Moscow Metro – Krasnopresnenskaya – Line 5

Posted on 16/04/2023 by Michael

Krasnopresnenskaya by A Savin

Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Krasnopresnenskaya – Line 5

Krashopresnenskaya – Line 5 – 01

Krasnopresnenskaya (Краснопре́сненская) is a Moscow Metro station in the Presnensky District, Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow. It is on the Koltsevaya line, between Kiyevskaya and Belorusskaya stations. It was named for the street, Krasnaya Presnya, on which it is situated. Passengers may transfer to Barrikadnaya station on the Tagansko–Krasnopresnenskaya line.

Krashopresnenskaya – Line 5 – 02

It was designed by Victor Yegerev, M. Konstantinov, Felix Novikov, and I. Pokrovsky and opened on 14 March 1954. The station has red granite pylons with white marble cornices and 14 bas-reliefs by N. Shcherbakov, Yu. Pommer, Yu. Ushakov, V. Fedorov, and G. Kolesnikov. As the Presnya area of Moscow was the site of the Moscow Uprising of 1905 during the 1905 Russian Revolution, the station is decorated with artwork commemorating the events of the period. Eight of the bas-reliefs depict the events of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the other six show scenes from the Russian Revolution of 1917. Statues of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin originally stood at the end of the platform, though these had been removed by the early 1960s. Later, the passage to Barrikadnaya was built in the same location.

Krashopresnenskaya – Line 5 – 03

The station’s round vestibule is on the south side of Krasnaya Presnya street, between Druzhinnikovskaya and Konyushkovskaya streets. A sculpture by A. Zelinsky entitled ‘Combatant’ is located in front.

Krashopresnenskaya – Line 5 – 04

Text from Wikipedia.

Krasnopresnenskaya

More pictures of the exterior are presented in the second slide show below.

Location:

GPS:

55.7613°N

37.5774°E

Depth:

35.5 metres (116 ft)

Opened:

14 March 1954

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Symphony No 11: Hillsborough Memorial – Michael Nyman

Posted on 08/07/2014 by Michael

Hillsborough Memorial – LFC Anfield

Symphony No 11: Hillsborough Memorial – Michael Nyman

Symphony No 11: Hillsborough Memorial – Michael Nyman, was composed in homage to those 96 Liverpool football fans who were killed as a result of ‘the corruption of the Thatcher government and her duplicitous police force’ during the FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough, the home ground of Sheffield Wednesday, on 15th April 1989. It was chosen as the cultural performance to officially launch the 8th Liverpool Biennial 2014 – the city-wide celebration of contemporary art that will run this year between 5th July to 26th October.

This public performance on the Saturday evening in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral was preceded earlier in the afternoon by a performance to invited guests, including representatives of the families of the 96.

The Symphony, which lasts for about 50 minutes, is divided into four movements.

The First Movement consists of the reading of all the names of the 96 killed that day, now more than 25 years ago. This reading of the names has become a tradition at any commemoration of the event, especially that which takes place every year on the anniversary at Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club.

This must be highly emotional in any circumstance but when the names were sung by Kathryn Rudge, a mezzo-soprano, standing in the pulpit of one of the top 5 biggest cathedrals in the world (depending upon how the statistics are measured), her voice reverberating around the huge space, this rendering of the traditional practice took on a greater poignancy – each person listening being able to relate to any death that might have effected them in the past. For close family members it must have been very difficult.

As the names were being sung the orchestra, mainly the strings, were intoning a slow, repetitive rhythm, typical of many of Nyman’s works, which got louder as more instruments joined in and reaching a crescendo as the last name, in alphabetical order, was read out.

The Second Movement is more lyrical and is based on an aria that Nyman had previously rejected for one of his earlier operas. This breaks, slightly, the sombre mood created by the reading of the names and turns more into a celebration of those lives that were prematurely cut short. The violins are lighter in tone and their pace quickens. The older children of the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth and Training Choirs vocalise and their young voices have the effect of adding to the lightening of the tone. When the other instruments, especially the brass, are added to the mix the sound of the orchestra seems to fill the cavernous space and the movement ends in an affirmation of life – of those who had died and of life in general that goes on, even after a major disaster.

For Nyman, the composer and mathematician (as all composers are in many senses), the Third Movement is all about numeric symbolism, a play on the number 96 – different combinations of bar phrases and chords. That means nothing to me (my technical musical knowledge amounts to zero) but I feel it takes the different elements and emotions from the first two movements and plays them together, sometimes a battle between the sombre and the more cheerful.

The movement starts with the bassoons and deep-toned brass instruments introducing the theme called Memorial (the name of the Fourth Movement). When the theme is introduced it is played very slowly and deliberately but this is soon left behind as the rest of the orchestra, and the choir, join in. The first part of the movement is the domain of the bass and the larger stringed instruments, with the violins being virtually silent. However, slowly the rest of the orchestra joins in and the mood lightens and the pace quickens.

The violins pick up a repetitive phrase that they continue to play, with slight variations being introduced at times, as their pace quickens and gives the impression of flight. This part of the movement has more elements of life than death and the players have to be more animated to keep pace with the notes on the page.

The brass and the woodwind sections join in and the sound again starts to fill the Cathedral space, reaching a crescendo but not a movement ending crescendo, more the sound comes as if in waves, building up and then quietening to gather pace and volume once more.

Just before the end of the movement the players slow down and the full children’s choir takes over as they again vocalise until the full orchestra again takes control and speeds up yet again to end the movement on a high note.

If the first three movements are new, or at least re-workings of previous material, the Fourth Movement would be recognised by anyone who is, or was, a fan of 1980s British art house cinema as Memorial (as this movement is known) was part of the soundtrack for the 1989 Peter Greenaway film The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover.

However, the piece goes back even further than that and, coincidentally, involves another footballing disaster and Liverpool FC. Memorial was Nyman’s response to the Heysel stadium disaster where, due to the poor crowd control arrangements, a surge of Liverpool fans led to the death of 41 Juventus supporters – it’s unfortunate that two of the most serious football catastrophes of the 1980s concerned Liverpool, although as time goes by it emerges that the fans themselves were not those principally to blame for how events developed.

It was never publicly performed but Greenaway considered it perfect for his 1989 film about a brutal and uncouth gangster. The story was generally considered to be a modern-day fable, paralleling the accumulation of wealth by culturally ignorant barrow-boys in the City of London during the hideous Thatcher era to the pretensions of a violent criminal who thought that wealth bought sophistication. Here Greenaway does the same with Thatcher as Bertolt Brecht did with Hitler in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, comparing the individuals, their policies and the consequences of such policies upon the majority of the population to that of vicious, self-seeking criminals

In this film the gangster, Spica, gets his comeuppance and it’s during this particular scene that we hear a large section of Memorial. Somewhat surprisingly, to me, in a very recent interview Nyman states that he thought the use of this piece of music and its juxtaposition with the images of cannibalism ‘totally loathsome’.

I knew they had fallen out but Nyman is being disingenuous to be so angry about the use of his music by a director he had been working with since 1982 (on The Draughtsman’s Contract). If he was so disgusted why did they work together in the 1993 on The Baby of Mâcon, another allegory, this time about the exploitation of women and children?

The Fourth Movement is loud and strident from the beginning. It does get louder but there’s no gradual rise to a crescendo as in the previous movements. And that’s as it should be. We have had the statement of the crime, the sadness it had caused and the waste of life involved. Now it has to be brought to some sort of conclusion, the demand for justice against all the years of lies and, yes, some sort of retribution.

From the beginning the violins are played in a choppy, staccato manner (there’s probably a term for it but unknown to me) and this rhythm is in the background for virtually the whole of the 12 minutes or so of the piece. It’s almost like a sound of the tramping of feet, of people marching which is more than appropriate when we consider that at the time of the premier the re-called inquest into the deaths of the 96 was taking place only a few miles down the road in Warrington.

This is a valid interpretation even for a piece that was written almost 30 years before. Nyman has chosen to take it from the past and placed his music into a ‘story’ that cries out for resolution. The brass section blows out a call to arms, to action, for justice. This is strident, angry music reflecting the feelings not only of the families of the 96 victims of Hillsborough but of many in Liverpool, as well as many thousands of football fans throughout the country, who consider they are often being made scapegoats for the inefficiencies and inequities of the society in which we live.

Pain and anger can’t be expressed by sweet pastoral music that lulls the listener to sleep. The meek only inherit the earth in that they are forced to eat dirt, martyrs who refuse to resist their oppressors will only end up crucified on the cross, the symbol at the far end of the building and which all in the audience were facing at Liverpool Cathedral.

If the families of the 96 had submitted meekly history would have recorded that they were responsible for their own deaths and the cause of the disaster, the real guilty going free. Now, with the new inquest and whatever comes of it, there’s no guarantee that those responsible will ever pay for their crimes (of lying if not for incompetence) and that will mean many people will remain angry but that’s better than regretting not having struggled in the first place.

By the end all the players are performing, as are the children in the choir and the mezzo-soprano, all adding their weight behind the call. Eight or nine minutes in the sound becomes more discordant depicting anger and pain. You can almost hear the cries of those trapped behind the reinforced steel fences introduced as a knee-jerk reaction to pitch invasions – without thinking of or taking into account the possible consequences. If the movement was already strident perhaps the one change I was able to notice was the crash of cymbals and the beating of the kettle drums at the very end. The music finishes with a further call to mobilisation.

I don’t know if it was just due to the fact that the Philharmonic Hall is currently undergoing major renovation that the Cathedral was chosen for this performance, or whether it would have been performed there whatever the situation of the orchestra’s normal home. It can only be said that attending this performance in the cavern that is the Liverpool Cathedral was the best choice. For those with a religious bent there’s the obvious symbolism that goes with the Christian penchant for pain and suffering, for those who are not so inclined being surrounded by sound in such a large space made it an unforgettable experience.

A recording of the Symphony has been made and will be played in the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral on Wednesday 6th August, Monday 26th August, Wednesday 3rd September and Wednesday 17th September. All performances will start at 15.06 – the time when the match was stopped on 15th April 1989.

Symphony No 11: Hillsborough Memorial – Michael Nyman is a fitting memorial to those who died so needlessly 25 years ago and also a fine way to open the 2014 Liverpool Biennial. I only hope that the next ten weeks provide experiences of such calibre.

Moscow Metro – Komsomolskaya – Line 5

Posted on 15/04/2023 by Michael

Komsomolskaya – Line 5

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Komsomolskaya – Line 5

Komsomolskaya (Комсомо́льская) is a Moscow Metro station in the Krasnoselsky District, Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow. It is on the Koltsevaya line, between Prospekt Mira and Kurskaya stations.

The station is located under the busiest Moscow transport hub, Komsomolskaya Square, which serves Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky, and Kazansky railway terminals. Because of that, the station is one of the busiest in the whole system. It opened on 30 January 1952 as a part of the second stage of the line.

Komsomolskaya – Line 5 – 04

Evolution of the design

Stations on the first southern segment of the Koltsevaya line were dedicated to the victory over Nazi Germany, while those on the northern segment (Belorusskaya-Koltsevaya to Komsomolskaya) were dedicated to the theme of post-war labour. Komsomolskaya was designed by Alexey Shchusev as an illustration of a historical speech given by Joseph Stalin November 7, 1941. In the speech, Stalin evoked the memories of Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy and other military leaders of the past, and all these historical figures eventually appeared on the mosaics of Komsomolskaya.

Komsomolskaya – Line 5 – 06

The early roots of the station’s design can be traced to a 1944 draft by Shchusev implemented in pure Petrine baroque, a local adaptation of the 17th century Dutch Golden Age. However, after the end of World War II the drafts of 1944 were discarded and the stations of the Koltsevaya line were completed in the mainstream late Stalinist style of the period. Shchusev, who died in 1949, retained his baroque nonce order.

Komsomolskaya – Line 5 – 07

Komsomolskaya remained Shchusev’s first and only metro station design. The station was initially planned as a traditional deep pylon type. Later, Shchusev replaced the heavy concrete pylons with narrow octagonal steel columns, riveted with marble tiles, creating the larger open space.

After Shchusev’s death, the station was completed by Viktor Kokorin, A. Zabolotnaya, V. Varvarin and O. Velikoretsky and Pavel Korin, the creator of the mosaics.

Komsomolskaya – Line 5 – 01

Architecture and decoration

Beginning with the large vestibule located among the former of the two train stations, the building features a large octagonal dome topped by a cupola, and a spire crowned by a large star and imposing full-height portico with stylised Corinthian columns. Inside amid the Baroque-style ornaments, rich torchères and chandelier lights, two escalators descend, one leading to the old 1935 Komsomolskaya-Radialnaya station, and the second to this one.

On the platform level, there is a Baroque ceiling, with accompanying friezes, painted yellow. Supporting the enlarged barrel vault are 68 octagonal columns faced with white marble, and topped with baroque pilasters. The platform is lit up by chandeliers and additional concealed elements in the niches of both the central and platform halls.

Komsomolskaya – Line 5 – 02

The theme of the design, the Historical Russian fight for freedom and independence, is expressed in eight large ceiling mosaics by Pavel Korin. Korin said that the inspiration came from Joseph Stalin’s speech at the Moscow Parade of 1941, where he inspired the soldiers amid the catastrophic losses in the early period of World War II to remember the historical heroics of their Russian forefathers. The idea to design the art as a mosaic came from the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, where Korin saw that such artforms could last for eternity. Chronologically the mosaics are as following:

1242: Alexander Nevsky after the Battle on the Ice.
1380: Dmitry Donskoy after the Battle of Kulikovo.
1612: Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky after the end of the Time of Troubles.
1799: Alexander Suvorov after the Crossing of the Alps.
1812: Mikhail Kutuzov after the Battle of Borodino.
1945: The original mosaic here was of Red Army troops on Red Square receiving the Guards banner from Soviet army command, but because it contained images of some commanders whose careers and legacy would later be re-evaluated (including Joseph Stalin) most of the mosaic was replaced with that of Vladimir Lenin addressing a meeting in Red Square, thus moving the date of the artwork to a period between 1917 and 1922.
1945: Soviet Troops on the Reichstag building after the Battle of Berlin (according to some, the original banner had superimposed profiles of Lenin and Stalin: the latter was removed to leave just Lenin remaining).

1945: The original image was of a Victory parade with Soviet soldiers throwing captured Nazi banners in front of Lenin’s mausoleum. However, for the same reason as the sixth image, this image was retouched on several occasions. When Lavrenty Beria was arrested in 1953, his glasses were erased and then the whole figure was removed. Then in 1957, after the political crisis saw the end of the careers of Vyacheslav Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich, their images followed suit. Finally, after 1961 brought the end of Stalin’s personality cult, in early 1963 the whole panel was taken down, and Korin redesigned it by placing a maiden (symbolising Mother Russia) standing on the Nazi banners in front of the same mausoleum, holding a hammer and sickle in one hand and a palm branch in the other. This mosaic is made of more than 300,000 tiles, takes up 31.5 square metres (339 sq ft) and weighs more than three tonnes.

In between each of the main mosaics there are smaller ones made of gilded smalt depicting various weaponry and armour. One set is focused on ancient Russian equipment, a second on the Napoleonic era, and the third on World War II. At the end of the platform is a bust of Vladimir Lenin under an arch decorated with gilt floral designs and the Coat of arms of the Soviet Union.

Komsomolskaya – Line 5 – 05

In the centre of the red granite covered platform are two passageways, surrounded by marble balustrades with escalators that descend into a lobby with a main escalator tunnel upwards to the Sokolnicheskaya line’s Komsomolskaya station. On the wall opposite the escalator is a large fluorescent mosaic, also of Pavel Korin, depicting the Order of Victory surrounded by red and green banners and Georgian colours.

Komsomolskaya – Line 5 – 02

In 1951 both Pavel Korin and Alexey Schusev were posthumously awarded the Stalin Prize for their work on the station, and on 30 January 1952 the station was opened to the public as the first on the second stage of the Koltsevaya line. In 1958 the station was awarded the Grand Prix (‘Grand Prize’) title of Expo ’58 in Brussels.

Text above from Wikipedia.

The ‘re-writing’ of history;

One of the panels also underwent a major ‘renovation’ in the era of Khrushchev and here there wasn’t a complete change but what it did so is change significantly the intended meaning. By substituting VI Lenin for JV Stalin outside the Kremlin the revisionists were seeking to destroy the continuity in the Soviet Union from the mid-1920’s and, in effect, attempted to turn VI Lenin into a merely historical figure – denying his ideas.

Komsomolskaya

Komsomolskaya – circle line

Date of opening;

30th January 1951

Construction of the station;

deep, pier, three-span

Architect of the underground part;

A. Shchusev (died 1949), co-authors of the project, V. Kokorin and A. Zabolotskaya

Transition to Komsomolskaya of the Sokolnicheskaya Line

Komsomolskaya is a peak of the great Stalin emperor style characterised by mightiness, pomposity, combination of classicism, Empire style, and Moscow baroque. Painter P. Korin, an equal co-author of the architect, in this case, contributed much to the creation of the station.

Komsomolskaya cardinally differs from other stations of the Circle Line. Instead of usual massive pylons, there at a greater depth, at complicated geological conditions, an original load-carrying structure was used, absolutely new for that time. There are arcades – 34 columns on each side – linked by elegant arches. They carry the common entablature with a cornice stretching throughout the station. The entablature carries the basements of the vaults of the central hall and two track tunnels. The vault of the central hall is half as much high as the side halls. All this, simplicity and height, creates the feeling of open space, which extends by the rhythmic step of the arches running to perspective. The station is light, elegant, and harmonic.

The decoration of the station is concentrated on its main vault. The vaults of the track tunnels are simply white, winding with narrow transversal belts slightly in relief.

There are eight smalt mosaics along the main axis of the central hall and 16 more golden mosaics in pseudo-pendentives highlighted with mouldings. The mosaic panels are located in a chronological order starting from the blind end of Komsomolskaya. The end wall of the station carries a mosaic coat of arms of the USSR, gold on the claret-coloured background rounded with florid ornament. A small marble bust of V. Lenin is beneath the coat of arms.

The first panel is devoted to the victory of Prince Alexandre Yaroslavich in the Battle on the Neva. The Prince holds a banner in his hands with half-covered Christ’s face on it. On the pendentives – criss-cross swords, pole-axes, and quivers on the background of the coat of arms with George the Victorious. The second panel shows Dmitiy Donskoy before the Kulikovskaya Battle. The Prince holds a banner in his hands with Christ’s face. Peresvet and Oslyabya on horseback are in front. The third panel shows Prince Pozharsky and citizen Minin summoning people’s army in the Red Square. The Cathedral of the Cover is on the background. On the pendentives – criss-cross unicorn guns, sabres, pikes, and bayonets on the background of cuirass and shako with double-headed eagle. The forth panel shows Suvorov in The Alps. His marvellous heroes are in front. The fifth panel shows Kutuzov in the Borodino Field. There are Orthodox crosses on banners. On the pendentives – criss-cross sickle, hammer, and submachine guns on the background of Order of Victory. The sixth panel shows Lenin speaking at the parade of the Red Army before their journey to battle against Kolchak’s. The seventh panel show the capture of Berlin. Soldiers carry a banner with Lenin’s face. The eighth panel shows the Victory Parade in Moscow.

A barefooted lady with an olive branch in her left hand and sickle and hammer in her right hand tramples on fascist banners thrown to the basement of the mausoleum. All the panels are set off with wide mouldings inspired by Russian mansion ‘grass’ painting. The similar moulding forms separate geometrical shapes, such as belts, frames, and edgings.

There is a staircase at the end opposite to the blind end, which leads to a cupola hall. The vault is adorned with a red star with golden rays and 16-branch circle chandelier. A short passageway whose walls are decorated with meat-red marble leads to an escalator to the ground hall.

Text from Moscow Metro 1935-2005, p54-57