Rashid Fagimovich, how did the development of professional composition art begin in the Volga region?
Rashid Kalimullin: We must make our first bow of gratitude to Salikh Saidashev, who became the first professional Tatar composer. We make a second bow to the composer Nazib Zhiganov, who created the music education system. It was not easy to instill European academic music in a place where the musical roots are completely opposite to the phenomena that raised this culture in Europe.
Kazan and its surroundings lived in a cultural inertia marked by Islam, where music, of predominantly oriental origin, was not well received as such and was an entertainment attribute for the nobility. Thanks to the efforts of Peter the Great, European music began to penetrate Russia, brought by well-paid tutors and guest performers.
With the beginning of the Christian mission, choral music of Orthodox rites filtered into the Kazan province. In the houses of the nobility, romances and works by European and Russian composers began to be heard. Two world wars contribute to cultural influences. Soldiers return from distant fronts, bringing with them new songs, new intonations.
And from what moment does the musical history of Kazan begin to take shape in the form of theaters and educational institutions?
Rashid Kalimullin: In 1791 an opera was opened in Kazan. Little by little, private music schools are appearing. In 1804, the Kazan University was opened, and in 1904 a music school was opened, where graduates of the St. Petersburg Conservatory taught. In 1906, the Tatar Theater was opened, where Salikh Saidashev, the author of the first musical dramas, has worked as a musical director and conductor since 1922.
After the revolution, Nazib Zhiganov, who was responsible for creating the Composers’ Union, had to start a lot. I had to work in not the most favorable environment. Zhiganov founded a conservatory, a special music school for gifted children, a composers’ union and a symphony orchestra, and also revived opera.
Let’s try to summarize the results of the first years of the Union’s work.
Rashid Kalimullin: In the “Brief summary of the activities of the Union of Soviet Composers of Tatarstan (1940-1947)” it is noted that in the first seven years of its existence alone, ten operas, four ballets, three musical comedies, three Se They created symphonies, two string quartets, several cantatas and suites, two concertos and more than 150 songs. Nazib Zhiganov’s opera “Ildar”, performed in Kazan in 1942, was the first Soviet opera on the theme of the Great Patriotic War.
The Composers Union was a temple of the elite, where creative ideas were discussed and calls were made to write even more and better music for the masses. Tatar professional music began to be filled with operas, ballets, symphonies and oratorios that glorified the system and its leaders. At the plenary sessions of the Composers Union, the music of Nazib Zhiganov, Alexander Klyucharev, Fasil Akhmetov, Anatoly Luppov, Boris Trubin, Alexander Mirgorodsky, Rafael Belyalov, Anvar Sharafeev, Lawrence Blinov, Leonid Lyubovsky, Luiza Khairutdinova, Shamil Sharifullin was heard.
Rashid Kalimullin’s plays are performed on the best stages of Russia. Photo: Media production/Yan Fadeev
Are colleagues needed for such a wide range of jobs?
Rashid Kalimullin: On February 11, 1939, the Union of Composers of the TASSR was organized, which became the third in the RSFSR after Moscow and Leningrad. The first composition of the Union included composers: Nazib Zhiganov, Alexander Klyucharyov, Mansur Muzafarov, Salikh Saidashev, Dzhaudat Fayzi, Zagid Khabibullin, Farid Yarullin, Vasily Vinogradov and Yuri Vinogradov, as well as musicologist Halima Teregulova. These were highly professional composers who were educated at the Moscow Conservatory and the Gnessin Institute.
International recognition of the community of Tatarstan composers, as far as I know, came with their works.
Rashid Kalimullin: In 1987, my composition, then still a young composer, a graduate student of Professor Anatoly Luppov of the Kazan State Conservatory, received the first prize at the prestigious Dresden composition competition. Immediately afterwards I received first prize in a competition in Vienna. Then it was perceived as a miracle, there were few competitions and no one, except graduates from the capital, received the attention of the international jury.
Perhaps this influenced the decision of composers Almaz Monasypov, Mirsaid Yarullin and Boris Trubin to offer me in 1989 to head the Union of Composers of Tatarstan. Before me, for 12 years it was led by the composer Mirsaid Yarullin, who did a lot to develop composition skills in the regions and raised the level of composition in the Volga region. His Volga and Ural Composers Music Festival attracted composers from all over the Soviet Union.
We created the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Europe – Asia” in 1993. For the first time in the post-Soviet space, a festival was created in which modern music from all over the world was performed in its entirety, performed by the best musicians. This festival to this day is a platform for improving the compositional skills of composers from Russia and abroad. The 15th festival was held in 2022. It was held in Kazan, Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Vietnam.
In 1999, the Union of Composers of the Republic of Tatarstan became a member of the International Association of Contemporary Music (ISCM), based in Amsterdam. In 2015, the Union of Composers of the Republic of Tatarstan was admitted to the Asian Composers League (ACL), based in Tokyo. The level of Tatarstan composers has risen to international stages. Today the works of many of our young composers are performed all over the world.
And have you set yourself the goal of making Tatar music part of world professional music?
Rashid Kalimullin: The Union actively promotes our musicians and composers. The music of Tatarstan composers has been heard in the best concert halls in London, Berlin, Stockholm, Rome, the Vatican, in most European countries, in Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.
How do you assess the Union’s activities in recent years?
Rashid Kalimullin: The recent history of the Union of Composers is marked by the vibrant activities of dozens of young composers. Now many of them are successfully working in theatrical genres, writing musicals, ballets and operas. Rezeda Akhiyarova, Liliya Tagirova, Milyausha Khairullina, Radik Salimov, Elmir Nizamov are worth mentioning.
La Unión is dedicated to publishing activities, we popularize and preserve our music for future generations. Composers actively cooperate with all creative musical groups and organizations of the republic.
Our team today is not made up only of composers, they are multi-instrumentalist musicians, performers prepared for the challenges of the time. Each one has its own face, its own handwriting. The activities of our Union have become a tuning fork for Tatar musicians and cultural figures in general.
