Kyiv avant-garde
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Kyiv avant-garde (Ukrainian: Київський авангард, romanized: Kyivskyy avanhard) was an informal group of avant-garde composers that was formed in Kyiv before 1965.[1] The movement emerged at a critical juncture in Soviet cultural history, during the Khrushchev Thaw, when a brief relaxation of ideological control permitted Ukrainian composers to cautiously explore avant-garde techniques that had flourished in Western Europe during the postwar period.
During the Stalinist era, Soviet composers had been compelled to adhere strictly to the doctrine of Socialist realism, which mandated that music be tonal, accessible, and optimistic in character. Western modernist techniques—including atonality, twelve-tone serialism, and electronic experimentation—were officially denounced as "formalist" and ideologically alien. Against this backdrop, the Khrushchev Thaw of the late 1950s and early 1960s created tentative openings for artistic experimentation.
In Kyiv, a group of young composers who had studied under Borys Lyatoshynsky—himself one of the most progressive Ukrainian composers of his generation—began to form a circle that met privately to study the works of Western avant-garde composers. These gatherings took place largely in the apartment of Valentyn Silvestrov's parents, where the group would analyze scores of works by Anton Webern, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, and other contemporary composers that they had obtained by overcoming considerable obstacles. One important source of information about the contemporary Western music scene was the Warsaw Autumn festival, from which Kyiv composers were able to acquire recordings.[2]
The significance of their activities can only be understood within the context of the ideological climate of the USSR. Any interest in the music of the Second Viennese School and the European postwar avant-garde was officially unacceptable, and even private study of such music was considered politically suspect.
Members
The Kyiv avant-garde initially formed in the early 1960s. Its core members were:[3]
- Ihor Blazhkov (conductor and composer)
- Leonid Hrabovsky
- Valentyn Silvestrov
- Vitaliy Hodziatsky
- Volodymyr Huba
- Volodymyr Zahortsev
- Petro Solovkin
- Vitaliy Patsera
A little later, they were joined by:[3]
Activities and public recognition
The composers of the group studied the works of Stravinsky, Bartók, composers of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Webern, Berg), as well as Edgard Varèse, Cage, Xenakis, Luciano Berio, Witold Lutosławski and other post-serial avant-garde composers (including Polish ones).
A landmark concert on 26 December 1966 at the Kyiv Philharmonic provided the wider public with its first substantive exposure to the Kyiv avant-garde's work. The concert attracted both enthusiastic audiences and heightened official scrutiny.[4]
In 1962, the Ukrainian musicologist Halyna Mokreeva published an article titled A Letter from Kyiv in the Polish journal Ruch Muzyczny, which described the activities of the Kyiv avant-garde group and drew international attention to the movement.
Silvestrov's Symphony No. 3 (Eschatophony), composed during this period, was conducted by the noted composer Bruno Maderna at Darmstadt in 1968, indicating that the group had achieved some level of international recognition among avant-garde musicians in Western Europe.[5]