Arseny Mikhailovich Avraamov (russian: Арсений Михайлович Авраамов) (born Krasnokutsky �раснокутский 1886 died Moscow, 1944) was an avant-garde

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and theorist. He studied at the

music school A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger ins ...

of the

Moscow Philharmonic Society The Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra based in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1951 by Samuil Samosud, as the Moscow Youth Orchestra for young and inexperienced musicians, acquiring its current name in 1953. It is most associated wit ...

, with private composition lessons from

Sergey Taneyev Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev (russian: Серге́й Ива́нович Тане́ев, ; – ) was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author. Life Taneyev was born in Vladimir, Vladimir Governorate, Russian ...

. He refused to fight in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and fled the country to work, among other things, as a circus artist. Returning in 1917, he went on to compose his famous "Simfoniya gudkov" and was a pioneer in Russian sound on film techniques. Among his other achievements were the invention of graphic-sonic art, produced by drawing directly onto the optical sound track of film, and an "Ultrachromatic" 48-tone microtonal system, presented in his thesis, "The Universal System of Tones," in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart in 1927. His microtonal system predated the creation of the Petrograd Society for

Quarter-Tone A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, a ...

Music in 1923, by

Georgii Rimskii-Korsakov Georgii may refer to: ;Given name *Georgii Zantaraia (born 1987), Ukrainian judoka of Georgian origin *Georgii Karpechenko (1899–1941) Russian and Soviet biologist *Georgii Frederiks (1889–1938), Russian geologist *Georgii Zeliony (187 ...

. Today, his most famous work is ''Simfoniya gudkov'' (''Гудковая симфония'', "Symphony of factory sirens"). This piece involved navy ship sirens and whistles, bus and car horns, factory sirens, cannons, the foghorns of the entire Soviet flotilla in the Caspian Sea, artillery guns, machine guns, hydro-airplanes, a specially designed "whistle main," and renderings of

Internationale "The Internationale" (french: "L'Internationale", italic=no, ) is an international anthem used by various communist and socialist groups; currently, it serves as the official anthem of the Communist Party of China. It has been a standard of th ...

, Warszawianka and

Marseillaise "La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du R ...

by a mass band and choir. The piece was conducted by a team of conductors using flags and pistols. It was performed in the city of

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

in 1922, celebrating the fifth anniversary of the 1917

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

, and less successfully in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, a year later.

Sources

*Edmunds, Neil, ed. Soviet Music and Society Under Lenin and Stalin. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004. *Lobanova, Marina. “Avraamov, Arseny Mikhaylovich.” Grove Music Online ed. L Macy (Accessed 10 June 2008), http://www.grovemusic.com. *Sitsky, Larry. Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929. London: Greenwood Press, 1994.

External links

*
description of Avraamov's Baku concert
with program notes

biography at theremin.ru
"Nonlinear History" presentation by Andrey Smirnov, contains slides on Avraamov's Symfony of Factory Sirens
* http://www.rermegacorp.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ReRRAG12&Category_Code=RL&Store_Code=RM Russian composers Russian male composers 1886 births 1944 deaths Graphical sound 20th-century Russian male musicians {{russia-composer-stub