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Boris Klyuzner

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki



Boris Lazarevich Klyuzner (Kliuzner, Kljuzner, Kluesner, Klüsner or Klusner) (June 2, 1909, Astrakhan — May 21, 1975, Komarovo summer-resort settlement near Leningrad — Soviet composer, student of Mikhail Gnessin and Dmitri Shostakovich, author of four symphonies, four concertos, chamber instrumental and vocal music and numerous film scores.

Biography

Boris Lazarevich Klyuzner was born on June 2, 1909 in Astrakhan in a Jewish family. His father, Lazarus (Lazer) Iosifovich Klyuzner (1872-1918) was a student of opera singing course at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory from 1894 to 1900 (class of Antonio Cotogni and Stanislav Gabel). He appeared in the opera-houses of Saint Petersburg, Minsk, Vitebsk and Tiflis under the stage name Lavrovsky. In 1904 he started teaching vocal art at the College of Music in Astrakhan. There in Astrachan he was killed in the revolutionary riots of 1918.

Klyuzner's mother, Lyubov Yakovlevna Klyuzner (née Gordel, 1877-1942?) was an artist, she worked at Imperial Porcelain Manufactory later the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. She died during the Siege of Leningrad. B. Klyuzner's elder brother was killed during the Civil war. The middle brother joined citizen militia in the first days of the Great Patriotic War (a part of WWII), where he soon met his death in a battle close to Leningrad.

After the family head's decease in 1918, the Klyuzners returned to Petrograd, which was the birthplace of the composer's mother. Here Boris Klyuzner graduated from an intermediate school and for two years (1925 – 1927) studied at the music school for adults n.a. Rimsky-Korsakov, where he took piano classes. He served in the army from 1931 to 1934. When he completed his military service, Boris studied for two years at a civil engineering institute to become an architect.

From 1936 to 1941 Klyuzner studied at the Leningrad Conservatory. His composition tutor was M. F. Gnessin. In his final year, Boris Klyuzner was tutored by Dmitri Shostakovich, with whom he later became friends. In 1937, being a 2nd-year student at the Conservatory, Klyuzner was accepted to the Union of Soviet Composers. From 1941 to 1945 he fought at war. When the war was over, Dmitri Shostakovich, Isaak Dunaevsky and Mikhail Gnessin put their signatures under the request by the Union of Soviet Composers demanding Klyuzner's dismissal from the military service.

Klyuzner taught composition at the College of Music affiliated to the Leningrad Conservatory, and served as a director for various amateur choral groups.

According to the memoirs of Vladimir Britanishsky, Klyuzner's friend, "after the War he was almost given Stalin Prize for his Trio, but then came the music decree (1948). As a result, instead of the award, Boris Klyuzner was removed from his post of Deputy Chairman for the Union of Soviet Composers’ Board (Leningrad branch) and destined to a long disgrace"[1]

From 1955 to 1961, Klyuzner was a member of the Union of Soviet Composers’ Board (Leningrad branch). In 1961 after a conflict with the bigwigs he left the Union of Soviet Composers. In 1965 with Dmitri Shostakovich's assistance Klyuzner moved to Moscow and was accepted into the Moscow Union of Composers, where he served as the head of Admissions Committee for several years. During these years he taught in a seminar for young composers, which was held by the Union of Soviet Composers in a Guest House for Composers in Ivanovo in the vicinity of Moscow.

Klyuzner died on May 21, 1975 in Komarovo near Leningrad.

He was buried at the cemetery in Komarovo.

Criticism

Sofia Gubaidulina: "... he was a composer of the highest class, the greatest courage and uncompromising attitude... "[2]

Boris Tishchenko: "... I am sure that real artistic work, the kind Boris Klyuzner’s is, this kind of work does not vanish like that. If it’s forgotten – be sure, people will come back to it! It's so modern. He was simply ahead of his time. I am sure that his artistic legacy has a very bright destiny... "[3]

Veniamin Basner: "... After we had become acquainted, he (Klyuzner) played his compositions for me. They were early pre-War ones, written in his student days, as well as his latest works, and I realized that I had met an outstanding composer, a composer of exceptional individuality, unlike anyone, a composer who was going his own way... "[4]

Lev Raaben: "... Klyuzner is a romantic by the nature of his talent. Impetuous and high-strung romance is a characteristic feature of his music’s structure. Klyuzner is attracted by themes that develop ecstatically; furiously revealing the vagaries of a great spiritual drama. His music is pathetique, severe, reaching the limit of dramatic tension…

...[in it] much of the style resembles Bach and Handel. Klyuzner extensively exploits pre‑classical art, but from the perspective of a romantic, not a classicist. Normativity of classicistic thinking is alien to him, and Bach-Handel techniques serve as a means of expressive self-actualization with the possibilities of pathetique improvisational recitation they provide – all this is obviously close to him. That is why his style – with a certain reason – can be referred to as the style of modern "Romantic Neoclassicism..."[5]

Sergei Slonimsky: "... Like his teacher Mikhail Gnessin, Boris Klyuzner absorbed and in a peculiar way interpreted – especially in the acutely expressive melodies and nervous rhythm – some properties of the Jewish national culture. This manifested itself in a different way than, for example, in the melodies of V. Fleishman or M. Weinberg, which bear connection with specific strata of Polish-Jewish folklore. At the same time music of all these brilliant composers is firmly based on the traditions of Russian symphonism and European classics. Klyuzner, in particular, is close to the late romantics – Brahms, Mahler. At the same time, his music has a lot of non-"Вrahmsian" or "Mahlerian": non-tertia harmonies, polymodal layers and shifts, up-to-date sharp sounds, consonance-accents, curious discoveries in the sphere of melos and color, timbre or tone quality, morphogenetic means... "[6]

Genrikh Orlov: «... Klyuzner's first works mark him out as a lyrical composer, but he veered towards the expression of psychologically-heightened, emotional contrasts. Accordingly, his interests were centered on vocal, chamber and concertante music with a pathos, declamatory style and a spontaneity of development that shows traces of a Mahlerian influence. In time this influence was also felt in the shift towards large-scale dramatically sophisticated works for voice and orchestra; such works preoccupied him right up to the composition of his Fourth Symphony (1972), which displays features of oratorio style. This tendency, moving away from a chamber style towards orchestral writing, is apparent in his adaptation of the Cello Sonata No.2 (1945) into the Double Violin Concerto (1969); also from two song cycles – the Bagritsky poems (1935–6) and the English songs (1952–3) – which re-emerged as the four-part poem Vremena goda (‘The Seasons’, 1968). The most important of Klyuzner's works, beginning with the Violin Concerto (1950), have a prevailing gravity of tone that is achieved through the expressive use of a variety of means. He has a predilection for clear polyphony, though there is no direct imitation of established forms or earlier music; his polyphonic style is often melodically fluid and economical, as well as restrained and profound in expression. These features are particularly characteristic of his works for solo instruments, such as the Violin Concerto and the Violin Sonata (1962), while polyphony predominates in the more concentrated, meditative episodes of other pieces. Rapid and assertive movements are often linked with a stark, discordant Hindemithian counterpoint, as in the Piano Sonata No.2 (1966). In the climactic passages of his orchestral works the polyphony at times gives rise to strong ideas accentuated by evolving percussion parts; in the Third Symphony (1966) this was achieved by an additional group of electronic instruments. Alongside this, in works where vocal music plays an important role, there are broad melodies with a distinctive Russian character and a clear and expressive poetic metre. Although Klyuzner's music is tonal in the main, he has used 12-tone ideas, generally as thematic material, and also layers of free structure... » [7]  

B. Klyuzner's music was performed by such conductors as Yevgeny Mravinsky, Igor Myklashevsky, Kurt Sanderling, and Arvids Jansons.

Many outstanding performers turned to his works – Moisey Khalfin, Mikhail Vayman, Boris Gutnikov, Tatyana Nikolayeva, Gidon Kremer.

Alexander Wustin and Sergei Slonimsky dedicated his works to Boris Klyuzner: Alexander Wustin "In memory of Boris Klyuzner" for baritone, violin, viola, cello and double bass, 1977, Sergei Slonimsky Piano trio "In Memory of Boris Klyuzner", 2000.

Selected works

Symphonies

Symphony. no.1;

Symphony. no.2, dedicated to Yevgeny Mravinsky;

Symphony. no.3 (G. Yosuyosi, trans. V. Sikorsky), female chorus, children's chorus, orchestra, electronic instruments;

Symphony. no.4 (Bagritsky, N. Zabolotsky, V. Mayakovsky), basso, chorus, orchestra.

Concertos

Piano Concerto;

Violin Concerto;

Double Violin Concerto (orchestra version of Sonata No.2 for cello and piano);

Concertino for clarinet and orchestra.

Orchestral Music

3 Overtures

Vocal-Orchestral Music

Vremena goda [The Seasons] (E. Bagritsky, P.B. Shelley), soprano, baritone, orchestra, (orchestral version of vocal cycles);

Poėma o Lenine [A Poem About Lenin] (S. Davïdov), bariton, chorus, orchestra;

Monolog “Razgovor s tovarischem Leninym” [Monologue “A Conversation with Comrade Lenin”] text by Vladimir Mayakovsky, voice, orchestra.

Сhamber Instrumental Music

Clarinet Quintet;

4 Preludes for piano;

Cello Sonata no.1;

Cello Sonata no.2;

Piano Trio;

Arietta for Violin and Piano;

Violin Sonata;

Piano Sonata no.1;

Piano Sonata no.2.

Chamber Vocal Music

Two Poems, words by Eduard Bagritsky;

Six romances on verses by Alexander Pushkin: / “Ne day mne Bog soyti s uma” [«Let me not lose my senses, God» tr. by John Pollen, 1891], “Moy mily drug” [«My sweet friend»];

“Primety” [«Signs»], “Osen” [«Autumn»], “Telega zhizny”[“The Cart of Life”], “Zhelaniye” [«Desire»];  

Three romances on verses by N. Brown;

Romances on verses by R. Burns, W. Wordsworth, D. Kits, P. Shelly, E. Verhaeren

Filmography

1958 — The Witch

1960 — Going Home

1965 — Accident[8]

1969 — Five From the Sky[9]

1969 — Stories about Nikolai Cherkasov [9]

1969 — Close Friend [9]

Writings

  • ‘Vïstupleniye na II-om vserossiyskom s'yezde sovetskikh kompozitorov’ [Speech at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviet Composers], Sovetskaya kul'tura (3 April 1957)
  • ‘O Gnesine’ [On Gnessin], SovM (1968), no.6, pp.91–4.

References

  • R.Bunin and N.Peyko ‘O simfonii Klyuznera’ [On Klyuzner's symphony], SovM (1957), no.7, pp.30–34
  • V.Solov'yov-Sedoy ‘Molodïye golosa’ [Young Voices], Izvestiya (22 Feb 1958)
  • O.Tompakova ‘Poema o Lenine’ [A Poem About Lenin], SovM (1958), no.4, pp.39–40
  • G.Orlov B. Klyuzner: 'Kontsert dlya skripki s orkestrom' [Klyuzner's violin concerto] (Leningrad, 1959)
  • L.Rappoport B. Klyuzner: 'Simfoniya' [B. Klyuzner: Symphony] (Leningrad, 1960)
  • G.Orlov 'Russkiy sovetskiy simfonizm' [Russian Soviet Symphonism] (Moscow and Leningrad, 1966)
  • G.Shantïr ‘Vtoraya simfoniya Borisa Klyuznera’ [The second symphony of Boris Klyuzner],
  • Muzïkal'naya zhizn' [Musical Life] (1967), no.16, p.4 only Obituary, SovM (1975), no.9, p.160 only
  • M.Aranovsky 'Simfonicheskiye iskaniya, ocherk chetvertiy: simfoniya, slovo i vokalnye zhanry' [Symphonical search, essay four: symphony, lyrics and vocal genres] pp.215-217
  • R.Slonimskaja 'Poetika vokal'noj liriki Borisa Kljuznera' [Vocal lyrics poetics of Boris Klyuzner], in: dies. (Hrsg.), Muzyka XX veka v kontekste kul'tury [XX Century Music in Cultural Context], SPb. 1995, pp.83-93
  • Boris Klyuzner. In: Don Michael Randel (Hrsg.): The Harvard biographical dictionary of music.Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1996, p.453.
  • M.Aranovsky 'Musika, myshlenie, zhizn. Statyi, intervyu, vosponimamiya' [Music, Tought, Life. Esssays, Interviews, Memoires], GII 2012, p.402
  • Jascha Nemtsov 'Kljuzner Boris Lazarevič' [Boris Lazarevich Klyusner] (https://www.mgg-online.com/article?id=mgg0730 5) In: MGG Online (Abonnement erforderlich).
  • Boris Yoffe: 'Im Fluss des Symphonischen. Wolke, Hofheim' 2014, ISBN 978-3-95593-059-2.
  • Eintrag in Historia de la sinfonia [In the Symphonic Flow. An Entry in A Historia de la sinfonia] (http://www.historiadelasinfonia.es/naciones/la-sinfonia-en-rus ia/otros-compositores/klyuzner/) von Francesc Serracanta, Barcelona 2017

Notes

  1. ↑ V. Britanishsky. Autobiography (http://britanishsky.com/biografiya).
  2. ↑ E. Chegurova. Transcription of the speech given at the concert in memory of B. Klyuzner, December 9, 2019.
  3. ↑ B. Tishchenko. Transcription of an interview from the TV program "The Fifth Wheel", 1989 (http://www.kliuzner.ru/kliuzner.files/Page1807.htm).
  4. ↑ V. Basner. Transcription of an interview from the TV program "The Fifth Wheel, 1989 (http://www.kliuzner.ru/kliuzner.files/Page762.htm)
  5. ↑ L.Raaben: Sowjetskij instrumentalnij konzert. [Soviet Instrumental Consert] In: Musika. Leningrad 1967, S. 154 f.
  6. ↑ S. Slonimsky. To Give People the Best (http://www.kliuzner.ru/kliuzner.files/docs/Slonimsky%20article.pdf)
  7. ↑ G.Orlov: Klyuzner, Boris Lazaryevich. (https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.15174) In: Grove Music Online
  8. ↑ The First Channel. The official site is temporarily unavailable (http://www.1tv.ru/owa/win/ort5_kino.kino?p_kino_title_id=788) Archived copy (https://web.archive.org/web/20051122004803/http://www.1tv.ru/owa/win/ort5_kino.kino?p_kino_title_id=788) from November 22, 2005 on Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Lenfilm film studio (http://www.lenfilm.ru/catalogue/cat_1969.htm) (unavailable link) .Accessed 12 December 2008. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20110624111114/http://lenfilm.ru/catalogue/cat_1969.htm) June 24, 2011

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