Shcherbachev Vladimir Vladimirovich

Main article: History of music in Russia

Vladimir Shcherbachev had a difficult role to be a link - a bridge from the KhІKh century, the century of Russian musical classics - into the turbulent 20th century. Vladimir Shcherbachev (1889-1952) shares this role with another wonderful composer, his contemporary Nikolai Myaskovsky.

Biography

Born in Warsaw and graduated from high school there in 1906, Vladimir Shcherbachev enters the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, where he takes a course for four years.

At the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied at the same time (in 1908-1912), A. Lyadov and M. Steinberg were his teachers.

In 1911, the young musician received an invitation to work as an accompanist in the opera and ballet entreprise of S. Diaghilev on the recommendation of A. Glazunov and made an exciting tour of Europe with his troupe - Monte Carlo, Rome, Paris, London.

In World War I, Lieutenant Shcherbachev serves in the automobile troops; the February Revolution of 1917 finds him in a military driving school. Here he met V. Mayakovsky: Shcherbachev's romance "Four. Heavy as a blow "was the first musical interpretation of the poet's poems.

In the years 1918-1922. Shcherbachev serves in the Red Army, simultaneously managing the musical part of the Petrograd Mobile Theater, and then the MUZO - the music department of the People's Commissariat of Education.

Shcherbachev's works of these years reveal an inquisitive musician looking for his way in art. It is very symbolic that the piano cycle, written in 1921, is called "Inventions" (he was very loved and constantly included in his programs by the outstanding pianist Maria Yudina).

The desire for non-standard compositions leads to Nonet, unique in world literature for a female voice (without words), flute, harp, piano, string quartet and... ballerina - performer of the plastic party. At numerous premieres in 1919 with the participation of the famous prima of the Mariinsky Theater Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Nonet enjoyed great success.

After a creative business trip to Dresden in 1923, Shcherbachev was invited as a professor to the Petrograd Conservatory. Very soon he is gaining a reputation as an outstanding teacher of composition, a reformer of the system of musical education.

Shcherbachev takes an active part in the activities of the New Music Circle. Together with Asafiev, he founded the Association of Contemporary Music (AFM) in Petrograd, which promoted the works of contemporary Western composers Schoenberg, Berg, Bartok, Hindemith and others in the USSR, as well as Prokofiev and Stravinsky who lived abroad. ASM concerts feature works by young Soviet composers; among them Dmitry Shostakovich and Shcherbachev's students Gabriel Popov, Boris Arapov, Alexey Zhivotov, Yuri Kochurov, Viktor Voloshinov.

According to the memoirs of Mikhail Druskin, "Asafiev and Shcherbachev are two poles of attraction for young people of those years; all the best is connected with them, new, fresh, which is brought to the Leningrad musical culture of this decade. " This could not but cause fierce attacks from the so-called "proletarian" circles of the Proletkult and BRINES Ma (Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians). In 1930-1933 Shcherbachev was even forced to leave the Leningrad Conservatory and "emigrate" to Georgia. For three years of teaching in Tbilisi, a whole galaxy of Georgian composers has grown in his conservatory classes.

After the creation of the Union of Soviet Composers in 1932, Shcherbachev was actively involved in its activities. In 1935-1937 and in 1944-1946 he headed the Leningrad organization of the Union.

After returning from evacuation in 1944, he continued to teach composition at the Leningrad Conservatory, from which he was dismissed in 1948 after the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on Muradeli's opera "Great Friendship," where Shcherbachev, like other leading Soviet composers (Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich), was declared an "anti-people formalist."

In the last years of his life, the composer worked on the final edition of the Fifth Symphony, participated in the musical design of films ("Composer Glinka," "Concert of Masters of Art").

The composer died on March 5, 1952 in Leningrad.

Compositions

Works for symphony orchestra are central to Vladimir Shcherbachev's creative legacy. Symphonic paintings "Vega" (1910), "Procession" and "Fairy Tale" (1912), the one-part First Symphony (1913), inspired by Scriabin poems, with all its talent, only completed the years of apprenticeship, wrote Iosif Rayskin.

Second Symphony

The monumental Second Symphony (1922-1927) is essentially a vocal-symphonic cycle based on the poems of Alexander Blok, the beloved poet Shcherbachev was conceived by the composer as the second part of a kind of concert "two-evening." On the first evening, it was supposed to perform the piano cycle "Unexpected Joy" with programmatic poetic epigraphs of the Block for each movement and romances to the verses of the Block, and on the second evening the Symphony. However, the author's plan was never implemented. The premiere of the Second Symphony, held at the end of 1927, remained its only performance for more than sixty years.

Only in 1989, in the year of the century of Shcherbachev, it was revived in the Leningrad Philharmonic.

It seems that the fates of Shcherbachev's "Blokovskaya" symphony and Myaskovsky's Sixth symphony are largely similar. The sacrificial, "intelligent" perception of the revolution, the proximity of the apocalyptic concepts of both symphonies interfered with their success among a wide audience. And, on the other hand, they did not fit into the pro-Russian bed of the normative aesthetics of "socialist realism."

Third Symphony

The Third Symphony, followed by the Blok Symphony - Symphony Suite (1931), with its brightly theatrical images, and the unfinished also programmatic suite Fourth Symphony "Izhora" (1935) reflected Shcherbachev's then passion for music for theater and cinema and at the same time interest in Russian history. This interest was manifested both in musical everyday life writing (music for the film "Thunderstorm" based on the play by A. N. Ostrovsky) and in recreating the historical color of the era (music for the two-part film "Peter І"). Symphonic suites that grew out of film music ("Thunderstorm," 1934 and "Peter І," 1939) became almost the most popular works of Shcherbachev.

Tobacco captain

Shcherbachev went to work on "Tobacco Captain" whether to call it an operetta, a musical comedy, or even a comic opera all his creative life.

The essay was "announced," more precisely, predicted by the author himself in an article entitled "On New Works" in the magazine "Art and Life," 1940 No. 8). "Tobacco captain" Shcherbachev "prophesied" to himself two years before he received an order for him. In the titled article, he admitted: "I really want to work on fun comic material. Nothing like that has happened so far in my work. And there is a need to plunge into something filled with foaming fun, cheerfulness, infecting humor. Whatever it was vaudeville, lyrical comedy, operetta, I would have worked with pleasure for it. "

Being a demanding artist, desperately reflecting on any of his undertakings, the composer cherished theatrical projects for a long time ("Peter І" is the plan of the opera; "Ivan the Terrible" - the plan of the opera to the libretto by V. Shishkov; "Anna Kolosova" - an opera to the libretto of S. Spassky, not over, only individual scenes were performed; "Orpheus" is the idea of ​ ​ a ballet based on a dramatic poem by A. Poliziano...). Therefore, having received a masterful libretto by N. Aduev, which offered a plot from the Petrovsky era - the history of the serf Bashkir Akhmet, for the natural estimate and skill in naval affairs appointed by Peter as captain instead of the stupid master-misunderstood, Shcherbachev set to work with heat.

"Infected with the humor and foaming fun" of the plot, Shcherbachev showed the properties of his talent, which later came in handy in the finale of the Fifth Symphony. Naturally, painting the same era, the scores of the music for the film "Peter І" and "Tobacco Captain" turned out to be "communicating vessels." Some musical fragments are entirely transferred from the movie to the operetta, others are close in language. As in the movie, the music of comic scenes is riddled with dance.

"In dance music... in Swedish and Russian carcasses, in table music and vivats, I tried to recreate the picture and atmosphere of Peter's time, "the author will say later.

The main thing in this atmosphere is a bizarre and at the same time organic combination of the original Russian principle with European innovations introduced by the reformer tsar. In the overture that opens the suite, the resolutely sounding Peter's edging contrasts with the smooth movement of the girl's round dance. Emphatically, the cutesy minuet dances, as they say, "on tiptoes..." The solemn procession is accompanied by some really comic clamps and curtsy... In the lyrical pavan, the peasant round dance organically merges with the aristocratic Western dance... The ceremonial ceremony is again completed by the pompous kant-vivat.... It sounds mischievous, gracefully instrumental polka, which, according to the composer, is based on Swedish folk dance.... And, of course, the Russian dance suite crowns the suite.

"The thoughtful" slowener "in his work and the lyrical symphonist," wrote Academician Asafiev in an article written in 1943 in the "military" year, "Shcherbachev is in no hurry to increase the number of his opus. At this stage, he leaned and very successfully sided with the lyrical musical comedy and thereby towards a sociable style.... " This is said about the musical comedy "Tobacco Captain," created in the hardest 1942, in Novosibirsk, where the composer was evacuated together with the Leningrad Philharmonic.

The musical comedy "Tobacco Captain" was written by Shcherbachev with extraordinary speed for him, moreover, in painful everyday circumstances, in evacuation in Novosibirsk in just six months. And it turned out to be the only complete work of the composer for musical theater (besides, immediately staged by the Moscow Operetta Theater in evacuation in Siberia).

Fifth Symphony

Shcherbachev's fifth symphony looked like an obvious step of the author to a wide democratic audience, to the direction that was successfully called a sociable style.

In 1940, the composer reported that work on the Fifth Symphony «... is in full swing is the Russian Symphony. It is as a Russian symphony that I conceived and so, in all likelihood, will be called. The symphony widely uses materials from Great Russian and Cossack folklore. By the end of this year, I intend to finish the symphony. It is possible that in the second half of this season (that is, in 1941) it will already be performed in Moscow and Leningrad. "

But as soon as Shcherbachev hesitated a little and the Great Patriotic War began, mixing all plans.

Sherbachev carried the fifth symphony for a decade: its first edition was performed in 1948 (on December 21, the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Eugene Mravinsky), and the final version of the score was completed by the fall of 1950 (premieres were carried out by Nathan Rakhlin, who conducted October 21, 1950 in Kyiv and November 30 in Leningrad).

The fifth symphony (1940-1950) turned out to be the final composition of the composer. It is no coincidence that her score was absorbed by thematic material from the Fourth Symphony (including from its unfinished parts), from the music for the films "Thunderstorm" and "Peter І," from "Tobacco Captain," from sketches for the opera "Anna Kolosova." And again, the composer's beloved poet, with his invisible presence, dawned on his swan song: according to a contemporary (A. A. Gozenpud), Shcherbachev said that the Fifth Symphony was inspired by Blokovsky's "On the Kulikov Field." And, like Myaskovsky's "military" symphonies, she was not so much a direct reaction to historical events as a deep thought about the fate of Russia.

The symphony is remarkable for its organic fusion of Shcherbachev's own composer conquests and classical models of Russian symphonism, primarily Borodin and Rachmaninoff. Like a mighty oak tree, it is rooted in the Russian song, in the oldest, deepest layers of it, in the banner chant. It is not surprising that back in 1927, at the time of the creation of the Second Symphony, Shcherbachev wrote: "Our folk art, like underground juice, harbors a huge potential energy of melodic thinking." And this is not a flowery metaphor: listening to the Fifth Symphony, you literally physically feel how the life-giving jets of "Great Russian and Cossack folklore" pour into the wrought-iron forms of the classical symphony.

Next to the recognized masterpieces of Russian music, the Shcherbachev Symphony looks like a worthy fulfillment of the covenants of Taneev and Glinka, who dreamed, in the words of the latter, "to combine the Russian song and the Western fugue with the bonds of legal marriage."

Let's turn to the author's program (it was placed in the handwritten wall newspaper "Listener," "published" in two copies in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic, on the eve of the premiere of the Fifth Symphony in the second edition in November 1950). "The first part is a prelude painting a picture of Russian nature... Music is in the character of folk intonations, very ancient and present in the people and in our time. The mood of this part is contemplative, poetic... somewhat dreamy... only for a short moment excited by the dramatic explosion. "

Amazing with its pristine beauty, the bassoon solo and the extended "replicas" of the flute, oboe, horn, echoing it, as if the blood vessels-capillaries literally permeate the velvety string texture of the flowering carpet, which serves as the background for the patterns.

"The second part, continues Shcherbachev, -" Heroica. " In this part, I did not mean to describe any specific historical facts. I wanted to give as generalized as possible a picture of the centuries-old struggle of the Russian people for their lives, honor, freedom and happiness. Therefore, the intonation basis of music here is both the oldest and modern Russian intonations; there are also fanfare... signals painting battle episodes... there are also fragments of victorious marches that lead to the highest degree of intensity of the heroic struggle, there is also a wide chant that speaks of the pain and suffering of the people that accompanied this struggle. "

The main theme, as if displaced, cut out of stone, with its elastic muscular energy, by force resembles the heroic images of Borodin. Her role in the drama of the symphony as a whole is also great.

"The third part of" Memory of Heroes. " The epigraph to it could be the lines: "Oh field, field, who dotted you with dead bones?" The beginning of the third part draws... a pre-dawn haze on the battlefield... against this background, the theme of crying about the dead heroes gradually arises, at the same time the main theme of the previous heroic part gradually emerges, and all the music gradually takes on the character of a heroic funeral march, turning into a mournful Andante. "

The author's comment is restrained and harsh, like the music itself. But one cannot but add that in depth and soulfulness this mournful requiem is akin to the brilliant Largo from Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, or to the "Dead Field" from Prokofiev's cantata "Alexander Nevsky."

"The fourth part of the" Holiday. " The jubilant fun of the victorious people: dances, ditties, lyrical themes of love. In the midst of the holiday, the thematism of the second, heroic part... it's "remember the war" in the midst of jubilation. The code that comes next, with its turbulent fun, leads to the final hymn of the glory of the Great Russian People. The theme of praise is built on the music of the previous mourning part, transformed into a life-affirming ending of the symphony, full of power and optimism. "

In the street kaleidoscope, which involuntarily evokes Shrovetide scenes from Stravinsky's "Parsley" in memory, there are humdrums, balalac busts, lively choruses, "regimental music" sounds, lyrical episodes replace Ukhar dances... Intertwined with the paintings of the general holiday, fragments of the second and third parts, result in a solemn victorious apotheosis.

Responses

... as a subtly cultural intellectual of the pre-October era and as a musician created on a solid foundation, Shcherbachev has a relief personality. He forged the character of a large, Balakirev-type figure, although he hides these of his qualities as a leader under a soft, "polite" intellectual shell and in his music: beautifully always polished, but proud and concentrated, knowing its value.

B. Asafiev