Composer Vladimir Tarnopolski is a central figure in late twentieth- and twenty-first-century Russian music.1 He studied composition at the Moscow (Tchaikovsky) State Conservatory with Edison Denisov and Nikolai Sidel’nikov (composer of Russian Fairy Tales for twelve solo instruments, a piece greatly influenced by The Rite).2 After becoming a professor at the Moscow (Tchaikovsky) State Conservatory in 1992, Tarnopolski founded its first postglasnost organizations devoted to contemporary music: the Center for Contemporary Music, the Studio for New Music Ensemble, and Moscow Forum: An International Music Festival. The text presented here conflates several of the composer’s interviews on the Russian reception of The Rite; these interviews were conducted by Professors Kevin Bartig and Severine Neff on the occasion of “Reassessing The Rite: A Centennial Conference,” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 25–28 October 2012.
Tarnopolski’s comments reinforce the observations of several essays in this section: whereas Stravinsky’s name and the “Russianness” of The Rite are celebrated in contemporary Russian culture, the music itself is not—it is seldom played. From 1948 to 1965, Stalin and his immediate successors banned performances of the work and the public dissemination of its score. The expense of renting parts and the extra rehearsals needed for performance would limit The Rite’s appearances on concert programs in subsequent decades. (Tarnopolski notes that traditionally trained Russian instrumentalists still find the work’s rhythms difficult.) And, as young composers show little interest in the work’s aesthetics, The Rite has had a limited legacy in Russia.
What is your first memory of The Rite of Spring?
I was born not in Moscow but in the then-Russian metropolis of Dnepropetrovsk (nobody can pronounce it). The city is now part of the Russian-speaking area of Ukraine. My first intent as a young composer was to see the piano score of The Rite of Spring. Fortunately, in Dnepropetrovsk, it was possible to find it. When I came to the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow in my midteens, the orchestral score was made available to me. I tried to read through it, but I found it impossible to play! So my first complete impression of The Rite was later, when I was seventeen. I then listened to a vinyl recording conducted by Stravinsky.
How old were you when Stravinsky came to Moscow in 1962? Did you get to see him then, or not?
I was then seven years old. Later I learned that the circle of highly talented young composers, including Edison Denisov and Alfred Schnittke, could not visit with him. Dmitri Shostakovich greeted him—that’s all. Only the “official people” continually interacted with Stravinsky—Tikhon Khrennikov, of course.
As a child, did you ever see the movie Fantasia?
The Disney movie was shown in Moscow around 1959, but I did not see it.
Do you have an opinion about the first Russian choreography of The Rite in 1965, expressing the political values of the USSR?
Yes, I think it was very important to have had The Rite choreographed. Of course, the production was not authentic Stravinsky—it was an educational interpretation. Personally, I have not heard of any other Russian choreographies. We have had only a small number of contemporary dance groups in Russia (now up to thirty) that could do such a production. Also, the orchestras in our theaters are not as good as professional symphony orchestras. It’s very difficult, even for the Bolshoi Ballet, to offer outstanding musical interpretations of any of Stravinsky’s works. The Bolshoi presented several of the Balanchine/Stravinsky ballets, but I don’t remember Agon in Russia. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t remember it.
What do you think is the Russian musical legacy of The Rite of Spring?
The Rite came to Russia in 1914 as an imported Russian export. During the time of its premiere and in the 1920s, Russian contemporary music was guided by musical theories and standards that were not compatible with those of The Rite. Moreover, from the 1930s to the middle of the 1950s, Russian politics did not allow performances of the piece. My teacher Nikolai Sidel’nikov told me that in the late 1960s he and composer Andrei Volkonsky got hold of [an] orchestral score of The Rite from the Conservatory’s library. When the rector found out about it, there were “problems,” at least for Sidel’nikov. The composer Edison Denisov and others also recounted similar stories to me. However, in 1966 Rodion Shchedrin wrote his Second Piano Concerto, which showed strong influences of the piece. In the late sixties and early seventies, composers such as Schnittke and Denisov continued to show interest in Stravinsky’s nonserial music. Stravinsky also has had a strong influence on Yuri Butsko.3 He is an Old Believer who composes very Russian music—it is nationalistic and strongly Orthodox. Often Stravinsky is alive in the music of such Russian nationalists.
Do you think that Stravinsky was influenced by German music?
No. Stravinsky’s rhythmical concepts are the very opposite of a German type of thinking. Even today, his music is not played very much in Germany. Holland is receptive to Stravinsky—more than Russia!
However, wasn’t Rimsky-Korsakov influenced by the German tradition?
Rimsky-Korsakov had two sides. His rhetoric was anti-German, anti-conservatory, and anti-academic. However, in his pedagogical methods, he was more German than the Germans themselves—a manner very typical for Russians. Today we know and still use versions of Hugo Riemann’s harmonic theories.
How much is The Rite of Spring played in Russia today?
A decade ago, the conductor Valery Gergiev presented a Stravinsky festival in Moscow—I think he performed The Rite, but he is exceptional in doing so. When I was a member of a committee considering the future artistic directions of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005, we compiled a list of around three hundred past performances. Only one piece by Stravinsky appeared on it—and the period we surveyed was a time when our country was bursting with patriotism and nationalism. How ironic that Stravinsky, one of the most Russian, maybe the most Russian composer (excepting Mussorgsky), was ignored at that moment! Because I was on the Philharmonic’s committee, I could ask the orchestra’s conductor why this was the case. He said that the scores of Stravinsky’s mainstream works are expensive to rent; they often need many singers and instrumentalists and extra rehearsals, because Russian performers know mainly Austro-German rhythms and find those of early Stravinsky difficult. Moreover, this conductor noted that the audience reaction to any of Stravinsky’s music was often lukewarm, and the composer’s late, serial works are performed very rarely (and I agree with him). In sum, for young composers, these late pieces are too old in concept; for general audiences, they are too “new.”
Did your teacher Edison Denisov or his colleagues Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke ever offer their opinion of The Rite?
I do not know Gubaidulina’s opinion—she was always a little bit closed. Schnittke was cosmopolitan. Much of the European classical repertoire was literally part of his musical mind—he could call it up at will. Clearly, Schnittke highly respected The Rite. Denisov was also impressed with the piece, and we analyzed fragments of the work in his classes. In many ways, Denisov’s music represents the interchange between French and Russian music beginning in the early and continuing into the late twentieth century—Rimsky-Korsakov to Debussy to Stravinsky, who influenced the whole of French music until Boulez influenced Denisov.
Are young composers now interested in Stravinsky?
Because of the German DAAD [Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst] Fellowship, many young Russian composers have spent time in Germany. When they return, most of their radical thinking comes from the language of the German avant-garde, and they disregard the Russian past. For example, now in Moscow, noise music interests a very active group of young composers. However, they do not trace their interests to Russian Futurist works of the 1920s but to contemporary works of the German composer Helmut Lachenmann. The Rite is not part of their world.
1. Biographical information is available on Vladimir Tarnopolski’s website, http://www.tarnopolski.ru/ (accessed 14 March 2015).
2. Compare Svetlana Savenko’s essay in this volume.
3. Composer Yuri Butsko died in April 2015, two and a half years after this interview took place.