I recently saw on A&E that the Russian War Memorial plays Schummann's "Traumerei" constantly..24 hours a day..7 days a week..etc. I was wondering if *anyone* knew why the Soviets would have decided upon that particular piece...written by a German...to play in memorium of 20 million dead at the hands of the Germans..Surely, there was no lack of possibilities from Russian composers..Prokofiev comes to mind..Im not a musician..just a music lover... so if you email me..or post to me..please keep it in laymans terms..German or English is fine...thank you. David J. Spencer -- No manipulation or spellbinding the masses. Be concrete and direct. Politicise the trivial aspects of everyday life. That is where the energy of revolution is. Mother, is there anymore milk?
One of the most deeply moving musical performances I have ever seen is when Horowitz played Traumerei as an encore at his last concert in Moscow. I saw it on television with my father when I was -oh I don't remember, maybe 12 or so, and what really left an impression on me seeing one person after another literally in sobs of tears.
There are many reasons why a Russian work may not have been selected. Prokofiev had many tensions with the Russian goverment, so that may have prevented it. One could make a case for various works by Tchaikovsky or Borodin, but I think the answer is probably much simpler:
I suspect that when a country has gone through something as horrendous as what the Russians went through in the Second World War, its perpective changes on a lot of things. I think that in the face of 20,000,000 people dead, things such as governments and flags and national identities probably seem rather frivolous, or even stupid, in comparison.
Traumerei is a very profound expression of the longing for the idyllic and innocent days of youth. I think to have it at a memorial for war dead makes a profound and yet simple statement about the tragedy of losing so many young lives. These expressions are far above the concerns of nationalism or politics. In fact, I think that selecting a German piece is a significant admission that the Second World War was a tragedy borne not just by Russians, but by all of humanity.
These are the reasons that I suspect Traumerei was selected. From a purely musical standpoint, I can think of few pieces as appropriate for this use. If anyone knows any definite facts about why it was selected I'd be interested in hearing...
----- ---- --- -- - -- --- ---- ----- William B. Guerin Dartmouth College pas...@dartmouth.edu ----- ---- --- -- - -- --- ---- -----
In article <1lpouoINN...@uwm.edu> spen...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (David John Spencer) writes:
> I recently saw on A&E that the Russian War Memorial plays Schummann's >"Traumerei" constantly..24 hours a day..7 days a week..etc. I was wondering >if *anyone* knew why the Soviets would have decided upon that particular >piece...written by a German...to play in memorium of 20 million dead at the >hands of the Germans.
I would respond by saying that great composers are not usually limited by the boundaries of their native countries. Although Schumann may have been born in Germany, I would not say that the music to Traumerei (Dreams) is more representative of German dreams than any other kind.
To me Schumann is a composer of imagination, dreams, fantasy, emotion, romance, idealism, naivete that make him a composer who speaks to the soul of anyone and that free him from particular national identification.
Another thought is that the pianist I most identify with Traumerei is Vladimir Horowitz, who, I believe, also used that piece in his famous concert in Moscow as music of reconciliation and peace.
I would like to simply reiterate your mention of Horowitz's encore in Moscow of Schumann's "Traumerei." That was perhaps the most moving performance, both for performer and for audience, of a piece that I have yet seen. The entire concert reached incredible levels of passion and virtuosity, yet the sight of the Russian audience dreaming, swaying on the sadly evocative sounds of the piano was and is moving to the extreme.
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