Many of the characteristics that have been noted in Russian music of the Modernist period are also found in varying degrees in works by Western composers. Among nineteenth-century works one may mention Liszt’s Piano Sonata, in which the overall progression is from G to B; the first lengthy appearance of a B chord (before the Andante Sostenuto) having an added minor 7th. The work ends with a tritone and semitone progression consisting of C (which is heard as a neighboring tone of B) and the roots F and B. Areas of harmonic color related in the form of a triad are found in the Hungarian Rhapsodies. The 5th chords near the beginning of the first Mephisto Waltz (like the cadences in Nuages Gris) have a pictorial role, but the similarity between procedures in the Sonata and those of Russian music may have a basis in a common interest in East European folk music.¹

Among Western composers contemporary with the Russian Modernist movement, Debussy and Szymanowski—like Skriabin—exploited the whole-tone potential of the French 6th and altered dominant discords. Works based on the tritone were becoming common, a well-known example being Symphony No. 4 (1911) by Sibelius. Chords built in 4ths occur in Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 (1906), Berg’s Song Op. 2 No. 2 (1910), and Busoni’s Sonatina No. 2 (1912). There are suggestions of a set involving a tritone and adjacent semitone in the fourth of Webern’s Five Movements for string quartet (1909). Satie’s Les fils des étoiles (1891) was composed without bar lines. Mirror patterns appear in Busoni’s Elegy No. 6 (1907), and No. 5 makes use of a scale of two semitones alternating with an augmented 2nd, similar to procedures noted earlier in connection with Aleksandr Tcherepnin, Shillinger, and Aleksandr Krein.

There are also cases where a sense of progression or of finality is achieved when initial melodic fragmentation gives way to a coherent melody, as in Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 or Debussy’s Jeux; or by tonal means, as the late arrival at the tonality of E major in Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 or the D minor of Berg’s String Quartet Op. 3 (1910). The effect of these techniques is parallel to what happens in Skriabin’s Vers la flamme, though the method is different. Berg’s Quartet also makes constant use of chromatic neighboring tones to focus attention on the central pitch, D, a technique that has been encountered in Lourié and other Russians. There are elements of symmetry in the harmony of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 and Busoni’s Sonatina No. 2 based on successive 4ths and whole-tone scales; and some of the chamber works of Frank Bridge demonstrate large-scale symmetry. Passages in Bridge’s piano Sonata of 1921-24 have the typical Skriabin pattern of chromatic movement over dominant-structured harmonies, and many of the chords have the familiar layout of a minor 7th in the bass with the adjacent tritone above. In view of Bridge’s known interest in Russian music it is likely that both the titles and the harmonic technique of such pieces as Ecstasy and Bittersweet reflect the influence of Skriabin (Examples 14-la and b).

Ravel’s String Quartet contains a whole range of techniques which are encountered in the music of Skriabin: in the second movement (Example 14-2a) there is the direct juxtaposition of roots a tritone or a major or minor 3rd apart—related by having a note in common rather than by joint allegiance to a diatonic background—and a rising bass sequence of major and minor 3rds under a chromatically descending treble, after the manner of Rimsky-Korsakov. In the first movement of this Quartet (Example 14-2b) the approach to the recapitulation is via a whole-tone 7th chord on F-sharp, which is enharmonically rearranged over root C and produces the tritone and semitone root progression C, F-sharp, F.² In the final bars of this movement the harmony is built on the whole-tone bass progression shown in Example 14-2c. Lazare Saminsky saw these elements as the direct result of Russian influence: “The tonal tension of the Russian National music has exploded the very foundation of the French musical syntax through Debussy and Ravel.” At this time Ravel was familiar only with the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin, and any similarity between the Quartet and procedures in Skriabin is due to the common influence of these composers.³

Many of the works mentioned above have an earlier date than Russian Modernist pieces demonstrating similar techniques. An appropriate conclusion seems to be that after a westward flow of influence in the late nineteenth century, which was absorbed particularly by French composers, a return flow of Western influence helped spark the Modernist movement in Russia. The situation is complex, with many cross-currents: some of the exotic scales used by Western composers, including Busoni, appear to be of Central Asian origin; and Russian musicians continued to combine Western techniques with the idioms of native folk song.⁴ The vocal techniques demanded by Obukhov, sometimes condemned as eccentric, have a basis in the performance practices of peasant singers.⁵

Equally important to the growth of Modernism in Russia was the background provided by the Russian Nationalist school. The seminal influence of Rimsky-Korsakov on both Western and Russian music has only begun to be fully appreciated, although Saminsky drew attention to it over half a century ago. By carrying the implied symmetries of folk music to their logical conclusion and combining them with chromatic textures, Rimsky-Korsakov pointed the way to a kind of music which was neither dependent on traditional tonality for its structure nor deprived entirely of tonal resources. His influence in this respect was as important as Musorgsky’s use of pedals as a means of defining a mode and, in the Modernist period, productive of more promising results.⁶

A tendency to weaken metrical regularity, which is evident in some of the works of Skriabin and Roslavets, was anticipated in Taneev’s mannerism of placing the first note of a bass arpeggio before the bar line. A related device of his was to write a descending bass arpeggio so that its root is not revealed until the end, often in the following bar, as happens constantly in his Prelude in G-sharp minor Op. 29. Lourié, who finally abandoned meter altogether in his Forms in the Air, also adopted this mannerism in his early Préludes fragilis. Another important precedent is found in Musorgsky’s songs, such as “With Nanny,” from The Nursery, where regularity of accent was replaced by natural verbal rhythms.

Borodin’s fondness for keys related by a 2nd may also have had an influence on the pitch schemes adopted by Boris Aleksandrov in his Dance and Scherzo Op. 1 and on Aleksandr Krein’s Sonata Op. 34.

Russian music at the start of the Modernist movement gives no impression of tonal crisis, such as was evident in the West in the careers of Sibelius, Strauss, and Schoenberg.⁷ This was partly because Russian composers had always used tonality differently from the way it was employed in the West and reflected their deep involvement with folk music. In spite of some wild and probably unrepresentative views expressed by Roslavets and a few other members of the ASM, Russian composers never lost sight of their roots. Sabaneev, in 1927, listed Miaskovsky, Feinberg, Aleksandr Krein, and Skriabin as examples of “undying Romanticism” in Russian music.⁸ Skriabin’s works demonstrate a smooth and unbroken development from late nineteenth-century techniques to the Modernism of his Preludes Op. 74, which contain a synthesis of symmetry, traditional modality, tonality, and chromaticism. Roslavets, starting from much the same style as that of Skriabin around 1910, developed with equal logic along quite different lines toward his experiments with sets and the atonal Violin Concerto of 1925. Prokofiev, with his superior polyphonic skills, achieved the ideal synthesis of folk idioms, expanded tonality, Western forms, and Modernist techniques.

Russian composers working at home fared less successfully at the end of the period. Those like Mosolov and Roslavets, who were unable to modify their radical style to the satisfaction of the authorities, had to abandon serious composition and content themselves with local musical activities in the provinces and the study and collection of folk songs.⁹ Shostakovich survived and eventually disciplined his early style in a way which allowed him to express himself and yet maintain contact with the people sufficiently to be tolerated by the authorities. Prokofiev’s music was remarkable in that it presents a logical continuity from nineteenth-century traditions right through the Modernist period and the difficulties in the years following 1929. His later works, after his return to Russia in 1933, show a simplification and increased discipline without any loss of the essential characteristics of his style.

Modernism had already lost much of its drive before the clampdown in 1929, as shown by the fortunes of those who left Russia. Lourié abandoned his aggressive Modernist stance, which had made him unpopular with fellow musicians at home, and adopted a much simpler and eventually modal style. Ornstein had always produced some compositions in traditional styles, even at the height of his reputation as a Futurist. In 1920 he felt that he could no longer fulfil the expectations of his followers that he should create ever-more radical sounds, and he abandoned the Modernist movement altogether.¹⁰ Obukhov moved to Paris in 1918, where he completed his magnum opus La livre de vie, a score of 2,000 pages, which he had begun in 1914. It was performed in part under Koussevitsky in Paris in 1926, but it and most of Obukhov’s works remain unpublished in the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.¹¹

In varying degrees Russian immigrants took on some of the aspects of style practiced in their adopted country. An obvious example is Golyshchev, with his use of twelve-tone sets in Germany. He appears to have been the least characteristically Russian composer, but too few of his works survived the Nazi period to allow for any generalization. Lourié’s Toccata, composed after his move to Paris in 1924, shows the influence of Stravinsky. Note clusters were a feature of the musical scene in the United States, and they appear in Ornstein’s music from 1913, about the time that Henry Cowell first used them in public recitals of his own works.¹²

In view of the suppression of Russian Modernism on its native ground, it is of interest to consider whether techniques developed there had any long-term influence abroad. In 1927 Universal Edition in Vienna came to an arrangement with the State Publishing House in Russia to publish contemporary Russian works in the West. Because of events in Russia this arrangement was short-lived. From 1933 Hitler’s anti-Soviet policies also put a stop to the cataloging of Russian music held in the National Library in Berlin. Consequently, Russian compositions of the Modernist period had a limited circulation.¹³ Only Skriabin’s works were readily available in the West. Skriabin’s early death meant that his experiments with symmetrical modes in Preludes Op. 74 were not followed up until the early pieces by Messiaen fourteen years later. Messiaen shared Skriabin’s interest in mysticism and was also familiar with the latter’s late compositions.

In comparing Messiaen’s first published work, Le banquet céleste, with Skriabin’s output one notices the following points:

(1) The mystical tone of the title; Skriabin took an increasing interest in mysticism from about 1902, studying first of all Nietzsche and later the theosophical teachings of Madame Blavatsky. Many of his works have titles suggesting a philosophical program.

(2) The slow tempo, which emphasizes the harmonic coloring of the individual chords; the effect corresponds to Skriabin’s often slow harmonic rhythm and static harmonies.

(3) The combining of elements of dominant and tonic, especially the 3rd of the tonic, as at the beginning of odd-numbered bars.

(4) The similarity of scale structures to those in Skriabin’s late Preludes; the octatonic scale in bars 1, 3, 5, and 7 alternating with other formations.

(5) The use of the major/minor 3rd in the chord of F-sharp in bar 8.

(6) The added minor 7th in the final chord.

(7) The tonal ambiguity, in which F-sharp is first challenged by F but eventually turns out to be the subdominant of C-sharp.

(8) The slow static bass under complex harmonies.

(9) The form, which is basically one section repeated.

Messiaen explored the whole range of harmonic possibilities within the symmetrical modes and the various ways in which these modes can be combined with major and minor keys.¹⁴ His early works constitute the most comprehensive development of this aspect of technique, which was introduced by Skriabin toward the end of his life. Russian composers continued to make use of the octatonic scale but do not appear to have taken up the challenge of developing the other related modes hinted at by Skriabin in his Preludes Op. 74.¹⁵

Certain Russian composers, in the period immediately preceding and during the First World War, were at the fore in experiments with twelve-tone methods. Lourié’s Syntheses and Forms in the Air are among the most radical sounding, yet they were firmly based on traditional factors. Because of their density of detail and subtle use of resources they sometimes remind the listener of Webern. It is music that can only be sustained on the scale of the miniature. Roslavets’s employment of sets in Quasi Prelude (1915) was an important development but does not appear to have had any influence on other composers. Nor can it be said that Quasi Prelude is altogether effective. What structuring can be heard arises from the use of traditional sounds, while the emphasis on manipulating the set has resulted in a neglect of surface features and a certain consequent monotony. Later works, like the Piano Sonata No. 5 of 1923, which make greater use of motifs, are more successful. Golyshchev’s employment of twelve-tone sets would be remarkable for 1914 but there is some doubt about the early date. For 1925 (the year of publication) it is still of special interest for its attempt to organize duration values on a serial basis. Obukhov was experimenting with twelve-tone harmonies in 1915 but was not the first composer to do so, as is shown by La Cathédrale by Jean Huré (Example 14-3), composed in Paris during the period 1910-12.¹⁶

A weakness of some Russian composers of the Modernist period was a certain lack of stylistic consistency. Omstein, whose oscillations between his Futurist, Impressionist, and Salon styles are an extreme case, tended to associate gentler moods with traditional tonality and more violent moods with atonality, with the result that individual pieces either lack variety or achieve it at the expense of stylistic consistency. Similarly, the amorphous harmonic style of the opening “Heroic Poem” from Shillinger’s Five Pieces Op. 12 contrasts strangely with the more clear-cut rhythmic manner of some of the other pieces. In this respect Obukhov in his Berceuse of a Blessed fares better; he has managed to contain some violent changes of mood within a harmonically consistent style with a wide range of techniques and original ideas.¹⁷

Another problem was that the modal-based tonal patterns of Russian music lacked dynamism and could only create a rather loose structure in larger works. Some of the sonatas of Anatoly Aleksandrov and Feinberg rely heavily on a number of extended pedals and minor 3rd sequences which support sometimes quite lengthy improvisatory passages. The continuous variation of a few basic motifs employed by Mosolov and Shostakovich in their first sonatas also leads to a rhapsodic style which cannot support a large-scale work. Aleksandr Tcherepnin’s progressive pattern making suffers from the same problem, as demonstrated in his early A minor Sonata. Many of the best pieces were written on a small scale, where these problems did not arise. Among these are the three Preludes by Omstein, Three Compositions by Roslavets, and the short pieces by Skriabin and Lourié, many of which achieve a remarkable density of expression. Some excellent large-scale compositions were also produced: Mosolov’s Sonata No. 2 is a massive and powerful work. Skriabin’s Sonata No. 10 is highly original, with a wide range of techniques, and compensates for its lack of a dynamic tonal scheme by an exciting use of the trill, the deployment of motifs, and the consistent use of certain intervals to promote unity. Roslavets, too, when he had overcome the stylistic problems attendant upon his use of sets, produced some impressive large-scale works, including Piano Sonata No. 5 and the Violin Concerto.

Russian Modernist composers, whether living at home or abroad, suffered from the same problems as their colleagues in the West—the indifference of the public and hostility of conservative musicians. In Russia the latter was exacerbated by what Stravinsky called “a specifically Russian characteristic [of] fault finding and sterile disputation.”¹⁸ To this must be added the additional problem of the privations and lack of resources following the Civil War. There was, however, no interference from the authorities. The clampdown on artistic freedom following 1929 has had a great effect on music composed in Russia thereafter,¹⁹ and since Russian Modernist compositions have not been readily available in the West, the work of a whole generation is virtually unknown in both Russia and the West. There are, however, some signs of change. A limited amount of research is taking place in Russia and the Russian Commonwealth on music composed before 1929, and there is a great deal of interest in the period in Germany. Some of the composers, including Roslavets, have been reinstated in Russian reference works, and private recitals of Modernist compositions have taken place.²⁰ At the same time there is a growing interest in the West in Russian art and music, with an increasing amount of literature becoming available.²¹ It is to be hoped that in the near future, both in Russia and in the West, there will be more opportunities to hear this music in public performances.²²