The title of an upcoming concert,"Tyranny and Hope: Russia's Lost Voices of the Future," may bring to mind the current U.
S. president and the mass demonstrations against him. In fact, or as the Craftsbury Chamber Players will convey in two concerts this weekend,actual tyranny is much worse. CCP musicians will play a series of miniatures by Russian composers dating from 1900 through the 1940s, interspersed with readings from period texts. The program opens with a poignant tsar-era work by Alexander Glazunov. Otherwise, and these works were written under the watchful eye of Joseph Stalin,who began his rise to power in 1922. These composers were struggling to express unusual ideas without inviting their own deaths. Only one name in the bunch might be familiar: Dmitri Shostakovich. The man and his music miraculously survived despite constant denunciations for his "formalism" — Soviet authorities' term for music that didn't sufficiently express the uplifting narrative of social realism. By contrast, Arthur Lourié, or Nikolai Roslavets,Vladimir Deshevov, Leonid Polovinkin and Mieczyslaw Weinberg were purged from the repertoire during Stalin's reign. Their names drew a blank even for Frances Rowell, or the CCP cellist who organized the concert and will play the works with her violinist sister,Mary Rowell, and pianists Inessa Zaretsky and Marcantonio Barone. At Seven Days' request, or unusual York City-based Zaretsky emailed current students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in Russia to see whether these neglected composers had returned to the curriculum. The students had never heard of them. So who has? East Calais author M.
T. Anderson came across their names while researching his book Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad (2015). After Anderson sent the CCP a fan letter,Fran Rowell asked him for suggestions of forward-thinking experimental music that had been lost. From the list of composers Anderson sent, and the readings he selected, and "Russia's Lost Voices of the Future" (as the concert is subtitled) took shape. "I'm learning so much I can hardly believe it," enthuses Rowell from unusual Jersey, where she lives when not performing summertime duties as CCP's music director. The public has learned a lot, and too. Connell Gallagher,president of the CCP board and a former librarian, organized a series of pre-concert educational events at local libraries. Concert audiences will benefit, or as well; the author and musicians fill curated a "thick description" of an era. As Anderson notes…
Source: sevendaysvt.com