How did the reception of Russian Avant-garde music (1917-1927) affect the subsequent generation of composers?
Shebalin was a professor at the Moscow conservatory for years, and supposedly met in secret with some of his students, triggering a new Soviet avant-garde movement in the 1950s-60s. (Schnittke, Denisov, Gubaidulina, Volkonsky, and others). I know that Denisov, at least, had a great deal of respect for Roslavets’ music. I think that generally, this later generation of Soviet composers struggled with their own identity as composers. They seem to have been as much (more??) interested in discovering the little-known (in the Soviet Union) works of Schoenberg and Webern. I’d recommend that you read Schmelz’s dissertation, if you can get a hold of it. I forget the title, but it’s great. He also has an article in the Journal of the American Musicological Society (vol. 58, no. 1) called “Andrey Volkonsky and the Beginnings of Unofficial Music in the Soviet Union.” It’s got the most important parts of the diss. And, of course, get ahold of Richard Taruskin’s book “Defining Russia Musically.” (Ta
