St Petersburg полностью

Liadov’s phlegmatic nature was legendary. Yet many considered him an inspiring teacher. Malko, who studied harmony with him at the conservatory, maintained, “Liadov’s critical comments were always precise, clear, understandable, constructive, and brief…. And it was done indolently, without haste, sometimes seemingly disdainfully. He could suddenly stop in midword, take out a small scissors from his pocket and start doing something with his fingernail, while we all waited.”27

Liadov was the first to point out Glazunov’s gifts to Belyaev. Pleased first with Glazunov’s work, the millionaire then decided to take an entire group of national composers under his patronage. He created a large, noncommercial music publishing house unprecedented in Russia and in the world and an organization he called Russian Symphonic Concerts, all to promote the new works of those Russian musicians dear to his heart. Both the publishing house and the concerts were set up on a large scale; Belyaev spent tens of thousands of rubles on them annually.

He also held “Fridays” for musicians in his spacious Petersburg apartment. They performed quartets (Belyaev played the viola) and then repaired to a luxurious dinner with copious amounts of alcohol. These Fridays eventually grew, as a continuation of the Petersburg musical tradition, into the Belyaev Circle.

The Belyaev Circle succeeded the Mighty Five as the dominant musical force in Petersburg. Rimsky-Korsakov became head of the Belyaev Circle, and he defined their difference from the Mighty Five as follows:

The Balakirev circle corresponded to the period of Sturm und Drang in the development of Russian music, the Belyaev circle to the period of calm forward movement; the Balakirev was revolutionary, the Belyaev progressive. The Balakirev circle was exclusive and intolerant, the Belyaev was more indulgent and eclectic.28

But in fact it requires a stretch of the imagination to call the Belyaev Circle “progressive”; it was more accurate to call it “moderately academic.” Several significant musicians (Liadov and Glazunov, for instance) belonged to it, but the majority were merely erudite composers whose works were derivative. They turned technical accomplishment into an end in itself. The desire for technical perfection had always characterized the Petersburg academy, and the productions of the Belyaev Circle composers demonstrated the dead end to which this road could lead. The Belyaev group regarded with suspicion everything that violated the canons it established.

“Rimsky-Korsakov followed his age, and each new work was yet another concession of genius to his times and to modernity,”29 Asafyev wrote in his Book About Stravinsky. It could be said that Rimsky-Korsakov was urged forward by his great talent. One of his favorite expressions was, “Well, if we’re going, we’re going, said the parrot when the cat pulled it out of the cage.” After Rimsky-Korsakov’s death the movement of the Belyaev Circle came to a halt. Petersburg academism triumphed and there could be no talk now of tolerance for the ever-more impatient Russian musical avant-garde.

Prokofiev, who had shown Liadov his school works, recalled that even the most innocent innovations drove the latter crazy. “Shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking in his soft woolen shoes without heels, he would say, ‘I don’t understand why you are studying with me. Go to Richard Strauss, go to Debussy.’ This was said in a tone that meant ‘Go to the devil!’”30 Yet Liadov told his acquaintances about Prokofiev. “I am obliged to teach him. He must form his technique, his style—first in piano music.”31

In 1916 Glazunov left the concert hall during the premiere of Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite and, as the newspapers reported with relish, “did not spare words” in evaluating the new work. Ten years later, Glazunov wrote to a pianist friend, “I never considered Stravinsky a good musician. I have proof that his ear was never developed, as his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov had told me.”32 Glazunov was so hostile toward Stravinsky that he did not even return his greeting when he bumped into him in Paris in 1935, the year before Glazunov’s death. At the time, both composers were émigrés and their political positions (which was very important in those days) basically coincided. But the aesthetic gap turned out to be too great for Glazunov to bridge. Stravinsky repaid Glazunov by belittling his music at every opportunity, turning him into the personification of the Petersburg academism he so hated.

In 1905 Glazunov, with Rimsky-Korsakov’s active support, was appointed director of the Petersburg Conservatory. He remained at that post for over twenty years, becoming a legend. Heavyset, lost in thought, Glazunov moved quietly along the conservatory halls, cigar in hand, leaving a scent in the air. Students would sniff and say, “The director was just here.”