Mosolov: Steel Foundry (Zavod) Op. 19

A rare piece of "socialist realist" music written in the USSR during the 1920s. Sources differ on the origin and dates, but the most convincing I have found says that it was part of a ballet from 1926-8 called Stal (Steel) intended to glorify the time of industrialisation. However, the label on this disc says it comes from a Symphony of Machines. The score includes a part for metal sheet. It was later criticised for being "decadent". The title is variously translated as "Steel Foundry", "Iron Foundry", "Mechanical Ballet" or simply "The Factory". The title given on the disc is Steel Foundry, which is a translation from the French title Fonderie d'acier. The piece received its first performance in France on 1st February 1931 and first in the USA (as a ballet) at the Hollywood Bowl on 28th July the same year. This recording, in which the metal sheet is clearly audible, is played by the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris conducted by Julius Ehrlich. According to the original label, Ehrlich was from the State Opera in Leningrad, but he later moved to Milwaukee. The recording comes from a 10" light blue label Columbia disc, LB17, released in late 1934. LB16, its companion, contained the Russian Dance and Polka from The Age of Gold by Shostakovich - or Szostakowicz as it was spelt then. Alexander Mosolov (or Mossolov) was born in in Kiev in 1900 and studied composition with Glière in Kiev, composition with Myaskovsky and piano with Prokofiev at the Moscow Conservatoire between 1922-5. His early songs had newspaper advertisements as texts. He was among the first proponents of Soviet realism under the name "constructivist music". He died in 1973. To quote a review of a later recording, "this is music of a metallic nightmare".