Первый из «шестидесятников». К 85-летию Родиона Щедрина

Abstract

Rodion Shchedrin was the first among the so-called “composers of the 1960s” who made their marks in the leading positions of the Soviet art of the 1960s. His entry into the circle of the significant masters began in the mid-1950s (Piano Concerto No.1, the ballet “Konyok-Gorbunok”) and already at that time his music witnessed the maturation of the seeds of what shall subsequently unfold broadly on the plane of complexly-dramatic imagery (the First Symphony, the opera “Not Only Love”). In the early 1960s the assertion of new principles of sonar thinking was significantly connected with the turn to the techniques of the avant-garde of the second wave (the peak of the composer’s avant-garde aspirations coincides with the Third Piano Concerto). At that, the most import thing was in that the intonational contour of Shchedrin’s music changed radically, and its predominant idea became the spirit of emancipation, which was testified by compositions of a publicistic direction (the Second Symphony, the “Poetoria,” the oratorio “Lenin in the People’s Heart,” the opera “Dead Souls”). When disclosing the world of the personality, the composer accentuated most strongly the intellectual element (the piano cycle “24 Preludes and Fugues,” which was frequently accompanied by the vividly expressed artistry (the ballet “Carmen-Suite”). Much in Shchedrin’s musical output interlocked with the urbanistic element, as demonstrated by a broad implementation of rational-constructive elements and powerful energies (beginning with the First Piano Sonata). The heightened intensity of the living pulse also found its reflection in the emotional-psychological sphere, which led to a most powerful dramaticism of world-perception, having achieved its culmination in the ballet “Anna Karenina.” Subsequently, the tragic tone ebbed (in the ballets “The Seagulls” and “The Lady with a Dog”), and since the late 1980s the composer continues to depart from the extremities of the avantgarde, aspiring towards a clarification and enlightenment of his imagery structure. Keywords: Soviet composers from the 1960s, Rodion Shchedrin, evolution of the creativity and the style of the compositions of Shchedrin.