The Battle of Stalingrad in Russian and Foreign Music

Abstract

While analyzing the artistic elaboration on the part of composers of the Stalingrad battle as a momentous episode of history, in this section the authors of the article turn to music outside of Russia. Special attention is paid by researchers to compositions which have not received scholarly comprehension in musicology. Little known biographical facts, information pertaining to the history of the creation and performance of musical compositions, as well as the aspects of their conception-related solutions and their features of style and genre are touched upon. Characterization is given to the orchestral works by representatives of the musical culture of the USA (Roy Harris, George Antheil), the United Kingdom (Christian Darnton), France (Aubert Lemeland), Israel (Marc Lavry), Bulgaria (Alexander Yossifov) and Czechia (Jaroslav Doubrava). Artistic evaluation is given to the works written in the genres of cantata, oratorio, and musical theater by the composers of Germany (Helmut Ritter), USA (Elias Tanenbaum), the United Kingdom (Elisabeth Maconchy), Brazil (Cláudio Santoro), Denmark (Kim Helweg) and Czechia (Václav Dobiáš). It is noted that composers from other countries distanced from the place of the conduct of hostilities territorially and chronologically are endowed with a certain amount of poster qualities in the musical Rossica. They operate with the musically manifested categories of Evil vs. Good and to a great degree have a tendency towards expressionist figurative accents. At the same time, the reflection of the subject matter of the Stalingrad battle is stipulated by a need for a publicistically sharp indication of the values and the perception of the tangency of personal fate with history.