Hard to believe some of that is even possible. Then there are Russian movies like Night Watch and Day Watch based on Russian science-fiction novels. Then there is the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman who won the two highest honors in mathematics, the Fields medal and the Millennium Prize, both with million dollar awards. Despite living in his mother's apartment in St. Petersburg, he refused to accept either prize (and turned down other honors as well) because in his view they were "irrelevant."
The Russians also do some of the most realistic war movies like Admiral from 2008. It begins with a naval engagement. From around the 6 minute mark, watch as the captain takes over command of their single gun and, with the aid of the only remaining gun crew member, badly wounded, manages to land a hit on the bridge of the German ship, temporarily putting them out of action.
Last summer, when I was at the Salzburg Festival, I saw three of the best pianists in the world within a single week: Grigory Sokolov, Igor Levit and Evgeny Kissin. Sokolov and Kissin are Russian and Levit was born in Russia but grew up in Germany.
What is it with the Russians and why have they always had such spectacularly bad governments?
Sokolov doesn't do concerto performances any more and there aren't a lot of clips around, but this one is likely worth watching/hearing.
I stated in an older thread that the Russian composers basically saved classical music in the 20th C. What would the precarious current position of classical music be without Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, even Glazunov and Scriabin? On top of that they were the large bulk of top violinists in the past century Also they comprise a large chunk of the current top conductors. German music expired in the 30s with the dead end of serialism and the proscription of the mainly Jewish post Tristan composers (Schreker, Korngold, Zemlinsky etc.)
ReplyDeleteThat being said, top down cultures like Russia and China are poorly suited to creatively participate in the current mass culture in any positive way.
Absolutely! I don't know why I didn't mention the composers. Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich are my favourite three composers of the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteNow, can you flesh out what you mean in your last sentence?
I thought the last sentence was fairly straightforward. The Soviet Union as an authoritarian state could force the maintenance of a system (the Czarist music establishment) past the regular sell date and keep artists from too much deviation. But they also supported them after a fashion and performed the works (that weren't banned.) So captive exceptional artists were able to make that work for a generation or two longer. More recently the music schools for Russia and now China were used to generate international prestige for the regimes with virtuosos. They were slightly behind the times as usual though since that prestige is getting narrower and fainter every year.
ReplyDeleteHowever authoritarian regimes like these by their nature cannot move fast enough to keep up with popular taste shifts nor do they want to cede control. In the US the arts bureaucracies are ex post facto supporters using pop music stars to add luster to the bureaucracy rather than vice versa. So the beneficial aspects of the authoritarian music schools (quality training, enforcing certain existing standards) cannot be used for popular culture, only established elite culture. In other words they cannot elevate popular art to something better.
I think my simple sentence was far better.
Thanks, Maury. Yes, your original sentence was nicely succinct, but your explanation is valuable, I think. These are not simple situations.
ReplyDeleteI need to think this through, so it may be a while before I have anything worthwhile to say!