the sister of a friend Strok, and in Paris the singer had a serious love drama related to the unsuccessful marriage to V.V. Lozovskaya. The story was publicized among Russian emigration. Having left Paris, Morphessy intended to settle in Riga, but went to live in Yugoslavia. By the way, the events around Lozovskaya were also connected not only with Paris, but also with Yugoslavia. In this context, apparently, one should perceive the quote-reminiscence of the romance "Spring will not come for me, the Danube will not for me." In itself, the reception of the romance citation was very common at that time. He reminded the Russian listener of musical continuity and the roots of the Russian tango, and the foreigner helped to feel the Russian style more sharply (these are the quote from the romance "Black Eyes" in the arrangement of the tango "Black Eyes," the quote from the romance "Do not go away, stay with me" in the tango "Spring" by Vadim Kozin). The Paris theme "returned" The line to the plot with Leni Liebman, hence, perhaps, the similarity of the rhythmic and melodic development of the initial chorus of the two tangos: in fact, the beginning of the chorus of the tango "When Spring Comes Again" is the modified beginning of the chorus of the tango "Black Eyes."

• 1931 - "My last tango" (the words of A. Perfiliev), in fact, one of the first tango Strok was written at the end of 1931 in a Riga prison, where the composer fell for debts after an unsuccessful attempt to open his own artistic restaurant "Barberina." This is one of the songs written by Oscar Strok and Mark Maryanovsky and included in the repertoire of Pyotr Leshchenko, who begins his vocal career. From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008):

"Before Strok left for Berlin, Leshchenko performed with great success My Last Tango in the AT cafe, accompanied by the author. "My last tango" themes memories of France and is a kind of farewell to my beloved. The destination is not exactly known. An affair with Elsa Bush? A memory of Leni Liebman? In addition, Leshchenko summed up the diction and imperfection of the recording: he sings about Marseille, about the artel, about the hotel or brothel, it is difficult to say even after several auditions. Continuing the "French line," according to the rhythmic structure, this is the "most Argentine" tango String. In his initial melodic phrase, musical symbolism with a "fatal" connotation "(the so-called catabasis - a descending chromatic move - and triton - considered an unsightly musical interval). Both receptions refer immediately to three famous works: Gade's tango "Jealousy," habanere J. Bizet from the opera "Carmen," and the composition of S. Iradiere of the XIX century. as the source of all tangos. The appeal to the opera plot "Carmen" is not by chance: Khose, the protagonist of this opera, seduced and deceived by a fatal woman, spends some time in custody. "

• No later than 1934 - "Do not remember" (the words of O. Trok). From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008):

"The most" cabaret "of the Oscar String tango I know. At one time - the repertoire "exclusive" of Konstantin Tarasovich Sokolsky. L.A. Schwartz, the author of the tango "My Liliputochka, Come to Me, Let's Wait a Moment Alone" from the Soviet movie of those years "New Gulliver" in all likelihood focused on the tango "Do not remember" as an intonation source. "

• 1935 - "The blue rhapsody" ("The blue rhapsody") (slow-foks, words O. A line, executed P. Leshchenko). From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008) about Blue Rhapsody:

"According to the memoirs of Eug.O. Line (composer's son) - written in 1936 on a train for a small revue that ran in one of the cities. This date is contradicted by the fact that notes and records with this work appear on sale already in 1935. Most likely, the appearance of this tango (conceived as a fox word) we owe the composer a tour trip to the countries of the Far East, where, according to his own testimony, he participated in revue productions. The original name refers to J. Gershwin's "Blues-style Rhapsody (in blue tones)" and may have been an echo of interest in the debuts of jazz orchestras O. Lundstrom and B. Paradise in Shanghai and Harbin. The performance of Western light music was not the strength of the orchestras accompanying Pyotr Leshchenko, and the slow foxtrot "Blue Rhapsody," which is how it is indicated in the author's edition, sounds too uncertain for Leshchenko. "

• 1935 - "Musenka" or "O mia cara" (tango, words of O. Trok). Published no earlier than mid-1935 in the collection Line "Russian Jazz." Other author's names are "O mia cara" and "Song of Love." One of the songs written by Oscar Strok and Mark Maryanovsky in the early 1930s in Riga for Pyotr Leshchenko, who begins his song career. From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008):

"Dedicated to Maria Eduardovna (mother - Fadanelli) - the sister of the composer's wife. Published in the author's collection "Russian Jazz. Album of popular songs, tango, foxtrots "- by the publishing house Line, which since 1930 is called" Casanova. " The album appeared in print upon the return of the Line from the Far Eastern tour. "

• 1935 - "Tell me why?" (the words of O. Trok). There are other versions of authorship: muses. O. Line - words by A. Perfiliev; muses. A. String - words by an unknown author. Tango was published in the author's collection Line "Russian Jazz" no earlier than mid-1935. One of the songs written by Oscar Strok and Mark Maryanovsky in the early 1930s in Riga for Pyotr Leshchenko, who begins his song career.

• 1935 - "Sleep, my poor heart" (the words of O. Trok and E. Altshuler). Written for Peter Leshchenko. From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008):

"Sleep, my poor heart" was published in the collection "Russian Jazz" no earlier than mid-1935. Co-author of the text - E. Altshuler. Distant intonational surroundings and contexts (tango of Ernesto de Curtis "Sing to Me"; "Poor heart of mother," etc.) let us say that this tango fits into the "Italian" Line. "

• Until 1940 - "Oh, how sweet I am" (tango, the words of O. Trok). Recording on the record, performed by A. Cherkassky no later than 1940.

• 1944 - "Former hobby" (tango, words of Oscar Strok). From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008):

"Written specifically for K.I. Shulzhenko. By 1944 (after performances on the Leningrad front and in besieged Leningrad), the orchestra accompanying the singer (along with trumpeter Alexei Semenov) moved to Kazakhstan and Sr. Asia. At this time, the line is evacuated to Alma-Ata, where it works as a pianist at a film studio (Mosfilm and Lenfilm are evacuated here and temporarily merged here). With the arrival of Shulzhenko, who was the artistic director of the Semenov Orchestra, Strok begins to work in this collective. "Former hobby" is the last String tango, which gained fame even before the composer's disgrace. "

• 1944-1945 - "Lunar Rhapsody" (tango, words of Naum Labkovsky, performed by L. Utesov). A new version of the Blue Rhapsody word fox (1935). The alteration was created for Leonid Utesov. Naum Labkovsky composed a new text, and Strok arranged the melody of the former foxtrot in tango.

From Dmitry Dragilev's book Labyrinths of Russian Tango (St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2008) about Blue Rhapsody:

"The new text belonged to the pen of Naum Labkovsky (1944-45 written for L.O. Utesov, Strok at that time lives in Moscow). Labkovsky, a songwriter and journalist who collaborated with orchestras of A. Tsfasman, E. Rosner and Y. Skomorovsky, who had known Strok since 1940 (then he was a special correspondent in Riga), contributed to the composer's communication with Utesov. The new arrangement finally turns the fox layer into tango, although it is interpreted by the Utes somewhat marching. The name "Lunar Rhapsody" echoes many other works - from Beethoven's "Lunar Sonata" and Dunaevsky's "Lunar Waltz" to Glenn Miller's "Serenade of Moonlight," which gained great popularity in the USSR after 1945. Thus, jazz contexts are unexpectedly discovered in the history of this tango. "

Tango:

• "Star Happiness" (tango, words by Anatoly Gorokhov)
• "You are all sad about black eyes" (Answer to "Black eyes") (words of O. Trok)
• "By the Sea" (words by Oscar Line)
• "O Marianne"
• 1970s (?) - "Do not reproach" (words of O. Trok). One of Oscar Line's last tangos. From the repertoire of the orchestra of George Garanyan in the 1980s.

Foxtrots:

• "Spring" (words by Oscar Line)
• "Katya" (words of O. Trok)
• "Don't leave!" (words by Oscar Line)
• "Yasha-salesman" (words by Oscar Strok)

Other songs:

• "Bellochka" (words by Pyotr Leshchenko)
• "Recollection" (words by Oscar Line)
• "Blue Letter" (words by Igor Severyanin)
• "Machenka" (words by Oscar Line)
• "Polly, I Love You" (words by Oscar Line)
• "My Gypsy" (words by V. Berkovich)
• "In Separation" (words by Gregory Beilin)