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Februar / März 2014
Baku: Symphony of Sirens.
SOUND EXPERIMENTS IN THE RUSSIAN AVANT GARDE (1908 - 1942).
ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS and RECONSTRUCTIONS of 72 KEY WORKS of MUSIC, POETRY and AGITPROP from the RUSSIAN AVANTGARDES
The sound anthology of the Russian Avant-Garde (1908-1942) presented here is an attempt to capture the concept of "Avant-Garde", understood as "advance party• or "front line" in its widest sense - taking in the different areas of politics, society, culture and art in which manifestation through sound was important and necessary; an ideal way to spread its revolutionary intentions. That is why, on a sound Ievei, it includes the avant-garde in politics (lenin), culture (lunacharsky), women's Iiberation (Aiexandra Kollontay), poetry (Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Krutschenij...), art (Malevich, Kandinsky, Larionov, Naum Gabo ...), and music (Avraamov, Mossolov, Meytuss. Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Matiushin...) as weil as the ernerging technological means of communication at that time, such as the phonograph, radio and cinema (Khlebnikov, Vertov, Kasyanov...).
CONTENTS
CD 1: Reconstructions
The Symphony of Sirens. ln 1922 Arseni Avraamov composed and conducted a visionary public sound event, activating the entire port city of Baku: its factory sirens, the ships horns of the Caspian flotilla, two batteries of artillery, several full infantry regiments, trucks, seaplanes, 25 steam locomotives, an array of pitched whistles and several massive choirs. Constantly referenced but forever lost, this extraordinary event is here painstakingly reconstructed and spatialised to approximate the original experience, alongside a unique and invaluable collection of other known but lost sound events from the early C20 Russian avant gardes: works by Kasimir Malevich, Dziga Vertov, Nikolai Foregger & his Orchestra of Noises, Sergei Prokofiev, EI Lissitsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, lvan lgnatyev & The Ego Futurist Group, Mikhail Matiushin, Alexei Kruchenykh, Georgi Yakoulov, Konantin Melnikov, lgor Severyanin, Vasilisk Gnedov, Vladimir Kasyanov & The Futurist Circle, David Burliuk, Elena Guro, Olga Rozanova, H2S04 Group, Sirnon Chikovani, The Nothingists, Vasily Kandinsky, Danil Harms, lgor Terent'ev, Mikhail Larionov, The Psycho-futurists group, Vasily Kamensky, Varvara Siepanova and Roman Jakobson.
CD 2: Original recordings
Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony (1930) is possibly Dziga Vertov's most revolutionary achievement: a symphony of abstract industrial noise for which a specially designed giant mobile recording system was constructed (it weighed over a ton) in order to capture the din of mines, furnaces and factories since, for Vertov, the introduction of sound film didn't mean talkies, but the opportunity to collage, montage and splice Iogether constructions of pure environmental noise. ln addition, this CD collects Iogether for the first time a definitive library of original sound documents from the Russian Avantgarde: contemporary recordings of Alexander Mossolov, Julius Meytuss. Roman Jakobson, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lili Brik, David Burliuk, Sergei Esenin, Vasily Kamensky, Semen Kirsanov, V.l. Lenin, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Alexandra Kollontay, Leon Trotsky, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelshtam, llya Ehrenburg, Marina Tsvetaeva, Naum Gabe, Noton Pevsner and Dmitri Shostakovich.
BOOK
Miguel Molina Alarcòn's introductory essay - a comprehensive overview of the complexity and breadth of the many early C20 Russsian avantgarde movements, is followed by detailed notes and contexts for the individual recordings - including summary biographies of the main actors; additional work notes about the process of the extraordinary Baku reconstruction; a bibliography, rare photographs, artwork; facsimiles of contemporary documents; web research links and a camparalive timeline of European and Russian Avantgarde movements.
Content:
1. Igor Severyanin: Overture (1915), Interpret: Ernest Peshkov, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
2. Ivan Ignatyev & Ego-Futurists Group: The First Spring Concert of Universal Futurism (1912), Interpreten: Gema Hoyas Frontera, Miguel Molina, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
3. Mikhail Matiushin: Victory Over the Sun - Introduction (1913), Imterpreten: Miguel Molina, Leopoldo Amigo; Julia Dmitriukova, etc., Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
4. Mikhail Matiushin: Victory Over the Sun - Act 1: Bully's Song (1913), Imterpreten: Miguel Molina, Leopoldo Amigo; Julia Dmitriukova, etc., Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
5. Mikhail Matiushin: Victory Over the Sun - Act 2: Petite Bourgeoisie (1913), Imterpreten: Miguel Molina, Leopoldo Amigo; Julia Dmitriukova, etc., Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
6. Mikhail Matiushin: Victory Over the Sun - Other Excerpts (1913), Miguel Molina, Leopoldo Amigo; Julia Dmitriukova, etc., Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
7. Naum Gabo: The Realistic Manifesto, Interpreten: Naum Gabo & Noton Pevsner, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
8. Arseny Avraamov: Symphony of Sirens (1922), Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
9. Lenin: What Is Soviet Power, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
10. Konstantin Melnikov: Sonata of Sleep (1929-30), Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
11. Dziga Vertov: Radio-Ear / Radio-Pravda (1925), Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
12. Velimir Khlebnikov: The Radio of the Future (1921), Interpreten: Ernest Peshkov, etc., Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
13. Arseny Avraamov: The March of the Worker's Funeral (1923), Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
14. El Lissitzky: About Two Squares - A Suprematist Story (1920-22), Interpret: Ernest Peshkov, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
15. Dziga Vertov: Laboratory of Hearing: From the rumor of a sawmill (1916), Interpret: Miguel Molina, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
16. Dziga Vertov: Laboratory of Hearing: From the rumor of a cascade (1916), Interpret: Miguel Molina, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
17. Sergei Prokofiev: Factory (1925-27), Interpreten: Gennadi Rozhdestvensky: USSR Ministry Of Culture Symphony Orchestra, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
18. Leon Trotsky: 10th Anniversary Of The Left Opposition, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
19. Igor Severyanin: Echo (1914), Interpret: Ernest Peshkov, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
20. Dmitri Shostakovich: Radio Broadcast Of The Leningrad Symphony, Interpreten: Dmitry Yablonsky: Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2],
21. Vladimir Mayakovsky: Naval Romance, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
22. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 1, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2],
23. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 2, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
24. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 3, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
25. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 4, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
26. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 5, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
27. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 6, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
28. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 7, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
29. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 8, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
30. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 9, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
31. Dziga Vertov: Enthusiasm! 10, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
32. Sergei Esenin: Confessions Of A Hooligan, Interpretin: Lili Brik, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
33. Vasily Kandinsky: To See (1912), Ernest Peshkov, Baku: Symphony of Sirens [Disc 1]
34. Julius Meytuss: Dneiprostroi, Dneiper Hydro-Electric Power Station, Interpreten: Julius Erlich: Orchestre Symphonique de Paris, The Dombass Symphony, Baku: Symphony of Sirene [Disc 2]
35. "Futurismus", in: Futurism & Dada Reviewed 1912-1959, LTMCD 2301, England 2000
36. Luigi Grandi / Cavalli + Acciaio, Futurism & Dada Reviewed 1912-1959, LTMCD 2301, England 2000
Expansion of the Russian Avant-Gardes: from the Futurists and Constructivists to the Everythingists and Nothingists.
Russia very quickly echoed the first demonstrations of the international avant-garde. ln fact, when Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's futurist manifeste was published in the newspaper La Figaro (20.02.1909), it was reviewed two weeks later in a Russian newspaper. Marinetti was invited to Russia in January 1914, though he wasn't well received by some of his Russian futurist contemporaries. Before he arrived, Mikhail Larionov declared in a Moscow newspaper that "the Ieader of futurism should have rotten eggs thrown at him since he had betrayed the very principles he had himself proclaimed". Even his conferences were boycotted with pamphlets and interruptions by those who called themselves cubo-futurists, like Mayakovsky, Burliult and Khlebnikov. Marinetti was disappointed by the Russian futurists. He didn't find followers in them, rather he defined them as "pseudofuturists living in plusquamperfectum rather than in futurum", calling Khlebnikov a "poet from the Stone Age". The Russian futurists didn't identify with the onomatopoeic hymn to war as a means of destroying the past and its conventions. On the contrary, they wanted to eliminate the separation of past present and future, exploring their own Slavic roots as a meeting of the universal and the future, leading them to call themselves by the neologism budietlianstvo (which means something like "men of the future", "Siav future" or "the future will be Slav"). This was to give them their differentiating singularity and underpin their own contributions to the international panorama of the Avant-Garde.
Several events led to the birth of the Russian Avant-Garde. One was the publication in September 1908- a year before Marinetti's manifeste- of the prose work Iskusenie gresnikaby Velimir Khlebnikov, considered to be the first work with "futurist" elements published in Russia. Another occurred that same year, when the Russian press called the work by the artist and poet David Burliuk "the art of the future". He considered hirnself the "father of Russian futurism" and along with other artists and poets published an eccentric almanac, A Trap for Judges (1910), which for some meant the birth of Russian futurism, coinciding with the creation of the group Hylae (Gileja) that same year. But it was with the manifesto and almanac A slap in the Face of Public Taste (1912) that a program and specific actions befitting an avant-garde movement were clearly established.
It should also be mentioned that it was in 1911 that the term "futurism" was used for the first time, by the poet lgor Severyanin. Severyanin founded Egofuturlsm (1911) in St. Petersburg, a movement that exalted the "Ego" and "Intuition", using the new machinist imagery created by the Italian futurists, mixed with influences from Russian symbolism and French decadence. As an opposite response to Egofuturism, Cubo-futurlsm sprang up in Moscow, consisting of Mayakovsky, Burliuk, Kamensky, Khlebnikov and Krutschenij, among Olhers, who developed the avant-garde principles of futurism more deeply, affering more innovative and creative proposals. Other futurist groups were formed in parallel, such as the so-called Mezzanine of poetry (continuators of the ego-futurists in Moscow, 1913), Centrifuge (Boris Pasternak), Neofuturism (1913) or Psychofuturism (1914). The latter was a fictitious group invented by Saratov who wanted to parody all the other futurist groups. Even after the October Revolution, Russian futurism continued to change under the name of Komfut ("Communist-Futurists", 1919), a group with a programmatic declaration and statutes that aimed "to incite the masses to exercise their own artistic activity"; at other times it simply used the generic denomination of "futurists", which was the way of calling "artists on the left", that is, all the avant-garde artists and poets, beyond affiliation to a specific group. One example of this terminological confusion and of the revolutionary character that it gave to an avant-garde movement was shown when Lenin visited the VKhUTEMAS school in 1921 and publicly expressed his surprise that the students should declare themselves enthusiastically to be both "futurists" and "communists".
The various Russian futurist groups coexisted with other artistic and literary movements: Acmeism (Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelshtam), Imaginism (Sergei Esenin), Suprematism (Kasimir Malevich), Primitivism (1905-13), Reyonism (Mikhail Larionov), and other little known ephemeral groups such as Biocosmism (1921), Liuminism (1921-22), Electroorganism (1922), Form-Librism (1922), Emotsionalism (1923) ..., and even some parodic groups such as Eggism (1914) by Stepan Dimant, created temporarily as a joke when he tound himself displaced by not belonging to any other group. He even asked the editor of a Russian newspaper: "You write a Iot about Cubists, Circlists, Arcists, etc. Write about me too, l'm an Eggist... Long live Bubiami Long live Eggisml". As the expert John E. Bowit pointed out, we can find groups of extreme tendencies that go from Everythinglsm or "Vsechestvo" (1913), with Mikhail Le-Dantu, Goneherova and Larionov who defended the admittance of "all possible combinations and graftings of styles" whether from the past or the present; to the so-called Nothingists or •Nichevoki" (1920) who aimed to eliminate "the object" and the "word" in poetry in favour of "nothing", as the only response, with its slogans "Write nothingI Read nothingI Say nothingI Print nothingI" This group's attitude shows that there was a Russian Dada, see aJso the group H2SO4 (1923), and in some aspects their Georgian predecessor "41 Degrees Compeny" (1917). ln the same way, Surrealism was present in Russian through the group OBERIU (Daniil Harms), created in 1928 in Leningrad and this movement was considered the last to spring up in the Russian Avant-Garde, anticipating the European Iiterature of the absurd. […]
Bibl.:
Chris Cuttler (Ed.), "Baku: Symphony of Sirens. Sound Experiments in the russian Avant Garde (1908 - 1942). lnvestigations, texts and reconstructions by Miguel Molina Alarcòn, Laboratorio de Creaciones lntermedia, Dpt. of Sculpture-Faculty de Fine Arls of Valencia,Spain.", ReR Megacorp, London 2008. ISBN: 978-0-9560184-0-3
CD, "Futurism & Dada Reviewed 1912-1959", LTMCD 2301, England 2000
PS: A very special Thank to Kersten Glandien, London for this wonderful gift...
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