Triodin, Piotr Nikolaevich (1887-1950) - Russian composer

[Christopher]

I was doing some research in to a little-known Russian composer called Piotr Nikolaevich Triodin (Триодин, Петр Николаевич) - 1887-1950.

In the course of my research I came to the website of the Smolensk local TV news channel (http://www.rentv-smolensk.ru/item_video.php?id=1280&comm_add=1). Smolensk is a large city in western Russia. This website in September 2012 announced that the Smolensk Philharmonic was going to be playing some of Triodin's music, as he had been an important figure in the musical and cultural life of the city.  (The article is in Russian, but you can use google translate to get a general idea). Another article is here http://smolensk.rfn.ru/rnews.html?id=30095 .

Underneath the article was a user comment plus an email address, written by a lady asking that a now-defunct link in the article be restored as it contained some of Triodin's music.  I wrote to her, and it turns out she was in the orchestra which played at this concert.  She has informed me that a disc of his music is being prepared.  I think he certainly qualifies for Unsung status (and maybe even late-romantic...), there isn't even a wikipedia article about him, in Russian or English!  So if the Moscow-based members of this website could keep an eye open for any CD of Triodin's soon appearing, it would be great. How then to get the CD to anyone outside Russia who might want one is another question....

There is an entry on Triodin on the Russian website of biographies (http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enc_biography/124605/Триодин#sel=).  It says, using google translate:

Born March 14, 1887 in St. Petersburg, died October 30 1950 in Moscow. Composer. He took lessons on musical and theoretical.subjects with Glazunov. In 1908-1912 he studied at the Medical Faculty at the University of Tartu. Participated in the creation of Russian Music Lovers Circle, conducting its orchestra. In 1912 he was exiled to Vologda Province. for participation in the political.demonstrations on the Lena shooting. During the First World War, he was a military doctor. In 1918-1922 he worked at the Smolensk University, and was one of the organizers of Smolensk Opera theatre and symphony orchestra, in which he played the bassoon. From 1922 in Moscow he worked as a physician and supervised teams of artistic initiatives. In 1941-1945 he was a doctor in the Army.

Works:

Operas:

Silver Prince (by AK Tolstoy, 1923, Moscow)
Stepan Razin (libr. priv., Moscow, 1925), for symphony orchestra

For symphony orchestra:

Symphony I (1910)
Symphony II (1920)
Festival Overture (1922)

For piano and orchestra:

Piano concerto (1922)

For folk orchestra:

Suite: Pictures of Russian fairy tales (1946)
Partisan (1947)
Music for the drama play "Who Lives Well" by N. Nekrasov (Moscow, Theatre cum. Creativity, 1938)
music for the film "Academician Pavlov" (1939),
arranged over 100 Russian folk songs


One piece of his music, Dubinka-drachun ("Baton-fighter") can be heard on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6JoU_EpjTw - not a profound work but a rather fun audience-pleasing concert piece.

...and his arrangment of the popular Russian folk song "Ah you wide steppe" ("Ах ты, степь широкая") can be heard here http://miloman.net/mp3/%E0%F5%2B%F2%FB%2B%F1%F2%E5%EF%FC%2B%F8%E8%F0%EE%EA%E0%FF - it's a very old Soviet recording (1954) with the tenor Ivan Kozlovsky singing, so I imagine beyond copyright reach...

You can see a picture of Triodin here - http://stamps-t.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/triodin-piotr-nikolayevich.html .

Some of his music can be heard in the background of this video news story, also from Smolensk news:
http://smolensk.rfn.ru/video.html?id=24907&type=r

[Gareth Vaughan]

Did your contact say what was going to be recorded?

[Christopher]

I have asked her, and am waiting for her reply.

[Leea25]

Interestingly, Triodin is mentioned by Sabaneyev in his 1927 'Modern Russian Composers' (translated by Judah A. Joffe). He is mentioned only very slightly and in company with Shishov and Shenshin. It always struck me as a little odd that, of all the composers active or recently active in Russia at the time, he should get picked out! Perhaps just to stick the boot in... Here is what Sabanayev writes:

'Shishoff, Shenshin and Triodin, who cannot conceivably be numbered among the champions of modernism in music, belong to the more mature generation. These composers consciously abide by the old standards... Triodin, a dilettant composer, must be mentioned merely because he is one of the few who are striving to resurrect the style of the national "naive opera" of the last century. This attempt must on principle be set down as hopeless; at any rate it requires genius which Triodin, a musician of feeble technique for all his great energy, does not possess. His operas were produced on the stage in Moscow and enjoyed rather clamorous success. The Silver Prince and Styepan Razin are typically epigonic music in which the achievements of Chaykoski, Rimski-Korsakoff and Borodin are repeated in weaker form and often with too great exactness.'

This may sound rather harsh, but Sabaneyev is quite harsh about quite a few composers in the book (the word 'feeble' seeming to crop up a few times, I remember). There seems to be little ground, for him, between genius and 'everyone else'.

Just thought people might be interested. Sabaneyev's 85-year-old opinions aside, I'd like to hear some of Triodin's music!

Lee

[Mark Thomas]

typically epigonic music in which the achievements of Chaykoski, Rimski-Korsakoff and Borodin

Sounds promising! 

[ChrisDevonshireEllis]

I have the same info as you have, so it seems complete, but with one exception - a reference I have is to an opera "Count Serebryany" - possibly an alternative/original title for "The Silver Prince" although it's dated a year earlier, in 1922. It may be worth following up in your research. - Chris   

[Christopher]

The only recording ever made of the opera "Prince Serebrenni" by Russian composer Petr Triodin (1887-1950) has been retrieved from archives and released by Aquarius Classics (excerpts):

https://www.aquarius-classics.ru/cdinfo_e.php?cdid=417

The most interesting archival find of recent times - one might say, the world premiere of a completely unknown classical Russian opera by P.N. Triodin "Prince Serebrenni" (based on the novel by A.K. Tolstoy).

It was first staged in the early 1920s at the Moscow Opera by S.I. Zimin (with the participation of A.S. Pirogov) and is even considered the first Soviet opera, although it was written in a traditional style, without any hint of innovation. Apparently this is partly why already at the end of the 1920s. it was removed from the repertoire and was no longer performed. Only after the war, fragments of the opera were recorded on the All-Union Radio with the participation of outstanding soloists of that time, but until now this recording was not known to anyone.

I will give only one piece of evidence about this opera, which was left by Ivan Kozlovsky, who performed the small role of Fyodor Basmanov in it in 1925 in Sverdlovsk: "Triodin's opera was truly melodic. Unfortunately, it did not stay in our repertoire for long. Why did this happen? I'll try to answer. Let it not be considered 'sacrilege', an inappropriate comparison, but wasn't 'Boris Godunov' first 'buried'? It hasn't been staged for decades! What about today? Life has confirmed the genius of the phenomenal work of the great Mussorgsky. There are many such examples... It's a pity, of course, that 'Prince Serebrenni' quickly left the stage! But in fact, everything depended on the persistence and inquisitiveness of the mind, which are required to prove the significance of a particular work."

As a supplement, there are rare recordings of the wonderful singer of the All-Union Radio Sofia Nikolaevna Kiseleva. None of these magnificent gems of her chamber repertoire have ever been published.
                  M. Nikiforov

Ivan the Terrible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexey Korolev
Prince Silver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniil Demyanov
Elena Morozova. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sofya Kiseleva
Pashenka. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Claudia Konstantinova
Ivan Ring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anton Tkachenko
Peasant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trofim Antonenko

            Choir and orchestra of the All-Union Radio
              Conductor - Alexey Kovalev
                    Recorded in 1946
  1. Overture
  2. Monologue of Ivan the Terrible
  3. Choral song "Like the grass, the ant" (choir, peasant)
  4. Dance song "Say, tell, sparrow "and scene (Prince Serebryany, peasant)
  5. Arioso of Prince Serebryany and scene "I have not seen human joy for a long time" (Prince Serebryany, peasant)
  6. Round dance song "Like Yar-Khmel beyond the Volga"
  7. Arioso of Prince Serebryany "It's been five years since I've seen Moscow"
  8. Male choir "Oh, you, wide steppe" (Ivan Ring, peasant, choir)
  9. Scene in the garden at the house of boyar Morozov (Elena, Pashenka, Prince Serebryany, choir)

Addition: Sofia Kiseleva sings
10. I won't tell anyone (O. Dyutsh)
11. He left (S. Donaurov)
12. Ophelia's song (A. Varlamov)
13 But if I could meet you ("In Separation") (M. Mussorgsky)
14. The Virgin and the Sun (N. Rimsky-Korsakov)
15. Like over hot ashes (P. Tchaikovsky)
16. Why are you drooping, green willow (A. Grechaninov)
17. To the kingdom of roses and wine (D. Arakishvili (from Gafiz))
18. Among the meadows there is a house (I. Brahms)
19. Oh, turn your gaze (I. Brahms)

(A summary of Alexei Tolstoy's novel Prince Serebrenni is here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Serebrenni) - it's also known as "The Silver Knight" (Serebrenni means silver in Russian).

More about Triodin (in Russian) - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Триодин,_Пётр_Николаевич

[eschiss1]

"Sounds promising!"
Yeah, the full sentence, not so much.

[Christopher]

What?

[Mark Thomas]

It's a reference to this post of mine earlier in this thread

[Mark Thomas]

Triodin's music in the excerpts is certainly attractive but also very much "out of time" for 1920s Soviet Union, so the opera's disappearance from the repertoire there is understandable.

[Christopher]

It's a reference to this post of mine earlier in this thread

Written, @eschiss1, in 2012...

[eschiss1]

My mistake, but still, the part of the sentence in which Leonid (Sabaneyeff) describes Triodin as distinctly weaker than those composers makes it still seem less promising in context.--
Eric

[Christopher]

Sabaneyeff himself is hardly a stand-out composer so I'm choosing to judge for myself.

[Alan Howe]

It doesn't take a great composer to judge the worth of a piece of music. In this case, I'm with Eric - and Sabanayeff. In any case, we're all entitled to our opinion, especially if it can be backed up with evidence.

Perhaps Christopher could tell us what he likes about this music...