ABSTRACT
The position of Aleksandr Lokshin in his time’s cultural context was that of a voluntary or forced outsider. His art as a whole was not especially welcome in the Soviet Union: from the point of view of the authorities it lacked ideology, while from the point of view of non-conformists it was insufficiently ‘avant-garde’. More characteristic are jazzy motifs, which he began introducing in ‘serious’ scores perhaps earlier than any of the major Soviet symphonists. One of his most successful essays in mixing jazz with symphonic music is the concise one-movement Concerto grosso for orchestra with trumpet, piano, vibraphone and double-bass – one of the earliest examples of the ‘third stream’8 in Soviet Russian music. A secretary of the Composers’ Union, laureate of the State Prize of 1976 co-laureate of the State Prize of 1977, People’s Artist of the USSR and laureate of the Lenin Prize of 1986, Eshpay officially belonged to the highest musical lite of the Soviet Union.
