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Soviet Union [USSR] Music
The Soviet Union has produced some of the world's foremost
composers and musicians. The authorities, however, have sought to
control their music as well as their performances. As a result,
composers struggled to produce their works under strict
limitations. Some artists emigrated, but their works endured and
continued to attract large audiences when performed.
Restrictions on what musicians played and where they performed
often caused artists to leave the country either of their own
accord or through forced exile. Great composers and musicians such
as Dmitrii Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Vladimir
Fel'tsman were persecuted, and some ultimately emigrated. In 1986,
however, Moscow and Leningrad audiences were privileged to hear
several memorable performances by the brilliant pianist Vladimir
Horowitz, who left the Soviet Union in 1925 and who previously had
not been allowed to reenter the country. A composer who decided to
remain in the Soviet Union was Alfred Schnittke, acclaimed as the
best Soviet composer since Shostakovich and a formidable technician
of surrealist expression. Although at times he was restricted by
the authorities to presenting unoriginal and party-line works,
Schnittke attracted both avant-garde and mainstream audiences
because of his original, deeply spiritual, and often mystical
compositions. When not confined by the regime to recording certain
compositions, Schnittke created such masterpieces as (K) ein
Sommernachtstraum, Concerto No. 4 for Violin and Orchestra,
Concerto Grosso No. 1, and Concerto Grosso No. 2, which appealed to
audiences around the world.
In addition to classical music, jazz endured and survived the
official denunciations the government had cast upon it over the
years. The regime distrusted this form of music because it had
originated in the United States and because its essence was
improvisation. As a symbol of artistic freedom and individual
expression, jazz was difficult to control. In the late 1960s and
1970s, jazz was one of the most popular forms of music in the
Soviet Union. Such famous jazz artists as Vadim Mustafa-Zadek and
Aleksei Kozlov became music idols to a generation of jazz lovers.
In the late 1980s, however, the popularity of jazz declined because
of the emergence of rock and roll.
The rhythms and sounds of rock and roll appealed mainly to the
young. In the 1980s, the popularity of the once leading rock bands
Winds of Change and The Time Machine faded in favor of younger
groups. Leningrad rock groups such as Boris Grebenshchikov and his
band Aquarium and the group Avia, which incorporated slogans,
speeches, loud sounds, unorthodox mixtures of instruments, and
screams, provided an important outlet for youth. Some of their
music supported themes along the lines of Gorbachev's policies,
expressing a desire for change in society. Rock-and-roll lyrics
sometimes exceeded the boundaries of the politically permissible.
Yet, the leadership realized that this music could not be
eliminated or even censored for long because it not only appealed
to many citizens but also could help disseminate the leadership's
policies.
For many youth, rock and roll served as a means to live out
dreams and desires that might not be possible in daily life.
Aspiring rock or popular musicians expressed themselves publicly in
the more open political environment during the late 1980s. In that
period, Moscow and Leningrad permitted performances of music by
punki (punk fans) and metallisti (heavy metal fans),
whose loud, raucous music appealed to alienated and rebellious
youth. Most rock music, however, portrayed the artist as explorer
and expressed the desire for new styles and forms.
Data as of May 1989
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