The Russian Revolution sparked an avalanche of boundless creativity from Russian artists of all disciplines, not least composers, before their fires were extinguished and they were sent off to labour camps. With Socialist Realism coming to dominate artistic practice post-Stalin, many of the experiments of these early mavericks have gone neglected and under recorded. Ripe for uncovering and presenting today then, which Australian musicologist Larry Sitsky and pianist Roger Woodward have done with this excellent survey of early twentieth century piano music by Russian modernists.
Sitsky uses cosmic visionary Alexandre Skryabin as a springboard, his Feuillet d’album of 1905 the earliest piece here, but it’s by no means the most traditional: rhythmic complexity and melodic spaciousness bravely grappling with a future the previous century couldn’t comprehend. A fascinating inclusion are the works of his son Julian, pithy preludes reminiscent of Messiaen’s first works, who drowned aged 11(!). Doctor Zhivago‘s Boris Pasternak, a one time student of Skyabin, is also represented with a pair of downcast preludes.
Most thrilling however is the visceral music of Nikolai Obukhov, the composer who did the most to further Skryabin’s ideas. The opening six-part Revelation is exactly that, marvelously skewed melodic ideas jostled through numerous and complex variants, each more vibrant and exciting than the last. His Six tableaux psychologiques stretch these ideas further, over shorter time spans, only one movement breaching the minute mark. Strong contributions from Alexandr ‘Iron Foundry’ Mosolov and Alexeii Stanchinskiy further demonstrate what a fertile time this was for music, and make the catastrophe that awaited too many adventurers in the decades to come all the more difficult to consider.
Joshua Meggitt
