Silver Age vs Avant-garde in Music of the 1920s [СЕРЕБРЯНЫЙ ВЕК VS МУЗЫКАЛЬНЫЙ АВАНГАРД 1920-Х]

Abstract

The new-born world of Socialism in 1917 wanted to break with tradition and find complete freedom of expression for artistic personality. It sought to revolutionize the world and discover new horizons. In order to achieve these goals, the new Socialist state needed new music, literature and art created by faithful citizens. This formal renunciation of everything connected to the past laid foundations for the appearance of new tendencies and experiments in music, which in the words of one of the most unconventional composers of the Avant-garde, Nikolai Roslavets, ‘dreamt of new unheard worlds of sound’. Did composers really break with tradition or skilfully adjusted and modified their language according to the requirements of the new musical era? The ideas of spiritual and artistic unity, creativity in music as a method of cognition and as a synthesis of all mortal beauty and inventiveness in the world, traditionally associated with the Silver Age aesthetic, were also expressed by the Avant-garde composers. The aim of this chapter is to analyse how far and why these concepts found their continuation and modification in Soviet times. The under researched prose of Aleksei Losev on music is also going to be discussed. The analysis relies heavily on the unpublished and little researched archival materials.