Red Square

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 356, 18 April 1946, Page 14

Red Square

TATION 3YL recently scheduled a programme of Russian choirs, leaving one to expect the usual Entry of the Boyars and the practically inevitable Don Cossacks. But the programme proved less politically suspect; all the choirs were Soviet, mostly either Red Army or People’s Theatre. This was an

impressive quarter-hour, first because Russian seems a language suited to loud and hearty singing, whether by males or by emancipated young women (probably wearing boots); but, secondly, because the Russians have evolved something highly out of the way in mass music Granted (if you like) that it is state inspired, and in translation proves to be tirelessly and rather tediously propa gandist in its sentiments; nevertheless its life and vigour and the manner in which the voices blend produces an effect not quite like anything else | know-and to compare these marches with the dismal Sousa-and-drum-majo: products of Britain and America is e little chastening. One can isolate in these songs numerous elements of folk-music. but the essential thing about them is the revolutionary romanticism and swagger of the popular tradition built up in the Soviet Union-capable often enough of a distressing naiveté but full of a sort of aggressive cockiness and turbulent vigour, and undeniably fun.