Stravinsky's success with the Ballet Russes uprooted him from St Petersburg. He first took his family to France, then spent most of the war in Switzerland, but it was the Russian Revolution of October 1917 that finally extinguished any hope he may have had of returning to his native land. (Having returned to France in 1920, he took French citizenship in 1934; in 1940 he settled in California, and in 1945 he became a US citizen.)
Immediately after the First World War he continued to explore Russian folk idioms, notably in The Wedding, a ballet cantata based on the texts of Russian village wedding songs, and the "farmyard burlesque" Renard (1916); but his voluntary exile from Russia gradually prompted him to reconsider his aesthetic stance. The result was an important change in his music: he abandoned the Russian features of his early style and instead adopted a neoclassical idiom. His works of the next 30 years usually take some point of reference in past European music - a particular composer's work or the baroque or some other historical style - as a starting point for a highly personal and unorthodox treatment that nevertheless seems to depend for its full effect on the listener's experience of the historical model from which Stravinsky borrowed.
Having lost his property in Russia during the revolution, Stravinsky was compelled to earn his living as a performer, and many of the works he composed during the 1920s and 1930s were written for his own use as a concert pianist and conductor. His instrumental works of the early 1920s include the Octet for Wind Instruments (1923), Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1924), Piano Sonata (1924), and the Serenade in A for piano (1925). These pieces combine a neoclassical approach to style with what seems a self- conscious severity of line and texture. Though the dry urbanity of this approach is softened in such later instrumental pieces as the Violin Concerto in D Major (1931), Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (1932-5), and the Concerto in E-flat (or Dumbarton Oaks concerto) for 16 wind instruments (1938), a certain cool detachment persists. Once Stravinsky left Russia and gained international recognition, he became a musical chameleon, indulging in the pluralism of styles so fashionable in the twentieth century outside Russia. It is not possible to decide how far Stravinsky led and created a number of musical fashions or how far he shrewdly anticipated fashions already in the making. But, again like several other Russian emigres, once having left Russia he seems to have largely lost his Russianness, This trait was reflected, but with even greater originality, in the latter half of the twentieth century by Alfred Schnittke (see below).
But, especially after his religious conversion in 1926, the mystical strain in Russian art can again be seen in Stravinsky's work. A religious theme can be detected in such major works as the operatic oratorio Oedipus Rex (1927), which uses a libretto in Latin, and the cantata Symphony of Psalms (1930), an overtly sacred work that is based on biblical texts. Religious feeling is also evident in the ballets Apollon musagиte (1928) and Persephone (1934), and the Russian element in Stravinsky's music occasionally re-emerged during this period: the ballet The Fairy's Kiss (1928) is based on music by Tchaikovsky, and the Symphony of Psalms has some of the antique austerity of Russian Orthodox chant, despite its Latin text.
The Mid-Twentieth Century: Tradition, Innovation, and Politics
The traditional aspect of Russian music was consciously fostered and promoted by the Soviet regime, beginning from the political clampdown on culture in the late 1920s and coming to a head during the following decade in Joseph Stalin's insistence on so-called socialist realism in musical style and content — that music should be understandable by and appeal directly to the so-called masses, that it should be upbeat and cheering in its effect, and that it should celebrate the wonders of modern Russia, This meant in practice that composers were afraid, except in closet composition, to pursue the new avenues opened up elsewhere in Europe and America, or to allow themselves to be part of the revolution in established musical methodology; but, at the same time, it made them pursue and use existing traditional elements, elements already in their blood.
The effects of political control were both good and bad. The demise of the aristocracy presented the socialist regime with the challenge of creating a new audience. This the politicians turned to their favour, and the development of orchestras, conservatories, local schools of music, ballet companies, and other aspects of the performing arts - as in sport - offered an outlet for and an encouragement of the creative spirit and energies that might otherwise have sought other outlets; they created a sense of pride, and at the same time offered a sort of bread and circuses syndrome, an alternative world for the governed to enter into as an escape from their surrounding realities.
Once the socialist state had been structured and established, it is significant that, unlike so many western governments, the country's leaders realized the importance of the arts as a method of channelling the creativity of the governed classes, of creating social cohesion, and as a tool of cultural imperialism. One positive feature of state control was that performers were encouraged to follow the strictest disciplinary regimes and were offered the highest quality of technical teaching in the conservatories. Once established, the best artists could be assured of a high level of material security provided by the state. Among the great twentieth-century performers to emerge from this training were David Oistrakh, the world-renowned Soviet violin virtuoso acclaimed for his exceptional technique and tone production; Mstislav Rostro- povich, conductor, pianist, and one of the greatest cellists of tlie twentieth century; Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-born American virtuoso pianist in the Romantic tradition, celebrated for his flawless technique and an almost orchestral quality of tone; violinist Gidon Kremer; pianists Svyatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels; and singer Galina Vishnevskaya.
On the other hand, the individuality of artistic creation was sapped by the developing political agenda. Composers in particular were not free to express themselves or their response to life around them, and in the earlier part of the century, not a few emigrated, while there was still a chance to get out. Even later, some performers made a break to the West, both in search of wider opportunities and acknowledging their responsibility as iconic figures to protest against the political regime. Among these was Rostropovich - who announced his decision not to return to Russia from a tour overseas in 1975 and was deprived of citizenship in 1978, a ruling reversed in 1990 — and Dmitry Shostakovich's son, Maxim. From the mid- 1980s, wrhen Mikhail Gorbachev's reform policies eased restrictions on Soviet artists, many of Russia's emigres, such as Rostropovich and Horowitz, made triumphant returns.
Sergey Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Aram Khachaturian each reacted in differing ways to socialist strictures, but all three composers chose to remain in the Soviet Union.
The life and work of Prokofiev (1891-1953) nicely illustrate some of the themes already touched on - the stimulus and freedom of exile abroad combined with an almost mystical longing for the home country; the balance of traditional Russian and cosmopolitan musical elements; and an intimate relationship with the politics of his day.