Updated and expanded program notes on Vissarion Shebalín
Tony
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) cast a long shadow over the arts during his dictatorship of the Soviet Union. Our concert honors those who composed music during this time and who ultimately were punished for their individual gifts as artists.
Vissarion Shebalin was born in Omsk in 1902. He studied in the musical college in Omsk, and was also enrolled in the Institute of Agriculture.He was 20 years old when, following the advice of his professor, he went to Moscow to show his first compositions to Glière and Myaskovsky. Both composers thought very highly of his compositions. Shebalin graduated from Moscow Conservatory in 1928. His diploma work was the 1st Symphony, which the author dedicated to his professor Nikolai Myaskovsky. Many years later his fifth and last symphony was dedicated to Myaskovsky's memory.
After graduating from Moscow Conservatory, he worked there as a professor, and in 1935 became also a head of the composition class at the Gnessin State Musical College. In the very difficult years of 1942-48 he was a director of the Moscow Conservatory and the art director of Central Music School in Moscow. He fell victim to Zhdanov's purge of artists in 1948 and fell into obscurity afterwards. Shebalin was one of the founders of and the chairman of the board (1941–1942) of the Union of Soviet Composers.
Shebalin was one of the most cultured and erudite composers of his generation; his serious intellectual style and a certain academic approach to composition make him close to Myaskovsky. In 1951, he was awarded the Stalin Prize. Shebalin was a close friend of Dmitri Shostakovich, who dedicated a string quartet (No. 2) to him.
In a 1948 campaign launched by Stalin's cultural henchmen Andrei Zhdanov, the top Soviet composers - Shebalin, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and Myaskovsky - were all accused of writing "anti-people music" and of "kowtowing to the decadent West"; his music was temporarily banned and he was dismissed from the Conservatory. He was allowed to return as a professor in 1951. During the 1950s Shebalin suffered two strokes that impaired his movement and speech but not his ability to compose, and he continued to write and teach until his death at 59. Outside of Russia he is probably best known for his nine string quartets (1923 to 1963), which span his entire professional career and are benchmarks of his artistic evolution. His other works include the dramatic symphony "Lenin" (1931, to a poem by Mayakovsky), a Violin Concerto (1940), the ballet "The Skylark" (1943), the Symphonietta (1951), orchestral suites, overtures and songs.One of the outstanding figures of the Soviet period of Russian music. A master craftsman, his style was rigorous and intelligent but always accessible to audiences. He enjoyed his greatest success with the comic opera "The Taming of the Shrew" (1957). Critics consider his Symphony No. 5 in C Major (1962) the finest of his five symphonies.
Shebalin died on 29 May 1963 in Moscow. He was buried in Novodevichy Monastery near his professors and colleagues.
Zimnyaya doroga and Strekotunya beloboka are settings of poetry by Alexander Pushkin for unaccompanied four-part chorus. They are numbers 2 and 5 in his Opus 42 Songs, published in 1949. Shebalin altered Pushkin's text in the first song to remove the name "Nina" from the poem.
Zimnyaya doroga | A Winter Road |
Skvoz’ volnistïye tumanï Probirayetsa luna, Na pyechal’nïye polyanï L’yot pyechal’no svyet ona.
Po dorogye zimnyeyey, skuchnoy, Troika borzaya bezhit, Kolokol’chik odnozvuchnïy Utomitel’no gremit.
Chto-to slïshitsa rodnoye V dolgikh pyesnyakh yamshika: To razgul’ye udaloye, To serdyechnaya toska…
Ni ognya, ni chornoy khatï, Glush’ i snyeg…Navstrechu mnye Tol’ko vyorstï polosatï Popadayutsa odnye.
Skushno, grustno…put’ moy skuchen, Dryemlya smolknul moy yamshik, Kolokol’chik odnozvuchen, Otumanen lunnïy lik.
| Through a mist that’s waving, rolling, Breaking through, the moon does pass; On the meadows melancholy Melancholy light does cast.
On a winter road so dreary, Fleet my little troika runs; Of its little bell I’m weary Clinking with but one note dull.
Something strikes a chord within me, In the coachman’s endless song: Sometimes fiery, daring, cheery, Sometimes grieving in my heart.
Not one light, no black hut looming, Barren snow round beaten parth, Just the milestones striped and gloomy Are the only things I pass.
Dreary, sad…my path’s dreary, Hushed, my coachman nods, apace, From his little bell I’m weary, Wrapped in mist is the moon’s face. |
Translation: Julian Henry Lowenfeld in My Talisman: Selected Lyric Poetry of Alexander Pushkin New York: Green Lamp Press, 2010, page 344.
Stryekotunya byeloboka | The Chattering Magpie |
Stryekotunya byeloboka Pod kalitkoyu moyey Skachet pyostraya soroka I prorochit mne gostyey.
Kolokol’chik nyebïvaliy U menya zvyenit v ushakh. Luch zari igrayet alïy, Serebritsya snyezhnïy prakh.
Stryekotunya byeloboka… | A noisy little magpie chatters, He’s jumping in beneath my gate, A prophet he! The notes he scatters Predict that guests will be my fate.
I hear a tiny tinkling bell, Unrecognized, not heard before, As crimson clouds the dawn fortell, And silvery snow blows at the door. A noisy little magpie chatters… |
Translation: Anthony Antolini