View source for Alexander Mosolov

{{Short description|Russian futurist composer (1900–1973)}}
[[File:Alexander Mosolov.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Alexander Mosolov in the 1950s]]
'''Alexander Vasilyevich Mosolov'''<ref group="n">Mosolov's name is transliterated variously and inconsistently between sources. Alternative spellings of Alexander include Alexandr, Aleksandr, Aleksander, and Alexandre; variations on Mosolov include Mossolov and Mossolow (as in German).</ref> ({{langx|ru|Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Мосоло́в|Aleksandr Vasilyevich Mosolov}}; {{OldStyleDate|11 August|1900|29 July}}&nbsp;–&nbsp;11 July 1973) was a composer of the early Soviet era, known best for his early [[Futurism (music)|futurist]] [[piano sonata]]s, orchestral episodes, and vocal music.

Mosolov studied at the [[Moscow Conservatory]] and achieved his greatest fame in the Soviet Union and around the world for his 1926 composition, ''[[Iron Foundry]]''. Later conflicts with Soviet authorities led to his expulsion from the Composers' Union in 1936 and imprisonment in the [[Gulag]] in 1937. Following an early release, which had been argued for by his Conservatory teachers, Mosolov turned his attention to setting Turkmen and Kyrgyz folk tunes for orchestra. His later music conformed to the Soviet aesthetic to a much greater degree, but he never regained the success of his early career.

Mosolov's works include five piano sonatas (only four of which are extant), two piano concerti (only one movement exists of the second piano concerto), two cello concerti, a harp concerto, four string quartets, twelve orchestral suites, eight symphonies, and a substantial number of choral and voice pieces.

== Biography ==
Mosolov was born to an upper-middle-class family in Kiev, in the Russian Empire. His mother, Nina Alexandrovna, was a professional singer at the [[Bolshoi Theater]] and a graduate of the Kiev school of music, and she gave Mosolov his first musical lessons. The family moved to Moscow in 1904. Mosolov's father, Vasiliy Alexandrovich, died a year later when Mosolov was five years old. After his father's death, Mosolov's mother married a successful painter and teacher, Mikhail Leblan.<ref name="Rimsky9">[[#Rimsky86|Rimsky]], "Biograficheskiy ocherk," p. 9.</ref> Young Mosolov was greatly impacted by the cosmopolitan lifestyle into which he was raised; both German and French were spoken in the home and the family took trips to Berlin, Paris, and London.

Mosolov attended high school until 1916, and in 1917 worked in the office of the [[People's Commissioner for State Control]]. Through this, he personally delivered mail to [[Vladimir Lenin]] three times, which had a profound impact on the young Mosolov.<ref name="Henck">[[#Henck96|Henck]], "Piano works," n.p.</ref> At the start of the [[Bolshevik Revolution]], Mosolov volunteered in the [[Red Army]]'s [[1st Cavalry Army (Soviet Union)|First Cavalry Regiment]] and fought on the Polish and Ukrainian fronts. He received the [[Order of the Red Banner]] on two occasions.<ref name="Sitsky60">[[#Sitsky94|Sitsky]], "Man of Steel," p. 60.</ref> He suffered from [[post-traumatic stress disorder]] due to the war and was medically discharged in July 1921.<ref name="Rimsky10">[[#Rimsky86|Rimsky]], "Biograficheskiy ocherk," p. 10.</ref> Mosolov entered the [[Moscow Conservatory]], where he studied under [[Reinhold Glière]] until 1925; in that year he began composition studies under [[Nikolai Myaskovsky]].<ref name="Ewen178">[[#Ewen34|Ewen]], "Alexander Mossolov, 1900–," p. 178.</ref> He also studied piano under [[Grigoriy Prokofiev]] and [[Konstantin Igmunov]].<ref name="Sitsky60"/> He graduated from the Conservatory in 1925 after presenting his graduation piece, the cantata ''Sphynx'', based on the [[Oscar Wilde]] poem of the same name. That same year, he was granted membership in the [[Association for Contemporary Music]] (ACM).

[[File:Alexander Mosolov 1927.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Mosolov in 1927]]Despite forays into composition, Mosolov's primary emphasis at this time was with performance, as he was an accomplished pianist. After the performance of his First String Quartet at the Frankfurt Festival of the [[International Society for Contemporary Music]] (ISCM) on 30 June 1927 was met with critical acclaim, Mosolov shifted his focus to composition.<ref name="Sitsky62">[[#Sitsky94|Sitsky]], "Man of Steel," p. 62.</ref> He was appointed secretary of the Russian section of the ISCM in 1927 and 1928. In 1928 and 1929, Mosolov was commissioned by the Bolshoi Theater to compose a futurist imagination of what [[Moscow]] would be like in 2117 for a speculative ballet called ''The Four Moscows''. [[Leonid Polovinkin]], [[Anatoly Nikolayevich Alexandrov|Anatoly Alexandrov]], and [[Dmitri Shostakovich]] were also involved, each to compose Moscow in 1568, 1818, and 1918 respectively, but nothing ever came of the project.<ref name="Sitsky62"/>

After the onset of [[socialist realism]] as the official aesthetic of the [[Soviet Union]] in 1932, Mosolov traveled to Central Asia, where he researched and collected samples of [[Music of Turkmenistan|Turkmen]], [[Music of Tajikistan|Tajik]], [[Music of Armenia|Armenian]], and [[Music of Kyrgyzstan|Kyrgyz]] songs. Mosolov became the first composer to create a symphonic suite on a Turkmen folk song.<ref name="EdmundsNP">[[#Edmunds04|Edmunds]], "Ambiguous Origins," n.p.</ref> His settings of folk songs were met with criticism from Soviet arbiters. Rather than simply set the melodies in an orchestral setting, Mosolov used dense textures and polytonality that disregarded the style of socialist realism.<ref name="Sitsky63">[[#Sitsky94|Sitsky]], "Man of Steel," p. 63.</ref> In 1932 and in desperation, he wrote a letter to [[Joseph Stalin]] pleading for Stalin's influence.<ref name="Hakobian55n">[[#Hakobian98|Hakobian]], ''Music of the Soviet Age'', p. 55n</ref><ref name="Yakub">[[#Yakub01|Yakub]], "Interview with Edisson Denisov."</ref><!--cf. Barsova, Inna (1989). "Iz neopublikovannogo arkhiva A. mosolova". ''Sovetskaya muzyka''.--> In his letter, Mosolov wrote, "Since 1926, I am an object of permanent badgering. Now, this has become insufferable. I must compose, and my works must be performed! I must test my works against the masses; if I come to grief, I'll know where I must go." He went further to ask for Stalin to "influence the [[Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians|proletarian musicians]] and their myrmidons, who have badgered me during the whole last year, and to allow me to work in the USSR" or "authorize my departure abroad, where I, with my music, could be more useful for the USSR than here, where I am harassed and badgered, where I'm not allowed to display my forces, to test myself."<ref name="MosolovLetter">[[#Mosolov|Mosolov]] to Stalin, n.p.</ref><ref name="Kadlets">[[#Kadlets96|Kadlets]], album notes, n.p.</ref><ref group="n">"Я терплю травлю с 1926 года. Сейчас я больше ждать не хочу. Я должен сочинять и исполняться! Я должен проверять свои сочинения на массе; пусть это будут провалы, но я увижу, куда мне идти и как мне перестраиваться."<br />(Since 1926, I am an object of permanent badgering. Now, this has become insufferable. I must compose, and my works must be performed! I must test my works against the masses; if I come to grief, I'll know where I must go.)<br/>"1. Либо воздействовать на ВАПМ и подвапмовцев в смысле прекращения моей травли, тянущейся уже целый год, и дать мне возможность работать в СССР. 2. Либо дать мне возможность уехать за границу, где я своей музыкой принесу гораздо больше пользы СССР. Чем здесь у нас, где меня гонят, травят, не дают возможность выявлять свои силы и проверять себя."<br />(Either influence the proletarian musicians and their [[Myrmidons#Later references|myrmidons]], who have badgered me during the whole last year, and to allow me to work in the USSR or authorize my departure abroad, where I, with my music, could be more useful for the USSR than here, where I am harassed and badgered, where I'm not allowed to display my forces, to test myself.)</ref>

On February 4, 1936, Mosolov was expelled from the [[Union of Soviet Composers|Composers' Union]] for treating waiters poorly and taking part in a drunken brawl in Press House, a local restaurant.<ref name="Mikkonen253">[[#Mikkonen07|Mikkonen]], ''State Composers'', p. 253.</ref> After this, Mosolov traveled voluntarily to the [[Turkmenistan|Turkmen]] and [[Uzbekistan|Uzbek]] republics to collect folk songs as a form of rehabilitation. His attempts were unsuccessful, and he was arrested on November 4, 1937, for alleged counter-revolutionary activities under [[Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)|Article 58]], [[Anti-Soviet agitation|Paragraph 10]] of the Soviet criminal code and sentenced to eight years in the [[Gulag]].<ref name="Hakobian55n"/><ref name="Brooke409">[[#Brooke02|Brooke]], "Soviet Musicians," p. 409.</ref> He served in the prison from December 23, 1937, until August 25, 1938. Glière and Myaskovsky had sent a letter to [[Mikhail Kalinin]], the chairman of the [[VTsIK|Central Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]], arguing for Mosolov's release citing his turn towards realism, his "outstanding creative ability," and the fact that neither teacher had seen in Mosolov any anti-Soviet disposition. On July 15, 1938, Mosolov's sentence was commuted to a five-year exile—he could not live in Moscow, [[Leningrad]], or [[Kiev]] until 1942.<ref name="Sitsky64">[[#Sitsky94|Sitsky]], "Man of Steel," p. 64.</ref> His quick release, having only served eight months of his eight-year sentence, was possible because he had been imprisoned not on political charges but on an overblown accusation of "hooliganism" brought by Mosolov's enemies in the Composers' Union.<ref name="Taruskin92n19">[[#Taruskin01|Taruskin]], ''Defining Russia Musically'', p. 92n19.</ref>

When [[World War II]] broke out, Mosolov composed ''Signal'', an opera which dealt with the war. However, the compositions of Mosolov's later life were so uncharacteristic of his earlier style that one scholar noted that it was "impossible to discern the former avant-gardist in the works written from the late thirties onward".<ref name="FrolovaWalker336n8">[[#Frolova-Walker98|Frolova-Walker]], "National in Form," p. 336n8.</ref> Mosolov lived in Moscow and continued to compose until his death in 1973.

== Musical style ==
Mosolov's earliest music implies that Mosolov was influenced by German romanticism,<ref name="Sitsky64"/> but this influence waned as he began studying under Myaskovsky and Glière. In an early piece, "Four Songs," Op. 1, Mosolov explored the use of [[ostinato]]. Widespread use of ostinato became the defining signature of Mosolov's music:<ref name="Sitsky69">[[#Sitsky94|Sitsky]], "Man of Steel," p. 69.</ref> ''Iron Foundry'' is built of many ostinati working in tandem to create the sound of a factory, it is used in the Second and Fifth Piano Sonatas, etc.

Dissonance "in the extreme"<ref name="Lewis882">[[#Lewis05|Lewis]], "Alexander Vasil'yevich Mosolov," p. 882.</ref> and chromaticism are also Mosolov's signatures, though he stops short of the structured twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg. Instead of tone rows, Mosolov uses thickly-clustered, heavily chromatic chords to make his point. Folk music also saw use by Mosolov. As the first composer of a symphonic suite on a Turkmen folk song, Mosolov adopted the use of folk music before it was mandated under Socialist realism.  His Second Piano Sonata incorporated Kyrgyz melodies, and his "Three Children's Scenes" utilized a city street song. However, instead of carefully setting the music for orchestra, Mosolov handled the music "like thematic grist for his compositional mill."<ref name="Sitsky69"/> This use of folk tunes continued after his Stalinist "rehabilitation." However, Mosolov's early works were marked by dense textures and polytonality that was lost after his expulsion and persecution.

== Works ==
{{See|List of compositions by Alexander Mosolov}}

Among Mosolov's more notable pieces are his ''Four Newspaper Advertisements'' and ''Three Children's Scenes'', written in 1926. In ''Four Newspaper Advertisements'', Mosolov set four brief announcements in the newspaper ''[[Izvestiya]]'' to music. The topics of the four short pieces range from a lost dog to the announcement of a name change.<ref name="Hakobian51">[[#Hakobian98|Hakobian]], ''Music of the Soviet Age'', p. 51.</ref> In contrast, the text to ''Three Children's Scenes'' was written by Mosolov himself, and is much darker. The first, called "Mama, give me a needle, please!" is a short song in which the protagonist tortures a cat; the singer even mimics the screams of the cat, and the song ends with a sung shout of "A wicked creature!"<ref name="Kadlets"/>

Mosolov's most famous composition, ''[[Iron Foundry]]'', was originally the final movement of a [[suite (music)|ballet suite]] titled, ''Steel''. The work premiered in Moscow on December 4, 1927, in a concert held by the [[Association for Contemporary Music|ACM]] to commemorate the tenth anniversary of [[October Revolution|the Revolution]]. Its Western debut was at the [[International Society for Contemporary Music|ISCM]] festival in Liège on September 6, 1930, and it came to America two months later when the [[Cleveland Symphony Orchestra]] held a performance.<ref name="OConnell337">[[#O'Connell41|O'Connell]], "Alexander Mossolov," p. 337.</ref> Although it was originally praised as "a mighty hymn to machine work" and as a piece that glorified [[industrialization]] and "the worker", as the years passed the piece began to receive criticism from increasingly conservative Soviet authorities. Some critics argued that the workers, ironically enough, didn't enjoy such music,<ref name="Roberts315">[[#Roberts02|Roberts]], "Aleksandr Vasil'yevich Mosolov," p. 315.</ref> while others argued that the workers, "for whom machine oil is mother's milk," were roused and inspired by music of their time.<ref name="QtdSlonimsky3">[[#Leningrad|Leningrad Association of Contemporary Music]], ''October and the New Music'' (1927). Quoted in [[#Slonimsky44|Slonimsky]], "Soviet Music and Musicians", p. 3.</ref> One critic found in the music "no organized will to victory, in fact very little besides the [[Petite bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] anarchy", while conceding that it was "striving to find an individual idiom";<ref name="EwenNP">[[#Ewen34|Ewen]], "Alexander Mossolov, 1900–," n.p.</ref> another called it a "grossly formalistic perversion of a contemporary topic".<ref name="SchwarzNP">[[#Schwarz83|Schwarz]], "Opera, Ballet and Orchestral Music" n.p.</ref> Today, only ''Iron Foundry'' remains from ''Steel'': the manuscripts were lost in 1929, the same year that Mosolov came under increased fire from Soviet authorities.

== Notes ==
<references group="n"/>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

=== Sources ===
*{{cite journal |last=Brooke |first=Caroline |editor1-first=Roger |editor1-last=Clarke |date=2002 |title=Soviet Musicians and the Great Terror |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=54 |issue=3: May |pages=397–413 |issn=0966-8136 |oclc=483537911 |jstor=826483 |ref=Brooke02 |doi=10.1080/09668130220129533|s2cid=154018000 }}
*{{cite conference |title=The Ambiguous Origins of Socialist Realism and Musical Life in the Soviet Union |first=Neil |last=Edmunds |year=2004 |conference=Colloquia Musicologica Brunensia |editor=Mikuláš Bek, Geoffrey Chew and Petr Macek |volume=36 |book-title=Socialist Realism and Music |publisher=KLP |location=Prague |pages=115–130 |isbn=80-86791-18-1 |oclc=442697779 |ref=Edmunds04}}
*{{cite book |last1=Ewen |first1=David |title=Composers of Today: A Comprehensive Biographical and Critical Guide to Modern Composers of All Nations |year=1934 |publisher=H. W. Wilson Company |location=New York |oclc=2385387 |pages=178–179 |chapter=Alexander Mossolov, 1900– |ref=Ewen34}}
*{{cite journal |last=Frolova-Walker |first=Marina |editor1-first=Paula |editor1-last=Higgins |year=1998 |title='National in Form, Socialist in Content': Musical Nation-Building in the Soviet Republics |journal=Journal of the American Musicological Society |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=331–371 |issn=0003-0139 |oclc=477569929 |jstor=831980 |ref=Frolova-Walker98 |doi=10.1525/jams.1998.51.2.03a00040}}
*{{cite book |last1=Hakobian |first1=Levon |title=Music of the Soviet Age: 1917–1987 |year=1998 |publisher=Melos Music Literature |location=Stockholm |isbn=978-91-972133-4-9 |oclc=2385387 |ref=Hakobian98}}
*{{cite AV media notes |title=Alexandr Mosolov |year=1996 |chapter=Piano works by Alexandr Mosolov |first=Herbert |last=Henck |others=Michael Robinson (trans.) |type=booklet |publisher=ECM Records |id=1569 |location=Frankfurt am Main, Germany |ref=Henck96}}
*{{cite AV media notes |title=Mosolov: String Quartet No. 2, Violin Concerto, Other Works |others=Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble |year=1996 |first=Muza |last=Kadlets |type=booklet |publisher=Triton |id=DMCC-26006 and 17004 |location=Japan |ref=Kadlets96}}
*{{anchor|Leningrad}}Leningrad Association of Contemporary Music, ''October and the New Music'' (1927). Quoted in {{cite journal |last=Slonimsky |first=Nicolas |author-link=Nicolas Slonimsky |date=December 1944 |title=Soviet Music and Musicians |journal=Slavonic and East European Review |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=1–18 |doi=10.2307/3020186 |issn=0037-6795 |oclc=479303053 |jstor=3020186 |ref=Slonimsky44}}
*{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=Dave |last2=Tyranny |first2=Gene |editor1-first=Gerald |editor1-last=Brennan |editor2-first=Allen |editor2-last=Schrott |editor3-first=Chris |editor3-last=Woodstra |title=All Music Guide to Classical Music |year=2005 |publisher=Backbeat Books |location=San Francisco |isbn=978-0-87930-865-0 |oclc=456002195 |pages=881–882 |chapter=Alexander Vasil'yevich Mosolov |ref=Lewis05}}
*{{cite book |last1=Mikkonen |first1=Simo |title=State Composers and the Red Courtiers: Music, Ideology, and Politics in the Soviet 1930s |url=https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/13463/9789513930158.pdf |type=Ph.D. Dissertation |year=2007 |publisher=University of Jyväskylä |isbn=978-951-39-3015-8 |oclc=231196953 |ref=Mikkonen07}}
*{{anchor|Mosolov}}Mosolov, Alexander (2004). "Alexander Mosolov to Joseph Stalin, May 1932". In ''[[#Vorobev06|Russkiy avangard i tvorchestvo Aleksandra Mosolova 1920–1930-kh godov]]'', by Igor Vorobev.{{Page needed|date=January 2014}} St. Petersburg: Kompozitor.
*{{cite book |last1=O'Connell |first1=Charles |title=The Victor Book of the Symphony |year=1941 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York |oclc=563596721 |page=337 |chapter=Alexander Mossolov |ref=O'Connell41}}
*{{cite book |last1=Rimsky |first1=L. |title=A. V. Mosolov: Stati i vospominaniya |trans-title=A. V. Mosolov: Articles and Reminiscences |others=comp. N. K. Meshko |year=1986 |publisher=Sovetskii Kompozitor |location=Moscow |language=ru |oclc=230838593 |pages=8–43 |chapter=A. V. Mosolov: biograficheskiy ocherk |trans-chapter=A. V. Mosolov: Biographical Sketch |ref=Rimsky86}}
*{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=Peter Deane |editor1-first=Larry |editor1-last=Sitsky |editor1-link=Larry Sitsky |title=Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook |year=2002 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, CT |isbn=978-0-313-29689-5 |oclc=49226425 |pages=314–319 |chapter=Aleksandr Vasil'yevich Mosolov (1900–1973) |ref=Roberts02}}
*{{cite book |last1=Schwarz |first1=Boris |title=Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia |year=1983 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington |isbn=0-253-33956-1 |oclc=8826499 |pages=61–87 |chapter=Opera, Ballet and Orchestral Music of the 1920s |ref=Schwarz83}}
*{{cite book |last1=Sitsky |first1=Larry |author-link=Larry Sitsky |title=Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900–1929 |year=1994 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, CT |isbn=978-0-313-26709-3 |oclc=28962473 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/musicofrepressed0000sits/page/60 60–87] |chapter=Aleksandr V. Mosolov: The Man of Steel |ref=Sitsky94 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/musicofrepressed0000sits/page/60 }}
*{{cite book |last1=Taruskin |first1=Richard |author-link=Richard Taruskin |title=Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays |year=2001 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, NJ |isbn=978-0-691-07065-0 |oclc=51313436 |ref=Taruskin01}}
*{{cite book |last1=Vorobev |first1=Igor |title=Russkiy avangard i tvorchestvo Aleksandra Mosolova 1920–1930-kh godov |trans-title=Russian avant-garde and the creativity of Alexander Mosolov in the 1920s-1930s |year=2006 |publisher=Kompozitor |location=St. Petersburg |isbn=978-5-7379-0310-7 |oclc=165065749 |ref=Vorobev06}}
*{{cite web |url=http://www.ex-tempore.org/denisov.html |title=Interview with Edisson Denisov |first=Roman |last=Yakub |author-link=Roman Yakub |date=2001 |work=Ex Tempore |issue=April 2 |accessdate=April 28, 2010 |ref=Yakub01}}

==External links==
* [http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/discrev/moschron.html Chronology of Mosolov's life and compositions]
* [http://www.myaskovsky.ru/?id=47 Biography on the official website of Myaskovsky] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204083041/http://www.myaskovsky.ru/?id=47 |date=2012-02-04 }}
* [https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=15861 Documentary film about Mosolov and the forgotten music of the Soviet avant garde]

{{Futurism (music)}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mosolov, Alexander Vasilyevich}}
[[Category:1900 births]]
[[Category:1973 deaths]]
[[Category:Moscow Conservatory alumni]]
[[Category:Musicians from Kyiv]]
[[Category:Russian male classical pianists]]
[[Category:Russian male opera composers]]
[[Category:Composers for piano]]
[[Category:Soviet classical composers]]
[[Category:Soviet classical pianists]]
[[Category:Soviet male classical composers]]
[[Category:Soviet opera composers]]
[[Category:20th-century male composers]]