Alexander Mosolov - 'Op. 19 Iron Foundry

[Héctor]

Alexander Mosolov - Op. 19 Iron Foundry

by Riccardo Chailly

[Philidor]

Wow, I'd heard of this but never listened to it:

His works were often taken to embody the new brutalism and worship of the machine, and his most famous composition is the orchestral piece Iron Foundry (Zavod), a movement from a ballet entitled Steel (1927), which was performed all over the world. Later Mosolov fell foul of the musical politics of the USSR and after violent attacks on his reputation by Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians his works were pulled from publication and performance. In 1936 Mosolov was expelled from the Union of Soviet Composers for 'public drunkenness'. Thanks to archival research, we now know that in 1932 he had written to Stalin complaining that through no fault of his own he had 'become a kind of musical outlaw' even though he was 'a loyal Soviet man'. He was sent to Armenia, Kirghizia, Turkmenia and Daghestan to document folksong (and also to 'compose a Turkmen Song about Stalin') before being arrested in 1937 for 'anti-Soviet propaganda' and condemned to eight years in the labour camps.

Source

YouTube- Alexander MOSOLOV: Sonata nr.4 performed by Hayk Melikyan

[Lulach]

Remarkable stuff. Iron Foundry sounds as if the characters in the Rite of Spring had suddenly found themselves in ... er, an iron foundry; and for all the talk of "brutalism and worship of the machine" the Sonata has some very lyrical passages.

Thank you very much, Héctor.