Neoclassicism and Bulgakov?

I find assigning musical works to authors quite helpful in helping me understand the authors better. I am more familiar with musical trends than I am with literary trends, so choosing a musical work helps me contextualize the author better. Furthermore, I can look for themes that I find in the music in the text.

Perhaps Bulgakov would have been listening to this at the time of his writing The Master and Margarita, if this had been written when he wrote his first draft. Actually, this is not the work that I wanted to show at all, but I couldn't find a good link to Concerto Spirituale by Lourié. Quite the shame, really.

Neoclassicism is a musical movement in which composers sought to imitate the Classical forms of music. It usually had its own 20th century tinge, as can be heard in this work, but sought to be closer to old music than new music. This work, Symphony of Psalms,is a fine example. I feel that it relates to Bulgakov in that Bulgakov's book offers critiques of modern Soviet life with its lack of religion. This piece would certainly be banned in the Soviet Union for its religious themes as well as its stark differences to Soviet music of the time.




"Day after day, life gets even happier!"




Soviets were a fan of "proletariat music" - that is, music they deemed proletariat, as opposed to bourgeois. They came down harshly upon the avant-garde movement, as well as jazz music. Prokofiev and Shostakovich were the main Soviet classical composers, and they wrote cheerful pieces based on folk themes glorifying the Soviet Union. Anything else was anathema to the government. Stravinsky moved to France in the 1920s, mostly because the lack of copyright laws in the early Soviet Union prevented him from getting much money for his works, but his emigration also permitted him to write whatever he wanted.