Arseny Avraamov

Avraamov conducting Symphony of Sirens using two flaming torches, Moscow, c.1923.

In Moscow, 1923.

Arseny Avraamov [Арсений Авраамов], pseudonym of Arseny Mikhaylovich Krasnokutsky [Арсений Михайлович Краснокутский] (b. Novocherkassk/Rostov 1886 - Moscow 1944), aka Revarsavr (Revolutionary Arseny Avraamov), Ars, Arslan Ibragim-ogli Adamov, was a composer, music theorist, performance instigator and commissar for the arts in Narkompros (the People's Commissariat for Education) just after the Revolution, who also helped set up Proletkult - encouraging the development of a distinctly proletarian art and literature.

Life and work

Early 1910s

In 1912, whilst in the Cossack military division, he was arrested and imprisoned for propaganda. After escaping from prison he moved to Norway where he worked as a sailor on the cargo ship Malm Land. In 1913 he joined a traveling circus as a dzhigit-equestrian, acrobat and musician-clown. He was also on the editorial boards of the main Russian music magazines Muzyka, Muzykalny Sovremennik, Zavety, and Letopis.

Sound synthesis

In a series of articles from 1914 to 1916 he developed the theory of microtonal ultra-chromatic music and invented special instruments to perform it. Shortly after the October Revolution Avraamov proposed to the Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, a project to burn all pianos – symbols of the despised twelve-tone, octave-based well tempered scale, which he believed had adversely affected human hearing for several hundred years.

In his 1916 article "The Future Science of Music and the New Era in the History of Music", Avraamov predicted and explained different approaches to synthesizing sound, including some of today’s latest techniques of physical modeling. He outlined his point of view on the future of the Art of Music thus: "Knowing the way to record the most complex sound textures by means of a phonograph - after analysis of the curve structure of the sound groove directing the needle of the resonating membrane - one can create synthetically any, even the most fantastic sounds by forming a groove with the appropriate structure of shape and depth".

His later experiments with "drawn sound film" (or "synthetic sound") led, in the early 1930s, to the creation of the first synthesised sound recording on film.

1910s-20s

During the 1910s and 1920s he experimented with specially prepared pianos, harmoniums and various noise sources as well as a symphony orchestra to develop new approaches to organizing sound that are very similar to recent techniques of electroacoustic and spectral music. He directed an International Musical Exhibition (Frankfurt) on the new technological advances in music, together with Leon Theremin and other exceptional musicians and researchers. He also investigated the poetic structures of Imaginists Sergei Yesenin and Anatoly Marienhof (book Imazhinisty, 1921).

Symphony of Sirens (1919-23)

As part of his desire to remind the proletariat of their true role - their power to decide their own history - Avraamov conceived a monumental proletarian musical work for the creation of which he would use only sounds taken directly from factories and machines. To this end, he organised several monumental concerts, which he called Symphony of Sirens [Simfoniya gudkov, Гудковая симфония], inspired by the nocturnal spectacles of Petrograd (May 1918) and by the texts of Gastev and Mayakovsky. He eventually took these concerts to a number of Soviet cities celebrating the anniversaries of the October Revolution: Nizhny Novgorov (1919), Rostov (1921), Baku (1922) and finally Moscow (1923). The most impressive and elaborate of these concerts was held on 7 November 1922 in the harbour of Baku in Azerbaijan. For this, Avraamov worked with choirs thousands strong, foghorns from the entire Caspian flotilla, two artillery batteries, several full infantry regiments, hydroplanes, twenty-five steam locomotives and whistles and all the factory sirens in the city. He also invented a number of portable devices, which he called Steam Whistle Machines for this event, consisting of an ensemble of 20 to 25 sirens tuned to the notes of The Internationale. He conducted the symphony himself from a specially built tower, using signalling flags directed simultaneously toward the oil flotilla, the trains at the station, the shipyards, the transport vehicles and the workers' choirs . Avraamov did not want spectators, but intended the active participation of everybody in the development of the work through their exclamations and singing, all united with the same revolutionary will. Avraamov reflected on the potential of music, and the influence of the sounds that define our environment - their importance and the role they had to fulfil after the October Revolution - an aspect of his thinking which helps us to understand the ultimate meaning of the composition of the Symphony of Sirens:

"Music has, among all the arts, the highest power of social organisation. The most ancient myths prove that mankind is fully aware of that power (...) Collective work, from farming to the military, is inconceivable without songs and music. One may even think that the high degree of organisation in factory work under capitalism might have ended up creating a respectable form of music organisation. However, we had to arrive at the October Revolution to achieve the concept of the Symphony of Sirens. The Capitalist system gives rise to anarchic tendencies. Its fear of seeing workers marching in unity prevents its music being developed in freedom. Every morning, a chaotic industrial roar gags the people. (...) But then the revolution arrived. Suddenly, in the evening - an unforgettable evening - a Red Petersburg was filled with many thousands of sounds: sirens, whistles and alarms. In response, thousands of army lorries crossed the city loaded with soldiers firing their guns in the air. (... ) At that extraordinary moment, the happy chaos should have had the possibility of being redirected by a single power able to replace the songs of alarms with the victorious anthem of The Internationale. The Great October Revolution! - once again, sirens and work in the cannon whole of Russia without a single voice unifying their organisation".

In 1925, predicting the future of music technology Avraamov emphasized the importance of developing Radio-Musical Instruments. He noted: “And if the sound of sirens is not powerful and qualitative enough, what could we dream about? Clearly: about the devices of Theremin or Rzhevkin, installed on aeroplanes, flying above Moscow! An aero-radio-symphony! We will hear it anyway!”

Works

• Symphony of sirens [1] reconstruction by Sergey Hismatov

See also

• Symphony of Sirens
• Russia#Avant-garde

External links

• Avraamov at Wikipedia