Music and Politics in the Early Soviet Union
Wednesdays, April 8, 15, and 22 | 9:30 a.m. – 12 noon
Bethany Congregational Church 556 N. Hope Avenue, Santa Barbara
VISTAS member price: $40; non-member price $60
Presented by Derek Katz
This course will trace the fraught relationships between music and Soviet cultural policies from the 1917 Revolution to the Second World War. We will start with the clashes between proletarian musicians and modernist composers during the relatively tolerant New Economic Policy of the 1920s while also briefly dipping into popular music and jazz of that era. We will discuss the thorny concept of Socialist Realism in the 1930s after the establishment of the Union of Composers in 1932, and conclude with the promotion of nationalist music for both Russians and national minorities as war approached. Famous musicians like Shostakovich and Prokofiev will make appearances, but we will also listen to music by lesser-known Soviet composers such as Alexander Mosolov, Vladimir Deshevov, Nikolai Myaskovsky, and Vissarion Shebalin.