Program #14, August 3 2000: The USSR in music, part 1 of 2.

In this first half of my quick musical history of the Soviet Union (the second half aired September 7), we touched on the work of various composers of Russia/the USSR, starting from a little before the 1917 Revolution, and ending with the death of Stalin in 1953. My opening observations (about which I went on far too long -- sorry) centered around the assimilative, build-on-the-past nature of avant-gardism in much Russian music of the time, and how this did (or didn't) relate to the plight of the artist in the USSR, particularly after Stalin; music in the first hour came from lesser-known figures like Lourié and Roslavets. In the second hour we examined selected strains of Prokofiev's output, then segued (through an early, unusual Shostakovich piece for solo piano) to Shostakovich's 10th symphony, ostensibly written to commemorate the death of Stalin, but in reality highly charged with multiple musical messages.