Iron Foundry - History

History

Iron Foundry was a product of its time. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, romantic music—though not banned—fell from prominence as it was a remnant of the deposed ruling class, and experimental and revolutionary ideas flourished. In 1923, the Association for Contemporary Music was founded for avant-garde composers. Mosolov, his teacher Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and other composers joined. Iron Foundry was originally composed for the ballet Stal with a scenario by Inna Chernetskaya, which was ultimately never staged; instead it was presented as the first movement of an orchestral suite from the ballet that premiered in Moscow on December 4, 1927, in a concert by the Association for Contemporary Music commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The same concert featured Shostakovich's Second Symphony, Nikolai Roslavets' cantata October, and Leonid Polovinkin's Prologue. Mosolov's composition was performed at the International Society for Contemporary Music's eighth festival in Liège on September 6, 1930, where it was met with critical acclaim. "We have ... a kind of lyrical theme, the song of steel, or possible of man, the ironmaster. ... t is an essentially musical idea carried out with convincing skill, and as a concluding piece to an orchestral programme it deserves to become popular," one critic said of the piece.

At the Hollywood Bowl in 1931, Iron Foundry was used as the music to Adolph Bolm's ballet, The Spirit of the Factory—known also as Ballet mécanique (not to be confused with the 1924 composition by George Antheil), Mechanical Ballet, and The Iron Foundry—which opened to "rousing ovations, rapturous reviews, and popular demands" for an encore performance. This was the first time for Iron Foundry to be performed for a stage performance; though its original intentions were as music for the ballet Steel, it was never staged as originally intended.