Music to Serve the State

Abstract

FTER the Russian Revolution, the newly Sovietmusicians eagerly turned against the old and hailed the new. Even the revered Tchaikowsky was scorned at first, although he quickly returned to favor. In the twenties, jazz was enthusiastically welcomed; songs were written to the texts of Izvestia advertisements; factory whistles and sheets of steel were used for sound effects in symphonic music. Aconductorless orchestra flourished in Moscow; a quarter-tone society was founded in Leningrad, and one musicologist seriously proposed the seizure and destruction of all pianos as a step towards abolishing tempered pitch. Yet in 1929, all dissonant modern music was condemned as decadent and all jazz was outlawed. That same year, the portraits of Tchaikowsky, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff were taken down from the walls of the Moscow Conservatory, the composers being termed respectively, degenerate aristocrat, obscurantist, and White Guard bandit. Only three years later, their portraits were back on the walls and contemporary musicians were being urged to take them as models. Alexander Tsafasman became the Soviet jazz king with a huge private income and special privileges which put him almost on a par with members of the Politburo. Within a few years, jazz fell from favor again and Tsafasman was lucky to escape being purged. The Soviets themselves view these zigzags with no little bewilderment. The Soviet critic I. Nestiev remarked in a survey of Shostakovich's works' that a recital of official statements