Music assignment #3 (2 page paper)

WRITING options on Mosolov (below) may include any historical/cultural aspects of the 

composer/music; describing the ideas, sounds, musical structure 

and rhythm delivery; include some performance comparisons, preferences, etc.

Industry, Machines’ action, reflected in aesthetic & process.

Alexander MOSOLOV, Russian Futurist composer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mosolov

     Alexander Mosolov composed music for the ballet STEEL (“Stal” in Russian), 

his Opus 19 work (1926-1927). Commissioned by the Bolshoi Theater, it also known as

“Machine Music”, “Factory”, “Iron Foundry” and “Zavod”.

This was one of the earliest examples of “the machine idea” in music and as “industrial” music.

It is also considered an example of Minimalist music with its looping pattern repetition.

Mosolov uses an orchestra to create a factory-like sounds.

He"assigns mechanistic rhythms to specific orchestral groups that work together like cogs

in a well-oiled machine, using repeated rhythmic patterns."

The plot of the ballet STEEL was typical of the era:

Act I. Factory (A strike.)

Act II, Scene 1. Prison (The leader of the strikers is arrested.)

Sc. 2. Masters of the Universe (Declaration of a lockout.)

Sc. 3. Ball for the Masters of the Universe (Ending with revolution and victory of the workers.)

Act III, Sc. 1. Stock Exchange.

Sc. 2. Seizure of the stock exchange by the proletariat, |

who transform it into a building of the working-class.

Mosolov’s music and attitude were interpreted as a threat by a fearful Russian government that 

did not favor art experimentation or new ideas. Mosolov was evicted from the Russian Composers'

Union in 1936 as a “traitor” and imprisoned in the Gulag prison forced-labor camps in 1937. 

The Gulag prison-camps are recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.

Over half of the prisoners were imprisoned without trial.|

    [Prominent scientists were also imprisoned in the Gulag system and forced to

develop new technologies and do research. One was Leon Theremin, a musician-scientist, 

who discovered wireless technology. His invention, the Theremin, was the first wireless 

electronic musical instrument and was the first to be mass-produced. Theremin brought his

instruments to the USA in 1928 where they have been preserved and played. Theremin also

built an electronic music studio at Moscow Conservatory. Later the Conservatory’s director

declared that, "Electricity is not good for music; electricity is to be used for electrocution", 

and had Theremin’s electronic music instruments removed from the Conservatory and destroyed.]

ABOUT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Theremin

FILM info.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin:_An_Electronic_Odyssey