Discography

by

OPUS35

Filip Davidse, Saxophone        Naomi Tamura, piano

The Soviet Saxophone

The Soviet Saxophone The saxophone was viewed as a 'suspicious' instrument in the former Soviet Union. The reason being that it belonged to the bourgeoisie and was associated with decadent jazz music. For these reasons serious composers did not write 'serious' music for the instrument. As a result there was no development of the instrument and its possibilities in different settings like there was in the West. This changed in the nineteen sixties and seventies, due to a group of young composers in Moscow, among them Dmitri Smirnov, Vladislav Shoot, Nikolai Korndorff and Faradj Karayev. All of these composers were members of the "Association for Contemporary Music" (ACM), a group formed in the seventies in Moscow. These composers felt restrained by the rules and regulations of the Composers Union and tried to find their own way, also by studying the musical developments in the West. The Composers Union was a government agency which controlled all aspects of a composers' life. From housing to the availability of sheet music paper. If a composer marched out of step, his life could be made very difficult by this Union. However these young composers did not want to write in the style of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, composers whose influence was enormous. Which was ironical, because after having suffered a lot of criticism and restraints earlier in their careers their music was now propagated as 'real Soviet music'. The members of the ACM tried to organize their own concerts and publications. They would gather in the flat of one of their members and discuss new works, ideas and developments. Their teacher mentor and friend Edison Denisov was also a part of this. They sought out contact with the West and invited for example the French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez and French saxophonist Jean-Marie Londeix. As the political and economical situation became increasingly unstable towards the end of the eighties, many artist and composers emigrated to the West. Elena Firsova and her husband Dmitri Smirnov (1948) went to England in 1991, as did Vladislav Shoot (1941). Vladimir Korndorff (1947-2001) emigrated to Canada. In this respect the life of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was just the opposite. After having started his career in Russia he left for Europe, and lived for quite some time in the West. However he returned for good to Russia in 1934, thinking he would be more successful there. He would only find out how difficult life really was under the communists. He wrote his Flute Sonata op.94 in 1943, during the second World War. Later, in collaboration with David Oistrakh, he transcribed it for violin. Maybe because, as famous pianist Sviatoslav Richter suggested: "flautists seemed in no great hurry to perform it". Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin (March 5 1953), causing his death to go unnoticed for some time.