LEONID MODERN RUSSIAN COMPOSERS TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY JUDAH A. JOFFE INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS Copyright, 3f, 937, by INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS, INC. Printed in the 17., A, CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 11 SERGEY TANEYEFF 19 ALYEKSANDR SKRYABIN 40 IGOR STRAVINSKI 64 SERGEY PROKOFYEFF 87 SERGEY RAKHMANINOFF 103 VLADIMIR RYEBIKOFF 121 NIKOLA Y METNER 129 A. GRYECHANINOFF 144 NIKOLAY MYASKOVSKI 149 SAMUIL FEINBERG 163 MIKHAYIL GNYESIN 172 ALYEKSANDR KREIN 181 GRIGORIY KREIN 137 ALYEKSEY STANCHINSKI . . . . . . . 190 FYODOR AKIMYENKLO . 195 NIKOLAY ROSLAVYETS 201 BOLYESLAV YAVORSKI AND His PUPILS 208 THE Moscow GROUP OF CONSERVATIVES, . . . 214 THE LENINGRAD GROUP ., . .,, 222 THE AMERICAN GROUP OF RUSSIAN COMPOSERS . . 226 THE YOUNG COMPOSERS OF RUSSIA 229 THE RUSSIAN-PARISIAN SCHOOL 235 THE MUSICAL CREATIVE ART OF THE RUSSIAN REV OLUTION 242 APPENDIX 251 5 LEONID SABANEYEFF THE author o the present book is a Russian musical critic and composer. Born in 1881 he was graduated from the Moscow 1 Univbrsity, where he specialised in mathematics and the natural sciences. He later studied at the Mos cow Conservatory under Professors S. I. Taneyeff and P. Shlotser. In the field of composition and musical criticism he became a zealous partisan of modernism and bold innovation in art. He was one of the first to greet the appearance of Skryabin, of whom he has written a great deal, contributing much to the disclosure of the musical essence and understanding of that composer. He was musical critic and correspondent of numerous Russian and foreign periodicals and was contributor to the magazine Appollon St. Petersburg, Melos Berlin, Der Blaue Rifter Dresden . He has written the following booksSkryabin, so far the only exhaustive monograph on the composer in the Russian language The Music of Speech A History of Russian Music A General History of Music Reminiscences of Skryabin. In addition to these, a number of wtoks of a theoretical and scientific nature Chopins Etudes The Phenomenalogy of the Musical Creative Process Foundations of Positive Musical Esthetics. While residing in Russia until 1926, he devoted much time to musical social work, was an active member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts and the Chairman of its musical section and the President of the Association of Contemporary Music in Moscow, around which the composers of the left wing were grouped. 7 8 LEONID SABANEYEFF The author has been active as a composer since 1901. He has written a number of pieces for the piano, among them an Etude-Nocturne, two grand sonatas and many preludes and poems, two piano trios and a Violin Sonata, and a Chaconne for a symphonic orchestra and organ. At present he is at work on a composition on a text of The Revelations of St. John, and this composition of the type of oratorio with acting has been planned on a grandiose scale. MODE RN RUSSIAN COMPOSERS INTRODUCTION THE present book is Intended for the foreign reader. This has forced certain characteristics upon its structure, style and exposition. The author could not treat certain phenomena with as much detail as might be possible in a book for Rus sian readers who are thoroughly familiar with all the pe culiarities of the Russian musical world and Russian life in general which differ so markedly from the Western European world. On the other hand, the author deemed himself obliged to explain a scries of phenomena and facts moreminutely than would be necessary in the interests of a Russian reader. Many events of Russian musical life are bound up with other events of Russian life, and are cither by themselves unknown to the foreigner or bound up with facts unknown to him. Russian musical history is generally a terra incognita to the Western reader, frequently he possesses wrong notions about it, and the chain of influences under which Russian creative music has been developing often appears to the for eign reader in an improper, perverse or distorted light...