infotext:
Nikolai Andreyevich Roslavets Igor Stravinsky, who should have known, called him the most interesting Russian composer of the 20th century and wrote to the violinist and music writer Michael Goldstein on August 12, 1966: »... I am happy to testify to my always extraordinary encounters with him and the exciting impression of its fresh, always fresh music, which is not accepted by the Russian obscurantists. Of course, all his works should be published in the politically advanced countries, which unfortunately are wary of advanced art movements..." At that time, Roslavets had been erased from Soviet music history and dutifully hushed up. Ever since the campaigns of the ›Association of Proletarian Musicians‹ – not only against his highly sensitive, virtuosic music, but also against his work as a spokesman for contemporary music, in which he fought for the compatibility of New Music and Marxist philosophy – he was considered an ›enemy of the people‹ banned from musical life and publishing programs. In the 1980s, composers such as Stravinsky, Hindemith, Schönberg and Webern were gradually being accepted again by the Soviet side, and avant-gardists such as Charms, Malevich and Tatlin moved within the realms of what was permissible. Not so the musical avant-gardists of their own country - like Roslavets, who was still regarded as an 'enemy'. Even a purely analytical study of his works was absurdly considered a hostile attack on Soviet music. His musical thinking and efforts to "express my own inner self, which dreamed of new, unheard-of soundscapes," had their roots in the 1910s, influenced by Scriabin and symbolist poetry, when the talented farmer's son (who had started out as a self-taught violinist) was studying graduated from the Moscow Conservatory and was awarded a silver medal. After that, he increasingly turned away from the academic workload in order to go his own experimental way. It was the time of the beginning of the twelve-tone philosophy in the sense of an obligatory equality of the twelve chromatic degrees, for which Ferruccio Busoni and Domenico Alaleona were the forerunners of Schönberg in the West at that time; in Russia it was Arthur Lourié, Yefim Golyscheff, Nikolai Obukhov and, with particular consistency and systematicity, Roslavets. His ›new, fixed system of tone organization‹, which he developed between 1913 and 1926, is based on six- to eight-tone sounds (and thus stocks of notes) in the manner of altered chords (he calls them ›synthetic chords‹), which are more conventional evade tonal interpretation and can be transposed systematically to all levels of the twelve-tone scale - just like in the classical system of triads and four-tones to the seven levels of diatonic scales. In this respect, continuity with the classic system is maintained. From these sound complexes he obtains the entire material of a movement, but also derives further construction principles: not only twelve-tone rows can be observed in inversions and crescents, but also mutual additions of complementary synthetic chords to the twelve-tone total. His atonal, yet self-regulated compositional system shows points of contact with Scriabin's technique of the central sound, of which Roslavets consciously declared himself independent. Since the end of the 1920s, such experiments, even those of a proletarian composer, were no longer tolerated in Soviet Russia (and there was no interest in the West), no matter how spirited and virtuoso his instrumental writing might be. None of his compositions from the 1930s were made public, and some are only now being made accessible from the estate acquired from Schott Verlag. His work stands on that mysterious boundary between a highly sensitive late-Romantic world of expression and a strict constructiveness, but has no share in contemporary tendencies towards ›new objectivity‹ and triviality. Roslavets, who never emigrated, is a particularly tragic victim of Soviet cultural policy, whose acknowledgment also has to be made in the West. It was only after Gorbachev's ›perestroika‹ that it was again possible to cultivate his work in Russia, for example with a commemorative festival in Bryansk, near his home on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. Detlef Gojowy
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program:
Nikolay A. Roslavets (1881-1944)
[01-03] 3 compositions (1914) 02: 49
[04-06] 3 studies (1914) 14: 16
[07] Sonata No. 1 (1914) 10: 51
[08] Prelude (1915) 03: 24
[09-10] 2 compositions (1915) 05: 43
[11] Sonata No. 2 (1916) 12: 14
[12-13] 2 poems (1920) 04: 10
[14-18] 5 preludes (1919-22) 08:53
[19] Sonata No. 5 (1923) 11: 26
total time: 74:21
Irina Emeliansevapiano
Press:
04/2011
24.09.2009
Direct copy
From time to time the recorded music market, which is often accused of being monotonous, has real surprises in store. Sometimes pleasant, sometimes with a bit of a strange aftertaste. Same here. Irina Emeliantseva has dedicated a complete CD to the Russian Nikolaj Roslavez. Basically commendable if a disc hadn't been released twelve years ago whose program is absolutely identical to Emeliantseva's: the same pieces in the same order. This can of course be coincidence, because the works are presented in the chronological order in which they were written, the sonatas nos. 1, 2 and 5 recorded here are the only ones that have survived, and much more than the total of almost 75 minutes on this CD is from Roslavez' Piano music has not yet been published. Nevertheless, such a direct copy should probably have been avoided.
The original was provided by none other than Marc-André Hamelin.
Of course, his interpretations are more subtle, and the sound of his recording is superior to the new release. In view of these circumstances, it is somewhat difficult to judge Irina Emeliantseva's new recording impartially. The pianist, who according to the information in the booklet mainly plays new music, also delivers quite appealing interpretations that convey a certain feverish tension. This is basically just right for the heated tonal language of this music. On the other hand, Emeliantseva's interpretation offers few resting points to compensate. Altogether it remains a dubious undertaking to provoke such a comparison.
The booklet contains a lot of information about Roslavets and his music. One can make it easy for oneself to describe Nikolai Roslavets as a composer who succeeded Scriabin. Similarities to his late style are easy to spot, and who knows that the harmonic system is different? In both cases, the traditional tonality has been thrown overboard. But Roslavets (1881-1944) quickly renounced his role model Scriabin. These points, which are only roughly outlined here, are presented appropriately and comprehensibly.
In Soviet times, Roslavets became an undesirable person, even more than many of his better-known colleagues, because of his avant-garde approaches, and dealing with his music was not tolerated. Today, despite the publication of many works and a few sound recordings, a renaissance of his work in the concert business can no longer be expected.
Interpretation: 
Sound quality:
repertoire value: 
Booklets:
Jan Kampmeier
30.05.2009
Nikolay Roslavets
Works for piano
The list of murdered, banned, ostracized artists in the once young Soviet Union is tragic and long. A misunderstood blink of an eye was enough to end about artists fates. The composer Nikolai Roslavez was a revolutionary from the very beginning. With his music he supported the liberation of the proletariat against the tsarist dictatorship. His individualistic, free thinking was his undoing.
It was only with Gorbachev's Perestroika that it was possible to bring the political “apostate” out of the Soviet darkness and to honor him decades later at a festival near his native Briansk. The sheet music is now in the hands of Schott Verlag. A recently released CD with piano works by Roslavets points to Julia Schölzel as one of the most exciting Russian composers of the first half of the 1th century.
Class hostile and formalistic
No question. Nikolai Roslavets never aspired to play the role of outsider. He wanted to help shape and, above all, combine the development of modern Russian music with his political commitment to a more just state system. Inflamed by Marxist ideas, he threw himself hopefully into the revolutionary upheavals around 1917 - but Roslavets made a serious mistake: he became a member of the Association of Contemporary Music, which was considered critical of the Communist Party. Roslavez did not have to wait long for the political and artistic consequences. In the nervous and murderous 1920s his works were attacked and denounced as “anti-class” and “formalistic”, topped only by a final professional ban. It was not until 1933 that Roslavets was allowed to resettle in Moscow as a day laborer. The composer was silenced until his death in 1944, and when colleagues were allowed to work in public again, Roslavets had to remain silent.
What did Roslavets do to fall from favor with the Communist Party as a self-confessed Marxist? In a word, he was willing to experiment. Too experimental. As a highly gifted autodidact from a peasant family, he triumphed at the Moscow Conservatory with the Great Silver Medal. Scriabin's musical cosmos and symbolist poetry initially fascinated him. Then Roslavets fine-tuned a new tonal system – parallel to the Viennese avant-gardists around Schönberg. Roslavets' approach is based on six to eight-part sounds, which he called synthetic chords, and which can be built up on each of the 12 tones with certain secondary tones and alternations. He not only wanted to treat the individual 12 tones equally, but also to organize and systematize their entire vertical structure. Like the Schönberg circle, Roslavets also used baroque compositional principles such as inversions and reflections. But the otherness emerges when listening.
Works full of romantic power
With its colorful expressiveness, Roslavets' music sounds warm and soft, associative, and it is emotionally easily accessible. While 12-tone music sometimes sounds like a paper, Roslavets' works have a three-dimensional belly. And on this CD, the Russian pianist Irina Emeliantseva works passionately on its scope. Full-bodied, she braces the romantic force of the etudes, sonatas, preludes and individual piano pieces from the years of political upheaval from 1914 to 1923, conjures up an impressionistic shimmer over Roslavets parleying gesture with a plastic piano tone. Anyone who expects a rigid compositional calculus according to the system will be surprised by the opposite. A rare trump card of this CD published by Neos: with the pianist Irina Emeliantseva, who lives in Germany, a composer who has won several international prizes meets a colleague. No guarantee for full bellies of music, but apart from the music-political and scientific importance of this open-minded Russian composer, in the case of Roslavets and Emeliantseva this concept works impressively.
By Julia Schoelzel
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