"Orkiestra bez dyrygenta" i "Symfonia Syren" czyli muzyczne eksperymenty w Porewolucyjnej Rosji

Abstract

The 1920s are one of the most unique times in the history o f Russian music. In that time, Anatoly Lunacharsky served as the People’s Commissar for Enlight­enment. His general education and personal musical interests led to his friendship with various composers, as well as to writing and publishing texts about music, and he also strived to animate artistic life in his country. In Lunacharsky’s time, many important composers from Western Europe visited the USSR, e.g. Alfredo Casella, Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, or Alban Berg. For Western composers, these visits were also unforgettable events. Milhaud, for example, described his impressions from “Red Russia” in the journal “The Musical Times”. Lunacharsky also encouraged Russian musicians to play an active part in the building of the new socialist system, as well as to carry out various artistic experiments. Among the latter, the establishment of “conductorless orchestra” in Moscow in 1921 can be included, as well as Symphony o f Sirens by Arseny Avraamov, which was performed in various Soviet cities, including the most fa­mous concert in Baku in 1922. Sonic experiments of the 1920s USSR are a testimony to dynamicism and originality of Russian musical life of that time. They also demonstrate that politi­cal revolution in Russia was accompanied by an original artistic revolution in the area o f music. Nowadays, these experiments are discovered and analyzed with great interest by the musical world.