... A Little Bit of Futurism

Very interesting composer. His compositions for piano are quite excellent, especially sonatas no. 2 and no. 5. He is part of that handful of avant-garde composers active in the early years of the Soviet Union (along with him, Protopopov, Polovinkin, Lourié, Roslavets and others) who were first tolerated and then, little by little and in various ways, silenced. In fact, several works of these individuals have been lost. Lourié managed to escape to the West. Roslavets was assigned to a provincial band, Polovinkin carved out a possibility to live by dedicating himself to music for children, and Mosolov was sent "voluntarily" to Turkmenistan to catalog folk songs, only being allowed to return to Moscow when he had become a sort of alcoholic tramp. It is a repertoire that deserves more attention and some serious musicologist who dedicates themselves to difficult research.

Interesting, I admit that I like YouTube videos where the score is also present; they allow me a more attentive listening.

Xenakis wrote:

Lourié managed to escape to the West. Roslavets was assigned to a provincial band, Polovinkin carved out a way to make a living by dedicating himself to music for children, and Mosolov was sent "voluntarily" to Turkmenistan to catalog folk songs, only being allowed to return to Moscow when he had become a sort of alcoholic tramp.

... and then Allevi complains!

Xenakis wrote:

A very interesting composer. His compositions for piano are quite excellent, especially sonatas no. 2 and no. 5. He is part of that handful of avant-garde composers active in the early years of the Soviet Union (alongside him, Protopopov, Polovinkin, Lourié, Roslavets, and others) who were initially tolerated and then, little by little and in various ways, silenced. In fact, several works by these individuals have been lost. Lourié managed to escape to the West. Roslavets was assigned to a provincial band, Polovinkin carved out a way to live by dedicating himself to music for children, and Mosolov was "voluntarily" sent to Turkmenistan to catalog folk songs, only being allowed to return to Moscow when he had become a sort of alcoholic tramp. It is a repertoire that deserves more attention and some serious musicologists who dedicate themselves to difficult research.

I do not know any of those you mentioned, and it is certainly territory worth exploring. Probably none of them can be compared to the genius of Shostakovich, but for example, Mosolov, in his own small way, achieved original and very considerable results.

Dante wrote:

I don't know anyone of these that you named

Indeed, but how can one get in touch with these musicians?

An uncontainable and omnivorous musical curiosity is required, supported by the fact that some of these authors were "frequented" by great performers. For example, Mosolov's "Steel Foundry" was even performed by De Sabata and Chailly; Lourié has been at the center of Gidon Kremer's interests for years (one of his wonderful monographic albums for DG has unfortunately been out of print for a long time). All this has aroused in me a desire to delve deeper; an album by Hamelin dedicated to Roslavets is also beautiful and fortunately can now be found quite easily on the recording market. Roslavets is the author with the richest discography.

I suggest, for example, two wonderful anthologies on Russian avant-garde piano production curated by Steffen Schleiermacher. The first of the two, moreover, is currently available for just a few euros:

http://tinyurl.com/c5kh8zl

http://tinyurl.com/c45wupp

Also excellent is an Arte Nova five-CD box set dedicated to Russian futurism, which also features other authors (Gnesin, for example). Searching on various Amazons, single volumes can also be found at very low prices.

Two Brilliant albums dedicated respectively to Roslavets' chamber music and Lourié's choral music are also excellent:

http://tinyurl.com/bt5f66t

http://tinyurl.com/ca6z8fx