In its Russian Masters concert on 5 February, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra will be playing two pieces of particular importance in the history of Russian music. JOHN CORDINA explains why.
While Russia has certainly made its mark in the world of classical music, it was actually a latecomer to the scene.
The country may have had its own musical traditions, but the Russian Orthodox Church frowned on secular music and musicians often faced bans. The tsars would routinely bring composers and musicians from Western Europe to fill this void. It took a series of reforms, aimed to modernise Russia and help it catch up with the West, to get Russian composers going.
However, the reformist tsars - not least Peter I and Catherine II, both referred to as "the Great" - favoured European musical traditions, not Russian ones. Local composers thus initially emulated the Western style, particularly Italian music. Only in the 19th century did composers start to exploit native musical traditions, with Mikhail Glinka being the first notable one to use distinctively Russian tunes.
The fundamental principles of Russian and Western European music, however, are markedly different to each other, and reconciling the two was no easy task. Perhaps predictably, therefore, Russian composers in the Romantic era largely fell under two camps. One, led by a group of composers known as The Five, sought to create a distinctly Russian style. The other, exemplified by the Russian Musical Society led by brothers Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein, was musically more conservative and Western-leaning.
Tchaikovsky and his first 'Piano Concerto'
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, arguably the most well-known Russian composer, had studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory set up by the RMS, and was thus trained to compose in the Western style.
Tchaikovsky, however, sought to forge his own path, gaining inspiration from what he had learnt as well as the native musical traditions he was familiar with.
The first Piano Concerto, the most well-known of the three he composed, exemplifies his approach. The work has clear western influences - including a theme adapted from a French song - but it also incorporates native Russian and Ukrainian themes.
Tchaikovsky's attempt to reconcile the two traditions, however, earned him criticism from both sides of the Russian classical music scene.
The composer had hoped that Nikolai Rubinstein would premiere the first Piano Concerto, but he famously savaged the piece. Tchaikovsky ended up revising the piece three times, and ultimately, Rubinstein recanted his criticism and fervently praised the concerto.
The composer's professional relations with The Five had also been mixed, but they were nevertheless full of praise for many of his works. And ultimately, as the first Russian composer to become an international sensation, he helped put his country's music on the map.
Stalin and Shostakovich's 'Fifth Symphony'
The Russian Revolution of 1917 radically transformed the country, which now became the Soviet Union, and in turn, had an enormous effect on its music. Many composers and musicians left the country, while those that remained were subject to pressures from a regime which insisted that all Soviet art had to reflect its ideology.
The 1920s saw a period of musical experimentation, but as Joseph Stalin consolidated his rule in the 1930s, such experimentation was discouraged, and composers were constrained to write simple, patriotic works which glorified Stalin and the regime.
Dmitri Shostakovich, by nature an extremely nervous and timid person, may not have been an outright dissident, but neither was he known for explicitly supporting the regime.
And in spite of his shyness, he nevertheless sought to push the boundaries through his compositions, including the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. First performed in 1934, the opera was a great success and hugely popular with the general public and the Soviet elite alike.
But dissenters among the latter included one significant exception: Stalin, who saw the opera in 1936. Two days later, an anonymous article was published on the Communist Party's official newspaper Pravda, under the headline "Muddle instead of Music".
After this denunciation, Soviet music critics who had previously praised the opera were forced to recant this praise, writing that they had somehow failed to detect the shortcomings highlighted by the party newspaper.
At the time, Shostakovich was working on his Fourth Symphony, which was clearly influenced by the works of Gustav Mahler, and despite the pressure he was under, he completed the work and started planning its premiere. During rehearsals, however, he ended up withdrawing the work.
Within the Soviet Union's upper circle's Shostakovich's greatest supporter was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, a music lover who played the violin and who was a keen patron of the arts. The two had become close friends and Tukhachevsky even intervened with Stalin on the composer's behalf.
But the period also saw an increasingly paranoid Stalin initiate what was known as the Great Purge, which saw many senior officials sentenced to death in show trials after confessing to highly unlikely crimes under torture. Tukhachevsky was one of its many victims: Stalin was all too aware that the military was the only possible challenge to his power, and he was executed in June 1937.
At the time, Shostakovich was working on the Fifth Symphony, and afraid for his life: many other friends and relatives had been imprisoned or shot. He was well aware that the work had to please the authorities, but felt that failing to express what he felt through his music would be a self-betrayal.
In the end, Shostakovich's efforts to appease the regime are evident in the finished symphony. His musical style was pared down when compared to previous efforts, and the symphony ends in a triumphant, bombastic finale fit for Stalinist propaganda.
But while Shostakovich claimed that he wanted to write a positive work, most of the symphony is sombre in tone, and clearly intended to evoke feelings of grief. It contains echoes of the Russian Orthodox requiem as well as of previous symphonic works written in memory of the dead. The bombastic finale has also been interpreted as a mocking parody of a victory hymn, as if people were rejoicing only because they were forced to do so.
The work premiered in Leningrad (St Petersburg) in November and remarkably, it proved to be a huge success with the public and with official critics alike.
Audiences clearly understood the work as an outlet of grief, and people's enthusiastic reactions - including some who were reported to have wept openly during some passages - actually aroused suspicions in official circles. But ultimately, the authorities thought it best to engineer the composer's rehabilitation, showcasing the work as an example of how artists could be made to bow to their demands.
At the time, the same interpretation was common among Western critics, who tended to dismiss it as a submission to political pressure. But the symphony's reputation has grown with time, and despite its finale, the work hardly adheres to the tenets of "socialist realism" the authorities sought to impose.
Shostakovich - along with many prominent Soviet composers - earned another denunciation in 1948, as the Cold War was heating up and the authorities sought to eliminate all trace of western influence. His rehabilitation was complete when Stalin died in 1953, as restrictions on music were eased.
His tumultuous relation with the Soviet authorities and its effect on his music continue to divide critics to this very day, but Shostakovich is indisputably one of the most prominent composers in the 20th century.
The Russian Masters concert will be taking place at the Mediterranean Conference Centre on Sunday, 6 February at 6pm. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing Tchaikovsky's 'First Piano Concerto' and Shostakovich's 'Fifth Symphony', together with Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, French conductor Jean-Marc Burfin and guest orchestra leader Carmine Lauri.
Tickets, ranging from €10-30, can be purchased online on mcc.com.mt