Exalted and Subjugated: The Soviet Music Audience

This article is written in Russian. You can read it here.

References

Yelagin, Yu. B. Ukroshchenie iskusstv [Taming of the Arts], Moscow : Russkiy put’, 2002. (In Russ.)
Mikhalkov, S. V. “Ilya Golovin. A play in three acts, four pictures. Gorky Moscow Art Theatre version.” Sovetskaya dramaturgiya. 1949: P’esy [Soviet Dramaturgy. 1949: Plays], ed. by Z. M. Pekarskaya, Moscow : Iskusstvo, 1950, pp. 139–188.
(In Russ.)
Petrov, N. “Opera and a new audience.” Artist-Musician, no. 2, 1918, p. 5. (In Russ.)
“Muddle Instead of Music.” Pravda, no. 27 (6633), January 28, 1936, p. 3. (In Russ.)
Wilson, E. Zhizn’ Shostakovicha, rasskazannaya sovremennikami [Shostakovich: A Life Remembered], trans. from the English by O. Manulkina, ed. by A. Mitrofanov, St. Petersburg : Kompozitor, 2006. (In Russ.)
Khentova, S. M. Shostakovich. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo [Shostakovich. Life and Work], vol. 2, Leningrad : Sovetskiy kompozitor, 1986. (In Russ.)
[Abendroth, H.] “Eine Konzertreise in Räterußland.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 3–4, vol. 2, 1925, pp. 46–49.
Behne, A. “Publikum in Rußland.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 1–2, vol. 1, 1924, pp. 26–27.
Frei, M. „Chaos statt Musik.“ Dmitri Schostakowitsch, die „Prawda“-Kampagne von 1936 bis 1938 und der Sozialistische Realismus, Saarbrücken : Pfau, 2006.
Frolova-Walker, M., Walker, J. Music and Soviet Power 1917–1932, Woodbridge : The Boydell Press, 2012.
“Gespräch mit Klemperer.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 7–8, vol. 2, 1925, pp. 35–36.
Gordey, M. Visum nach Moskau, Frankfurt am Main : Verlag der Frankfurter Hefte, 1954.
Jelagin, Ju. Zähmung der Künste, Stuttgart : Steingrüben, 1954.
Kleberg, L. “The Nature of the Soviet Audience. Theatrical Ideology and Audience Research in the 1920s.” Russian Theatre in the Age of Modernism, ed. by R. Russell, A. Barratt, New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1990, pp. 172–195.
Makaryk, I. R. “The Perfect Production. Les Kurbas’s Analysis of the Early Soviet Audience.” Gramma, vol. 15, 2007, pp. 89–109, doi:10.26262/gramma.v15i0.6453.
Riley, J. Dmitri Shostakovich. A Life in Film (=KINOfiles Filmmakers’ Companion, vol. 3), London : I. B. Tauris, 2005.
Schreker, F. “Kunst und Volk im Neuen Rußland.” Die Musik, no. 4, vol. 18, January 1926, pp. 281–284.
Siegel, R. “Als Musiker in Leningrad.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 1–2, vol. 7, 1930, pp. 55–56.
Steinberg, H. “Als Dirigent in Moskau und Leningrad.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 3–4, vol. 9, 1932, pp. 73–74.
Taruskin, R. Defining Russia Musically. Historical and Hermeneutical Essays, Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1997.
Taruskin, R. “When Serious Music Mattered. On Shostakovich and Three Recent Books.” A Shostakovich Casebook, ed. by M. H. Brown, Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2004, pp. 360–383.
Unger, H. Hammer, Sickle and Baton. The Soviet Memoirs of a Musician, London : Cresset, 1939.
Unger, H. “Musikalische Eindrücke aus Sowjetrußland.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 1–2, vol. 9, 1932, pp. 65–67.
Walter, B. “Musik in Sowjetrußland.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 3–4, vol. 4, 1927, pp. 51–52.
Weingartner, F. “Ausflug nach Sowjetrußland.” Das neue Rußland, nos. 7–8, vol. 3, 1926, pp. 28–29.
Weiss, S. “1948 und kein Ende. Šostakovič als Bühnenheld.” Osteuropa, no. 8, vol. 56, August 2006, pp. 137–156.
Weiss, S. “Schostakowitsch und das Finalproblem. Zur Dramaturgie der Siebten Symphonie.” Freiburger Universitätsblätter, no. 191, vol. 50, March 2011, pp. 65–86.
Weiss, S. “Staatsoper für Arbeiter und Bauern. Die Jahre 1955–1972.” Die Dresdner Oper im 20. Jahrhundert (= Musik in Dresden, vol. 7), ed. by M. Heinemann, H. John, Laaber : Laaber-Verlag, 2005, pp. 155–196.
Wilson, E. Shostakovich. A Life Remembered, Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1994.

DOI 10.34690/465

Author Stefan stefan.weiss@hmtm-hannover.de Weiss

Affiliation Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Hanover, Germany

Email stefan.weiss@hmtm-hannover.de

ORCID

0009-0007-6185-0921

Abstract

This publication is a translation of an article by German music historian Stefan Weiss from the collection “High Culture for the People? Literature, Art, and Music in the Soviet Union from the Perspective of Cultural History” (“Hochkultur für das Volk? Literatur, Kunst und Musik in der Sowjetunion aus kulturgeschichtlicher Perspektive”), published by “Walter de Gruyter” in 2018. The author examines the functions associated with the concept of the “Soviet audience” in various discourses. Musico-aesthetic debates within the USSR referred to the audience if disapproval and censure of specific music had to be justified. The idealized conception of how Soviet audiences related to composers and their works suffered damage when audiences did not react in expected ways, namely when “unofficial” music was received positively or even enthusiastically. In Western discourses, a different kind of idealization took place as visiting musicians from Germany regularly reported of the “sincerity,” “spontaneousness” and “devotion” of the Soviet audiences and stressed how favourably they compared to their counterparts at home. In the Cold War era, however, positive reactions to propaganda pieces were used to call the maturity of the Soviet public into question and to assert a collective brainwashing by doctrine.

Keywords soviet music, D. D. Shostakovich, audience, reception of music, concert tours, German-Soviet musical relations, “Muddle instead of music”, “Leningrad” Symphony

For citation

Weiss, S. “Exalted and subjugated: The Soviet music audience,” trans. from German by S. B Naumovich. Muzykal’naya akademiya [Music Academy], no. 2, 2025, pp. 136–149, doi:10.34690/465. (In Russ.)

Published 20.10.2024

Approved 14.11.2024

Submitted 27.06.2025

Buy pdf version