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drplaceboIt's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Since we all unfortunately have Nazis on our minds right now, both this week's forgotten masterpiece and next week's will be by composers who died fighting Nazis.
This week we have a one-act opera by the Russian Jewish composer Veniamin Fleishman (1913-1941). Fleishman was one of Dmitri Shostakovich's most promising students at the Leningrad Conservatory. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he had been working on a one-act opera based on Anton Chekhov's short story Rothschild's Violin, which he had sketched out in short score, and was beginning to orchestrate it. But with the outbreak of war, Fleishman enlisted and was sent to the front. That September, during the siege of Leningrad, he was killed in battle when the pillbox he was defending was destroyed by German tanks. His body was never recovered.
In October 1941, Shostakovich heard that his student had been killed in action, and that the unfinished opera score was likely still in Leningrad; Fleishman's wife had left it at the Leningrad Composers' Union when civilians were evacuated from the city. In May, Shostakovich wrote to some of his former students who were in the army, asking them to try to recover the score if it was still at the Composers' Union. Around the end of 1943, one of those students, an army officer named Boris Klyuzner, was able to reach the abandoned building, retrieve the short score and partial orchestration, and send it to Shostakovich. Shostakovich completed the orchestration on February 5, 1944, and after Stalin's death used his new-found influence in the Soviet musical establishment to get the opera published and premiered in 1960.
SYNOPSIS
Time and Place: A small town somewhere in Russia
There is a wedding in a merchant's house. A band of local musicians are playing in the street, but a quarrel breaks out between them. The old coffin-maker, Ivanov (known as 'Bronza'), accuses the young Rothschild of spoiling the music. But the others turn against him and eventually, in disgust, Bronza packs his violin and goes home. Alone, Bronza laments his poverty and the lack of respect that others show him. His wife Marfa returns from the river with a bucket of water and collapses from exhaustion. While the remaining musicians go into the merchant's house, Rothschild stays in the street outside, playing his flute. Marta, lying in bed, reminds Bronza of their little fair-haired daughter who died fifty years ago while still a child. Bronza knows he will have to make a coffin for his wife this day. The musicians reappear and strike up a lively dance. They send Rothschild to persuade Bronza to come and join them, but Bronza throws Rothschild out of his house. Children in the street chase after the young musician, shouting: 'Jew! Jew!' In a long monologue, Bronza grieves for the waste of his life, for the destruction of the former woods around the town, and for his own mistreatment of his wife and of Rothschild. Staring at his violin, he hopes that after his death it will 'sing new songs of happiness', for he cannot take it with him to his grave. Rothschild returns once again to implore Bronza to come and join the musicians. Instead the old Russian coffin-maker gives him his violin and the young Jewish man begins to play.
Since we all unfortunately have Nazis on our minds right now, both this week's forgotten masterpiece and next week's will be by composers who died fighting Nazis.
This week we have a one-act opera by the Russian Jewish composer Veniamin Fleishman (1913-1941). Fleishman was one of Dmitri Shostakovich's most promising students at the Leningrad Conservatory. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he had been working on a one-act opera based on Anton Chekhov's short story Rothschild's Violin, which he had sketched out in short score, and was beginning to orchestrate it. But with the outbreak of war, Fleishman enlisted and was sent to the front. That September, during the siege of Leningrad, he was killed in battle when the pillbox he was defending was destroyed by German tanks. His body was never recovered.
In October 1941, Shostakovich heard that his student had been killed in action, and that the unfinished opera score was likely still in Leningrad; Fleishman's wife had left it at the Leningrad Composers' Union when civilians were evacuated from the city. In May, Shostakovich wrote to some of his former students who were in the army, asking them to try to recover the score if it was still at the Composers' Union. Around the end of 1943, one of those students, an army officer named Boris Klyuzner, was able to reach the abandoned building, retrieve the short score and partial orchestration, and send it to Shostakovich. Shostakovich completed the orchestration on February 5, 1944, and after Stalin's death used his new-found influence in the Soviet musical establishment to get the opera published and premiered in 1960.
SYNOPSIS
Time and Place: A small town somewhere in Russia
There is a wedding in a merchant's house. A band of local musicians are playing in the street, but a quarrel breaks out between them. The old coffin-maker, Ivanov (known as 'Bronza'), accuses the young Rothschild of spoiling the music. But the others turn against him and eventually, in disgust, Bronza packs his violin and goes home. Alone, Bronza laments his poverty and the lack of respect that others show him. His wife Marfa returns from the river with a bucket of water and collapses from exhaustion. While the remaining musicians go into the merchant's house, Rothschild stays in the street outside, playing his flute. Marta, lying in bed, reminds Bronza of their little fair-haired daughter who died fifty years ago while still a child. Bronza knows he will have to make a coffin for his wife this day. The musicians reappear and strike up a lively dance. They send Rothschild to persuade Bronza to come and join them, but Bronza throws Rothschild out of his house. Children in the street chase after the young musician, shouting: 'Jew! Jew!' In a long monologue, Bronza grieves for the waste of his life, for the destruction of the former woods around the town, and for his own mistreatment of his wife and of Rothschild. Staring at his violin, he hopes that after his death it will 'sing new songs of happiness', for he cannot take it with him to his grave. Rothschild returns once again to implore Bronza to come and join the musicians. Instead the old Russian coffin-maker gives him his violin and the young Jewish man begins to play.