Viktor Markovich Gorodinsky ( February 10 [23], 1902 , Petersburg - May 9, 1959 , Moscow ) is a Soviet musicologist , critic, and musical public figure. Also, Gorodinsky was the author of articles on culture , painting , theater [1] .
| Victor Gorodinsky | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Victor Markovich Gorodinsky |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | |
| Date of death | |
| A place of death | |
| Buried | |
| A country |  Russia  the USSR |
| Professions | musicologist, critic, publicist, musician |
| Years of activity | 1929-1959 |
| Instruments | piano |
Content
- 1 Biography
- 2 Evaluations of literary activity
- 3 Bibliography
- 4 notes
- 5 Sources
Biography
In 1918 he joined the Communist Party . After graduating in 1929 from the Leningrad Conservatory in piano , he began to collaborate with Leningrad and Moscow newspapers and magazines. He worked in the Moscow Regional Committee of the Union of Art Workers. Since 1932, he was the chairman of the secretariat of the International Music Bureau, created in November, which also included L. V. Kulakovsky, author of articles on the theory and aesthetics of music, known as a researcher of problems of musical folklore . In the second half of the 1930s, Gorodinsky worked in the editorial offices of the newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda and Soviet Art . After the war, for several years he was the chief editor of the publishing house " Muzgiz " [1] [2] .
In 1950, Gorodinsky’s book, Music of Spiritual Poverty, was published, the purpose of which, according to the newspaper Sovetskaya Muzyka, was to "expose the insanity" of modern Western music. “Music of spiritual poverty” became, according to the newspaper, the first Soviet book devoted to such exposure [3] . In 1963, conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky , in turn, criticized this publication of Gorodinsky, believing that it “is replete with ignorant statements presented to the reader in a rude and vulgar form” [4] .
He was buried at the Don cemetery .
Evaluations of literary activity
In personal conversations, the journalist Zaslavsky put Gorodinsky in the first place as a critic, and after his death he spoke in a private letter about him as follows: “This is one of those whom I simply envied. In my declining years, I realized that the path that I had to go from the very beginning is the path of a musicologist and publicist. He combined knowledge of music with political passion ” [5] .
The musical encyclopedia in 1974 noted that Gorodinsky’s activity as a critic and publicist played a large role in the development of Soviet musical art [1] .
Evaluation of publications by Victor Gorodinsky on Western music is more critical among jazz musicians. Moscow pianist Mikhail Kull (b. 1935) speaks of Gorodinsky in his book “This is My Jazz” as one of the musical ideologists of the “ saxophone extension” era. In his opinion, this critic, although he had an idea of modern musical directions, did not really know anything about jazz. In support of his opinion, Kull cites in his book some quotes from Gorodinsky from the Music of Spiritual Poverty, for example: “What jazz is, we don’t know, but what good jazz is, we know very well. And even better we know what bad jazz is ” [6] . The Moscow saxophonist Alexei Kozlov in his book “Jazz, Rock and Copper Pipes” cites an extensive excerpt from The Music of Spiritual Poverty, with the comment: “It was against this background that we, young Soviet jazzmen, had to fight against bureaucrats . And everything was simple for them - since it was written in the official press - this means the law ” [7] . The musicologist Vladimir Feyertag in his work “Jazz from Leningrad to St. Petersburg” called Gorodinsky’s book “a manifesto of ultra-patriotic conservatism” [8] .
Bibliography
- To the question of socialist realism in music // Soviet music . 1933. No. 1. S. 9.
- USSR Musical Front, Sat: 1st International Musical Conference ... (November, 1932). Reports. Performances. Resolutions, M., 1933;
- Opera and ballet, in collection: Soviet Theater. To the thirtieth anniversary of the Soviet state, M., 1947, p. 443-550;
- 30 years of musical theater, M., 1948;
- Youth of Soviet music, in collection: Young musicians, M. - L., 1949, p. 3-58;
- Music of Spiritual Poverty, M., L.: Muzgiz, 1950;
- Selected Articles, M., 1963.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 Yampolsky, 1974 .
- ↑ Union of Moscow Composers .
- ↑ Soviet music, 1950 .
- ↑ Christmas, 1963 .
- ↑ Efimov, 2013 .
- ↑ Cull, 2017 .
- ↑ Kozlov, 2005 .
- ↑ Feuertag, 1999 .
Sources
- Efimov, E. Prokofiev and Shostakovich between Diez and Bekar : Correspondence of D. I. Zaslavsky and M. M. Grinberg // Our Heritage. - 2013. - No. 105.
- Kozlov, A. Trombones barked, saxophones howled ... (from the history of prohibitions) // Jazz, rock and copper pipes. - M .: Eksmo, 2005 .-- 768 p. - ISBN 5-699-13895-1 .
- Kull, M. This is my jazz : Journal and newspaper publications of different years. - LitRes, 2017 .-- 350 p. - ISBN 978-965-7288-34-4 -1.
- [Music of spiritual poverty ] // Soviet music. - Muzgiz, 1950. - No. 7-12. - S. 104.
- Rozhdestvensky, G. The Unknown World // Music and the Present / compiled by T. A. Lebedev. - M .: Muzgiz, 1963. - Issue. 2. - S. 156-165. - 240 p.
- Creative section of musicology and musical criticism // Union of Moscow Composers . - Date of appeal: 10.2018.
- Feuertag, V. Jazz from Leningrad to St. Petersburg . - KultInformPress, 1999 .-- S. 66. - 346 p.
- Yampolsky, I. M. Gorodinsky V. M. // Musical Encyclopedia: in 6 volumes / Ch. ed. Yu. V. Keldysh. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia: Soviet Composer, 1974. - T. 2: Gondoliera - Korsov. - 960 s. - (Encyclopedias. Dictionaries. Directories).