Benjamin (Veniamïn) Arnóldovitch Khaèt (May 25, 1896 - February 5, 1975), member of the composer's union of USSR. At the age of 5 he and his family came to Russia and settled in
Odessa. From his childhood, Benia loved art (paintings and music). These two
disciplines played a great role in his further development as an artist. In Odessa, he dedicated all his life to the music. From 1913 until 1918 Benjamin continued to learn the courses of Conservatory Odessa's in Department of chiefs of orchestra and of piano. After the revolution of October in 1917, a Russian anarchist made the composer a prisoner. Nevertheless, many big musicians and actors forced the bandit Makhno to make liberating the young person Khaet. From 1924 to 1927 during The New Economic Policy (NEP), the composer was the chief of orchestra. Benjamin then organizes many groups and they present his music not preserved to the present time. Those musicians played many concerts with his symphonies in the western Russia. In the same period the composer Khaet knew the singer Leonid Utyosov and the writer Valentin Kataev. In that time, Benjamin Khaet composed his first operetta «Love and dollars» for Kazan's Theater. This work, unfortunately, is lost. Nevertheless, thanks to this victory the composer Khaet was invited in Moscow where Benjamin would remain for two years. He understood rapidly the criminal character of the socialism to leave this capital city. With his wife, actress Galina Ieremeievna Khaet-Tsvetkova, Benjamin Khaet recognizes the tragic reality. They were afraid to be arrested, they travelled with many concerts and more than two years did not remain in every city. Almost on any of the scenes of the cities where came the composer Khaet, they used Khaet's music in theatrical performances as «Inevitability» dedicated to the «An American Tragedy» of Theodore Dreiser, «Alarm», the Khaet's opera «Vasilisa the Beautiful», «House of cat», «Fairy tale», «Invisible Lady», etc. Rudolf Osipovitch Khaèt is his grandson, the future flutist of Osipov's orchestra in Moscow. He begins to live in the composer's house. In 1937 in Perm, was born his daughter Nina Veniaminovna Khaet. In seven languages, these pages are dedicated to the composer's memory. In the inability to organize many concerts with the small girl, Khaet's chooses Tashkent, the great city of Central Asia. During last months before the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, the capital city of Uzbekistan manages to be more tolerant in the perfidious epoch. The inhabitants of the city, did not lose certain hope to avoid the repression of the "people's enemies". In spite of the Stalinism, the Tashkent's theatrical performances «Life in force», «Damby and son» of Dickens, «The Taming of the Shrew» of Shakespeare and «Love of Wheats» represent Khaet's music. In the autumn of 1950, the authorities arrest the composer for "people's enemy" and is deported in Siberia so that he worked free of charge at the concentration camp confiscating all the property of his family. After Stalin's death, the composer Benjamin Khaet was rehabilitated in 1954. The opera «Puss in Boots» of Benjamin Khaet was played from 1957 till 1997 in Tashkent on the scene of the Academic Theater ALICHER NAVOI of opera and ballet. The base of this opera is a libretto of Dilin and of Makariev, of the translators of Charles Perrault. To the end of 1957, Benjamin Khaet wrote his own libretto for his own opera played the death of the composer on the theatrical scene of Vilnius. The opera B.Khaet's «Puss in Boots» was played in Novosibirsk, in Dushanbe and in Frunze (Bishkek). To the end of the sixth decade of the twentieth century, the same opera delighted the Mexican famous singer Yma Sumac who has visited the house of the composer Khaet. In 1962 he still has written another opera on the base of the Italian comedy «One curious accident». For the music of this opera, the composer Benjamin Khaet has composed its own poetical libretto in Russian for Milman's translation. In Tashkent the administration has introduced his opera «One curious accident» in the theatrical program of 1975, but because of the premature death of the composer, the spectators of the theater ALICHER NAVOI have not seen «One curious accident» on the Tashkent's scene. The detailed biography of the composer Khaet is written in Russian in the Autobiography of
his daughter Nina Khaèt.
Vadim Ryzhkow composer, pianist,
teacher and arranger: Underrated Master
The creativity of Benjamin Khaèt is probably unknown to a wide range of fans and connoisseurs of academic music. The fate of this composer was composed in such a way that, due to various reasons, he could not be at the center of the musical life of the USSR. The heyday of his work coincided with the epoch, when the mechanism for the construction of a new totalitarian state was launched, which broke several destinies of people, not counting their personal qualities, intelligence and creative talent. In this whirlwind of events, the Khaèt family has also been dragged along - with all the ensuing consequences. Their essential peculiarity (from the point of view of creative realization) reflected its isolation from the great cultural life. Precisely in many respects, this distance from the epicenter of musical events did not allow to actively participate in elite concerts. Fate did not allow this composer to find his listener to play, to be heard and to fully realize his creative power. Finally, this distance led to the fact that the composer's name and his music still remain almost unknown to the wide circle of music lovers.
In particular, I draw attention to the details of the composer's biography. Benjamin Khaèt was removed from active participation in concert life. He had to hide from the secret services and change several cities of his accommodation in the USSR in order to earn money on his living for composing his own music in provincial theaters. It is important to take these circumstances into account to understand the particularities of his music. On the one hand, we see a lot of his unfinished (or lost) works, sketches and drafts. Everything that was not embodied in his academic and instrumental genres is realized in his musical compositions for numerous shows. His musical pieces go far beyond purely theatrical music. Inside these, we feel the symphonic reflection, despite several restrictions of the instruments used by the composer; he was able to concentrate on all styles.
The stylistic diversity is one of the particularities of the creative heritage of Benjamin (Veniamïn) Khaèt. In this respect, he stands out from other composers and stands apart from all of them. Most of the composers of this period use certain stylistic specialization of their concrete genre, while each author works on the basis of traditional academic styles. The other composers approach modernism, or they dedicate their music to jazz and non-academic genres. On the fingers it is possible to calculate the limited quantity of omnivorous composers. There were not many people who enjoyed deserved respect in their academic environment. At the same time, if some composer was like, for example, Shostakovich or Prokofiev and tried to compose his music of genres unusual for himself, he would radically transform them and subordinate the mentioned genres to his own creative individuality and to his own style.
There is the other particularity which is more characteristic for the reflection of the composers of the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. It is clearly observed in the musical compositions of Benjamin Khaèt. Here we can meet samples of styles and those of genres that take their sources that are realized in his traditional romanticism, in his children's songs and in his jazz pieces. At the same time, Khaèt's works are rising towards their academic and complex compositions. Stylistically and aesthetically, his music comes into contact with the creativities of contemporary composers - Prokofiev, Hindemith, Bartók and Stravinsky. We will meet here everything except that works by an extreme modernist. What is most interesting is that Benjamin Khaèt uses different styles and genres. The composer feels completely free and confident; he does not break anything under himself. Fully, he accepts the conditions of the game and realizes his own creative individuality already within the framework of each concrete task.
The omnivorous diversity of styles could be explained through the need to work, in several theatrical genres, which requires the composer to possess the full range of stylistic diversities. The motivation is his feeling of a particular responsibility for his gift of writing his music of all genres. The composer's conscience accepts the need to polish this high compositional ability and his multilateral competence. This gift had to be embodied in his mastery, and that it possessed all the forms. It can be assumed that the inner imperative brought this composer to the musical theater, as to the place to realize his concepts different from his creativity.
From different angles, we can consider the stylistic omnivore of B. Khaèt. Obviously, he had an internal need to play and compose his music in different styles. He had the desire to express his distinct levels of musical expression. He united their elementary sensuality and their intellectual reflection. In other words, not all human melodies should be driven out of the realm of his creativity. The «lower» genres and «Academicism» should not oppose each other - they can get along well peacefully. Their connection and coincidence become the obvious confirmation of all the works of Benjamin Khaèt.
This creative position explains his interest in jazz (however, this can be considered through his interest in several new phenomena in creative music in general). This is the reason why his great legacy embraces the genres of songs. We must not forget about the artistic activities of Khaèt as well as the conductor. The composer brings his professional attitude to music from various stylistic directions.
There is a prerogative that determines the categories of the incarnations of the creative gift. In the same way, the composer's technical mastery is affected through his professionalism. This is its ability to achieve the maximum effect from its minimum sources. The preserved scores of B. Khaèt demonstrate the composer's professional competence, as he directed the orchestra of the peripheral theater. The number of its musicians was very limited, where amateurs participated. On the other hand, we can see that many fragments were written during the short term. Despite these same conditions, the orchestra sounds perfectly. To write music in this same way, you need to have a superior mastery of your profession as a composer (and conductor). Khaèt's music has the sharpening of his compositions. She reveals the precision of her texture, phrasing, her definition of voices and her harmony. All these same possibilities are reflected in his works which are academic. Benjamin Khaèt's music is comparable to the examples of outstanding composers like Prokofiev and Miaskovsky. It is understandable that this comparison is deficient, according to its very essence. But, by its musical quality, this parallelism is acceptable.
In applied and light genres, the composer focuses on the Western style. He manifests his creative individuality in his frame, where in the first place is his academic style. Individually, it is necessary to consider his instrumental compositions. It can be stated that in this area the main events of the creative activity of Benjamin Khaèt are reflected. Here the creative individuality of the composer appears in his nakedness. Its obtaining presents its results which are assimilated in the contemporary semantics of the musical language.
Above, I have already indicated the circle of composers with whom it is possible to discover certain stylistic links of Benjamin Khaèt. It is important not only to concretize these same links with one's ideals. It is necessary to try to determine the peculiarities of B. Khaèt's creativity that reflect his individual and his traits that distinguish him from all the mentioned composers. We will try to examine the specific works of B. Khaèt who are individual and distinctive, while their particularities never meet in the compositions of his symbolic ideals. We can detect most of the points of his contacts with the creativity of I. Stravinsky and, above all, with that of S. Prokofiev. Still, there are the stylistic links of B. Khaèt with some other composers of the early twentieth century. These are G. Popov, V. Schebalin, P. Hindemith, K. Debussy and B. Bartok. Generally, their relationships can be considered through the prism of the more direct influence of Stravinsky and that of Prokofiev on the music of Benjamin Khaèt. These influences are stylistically associated with the creativity of the listed composers only insofar as their works stylistically intersect with works by Prokofiev and with those of Stravinsky.
Analyzing the links of Khaèt's music with Stravinsky's creativity, I would like to emphasize the fact that their relations are not localized by a certain creative period of Stravinsky. But they manifest themselves quite unexpectedly in the combination of Stravinsky's Russian style and the neoclassical one. On the contrary, Khaèt's stylistic links with Prokofiev's music focus mainly on his second foreign period. Although there is a certain influence of the initial music of Prokofiev. Immediately it should be noted that such localization is very conditional. Stylistically, Benjamin Khaèt's music is not limited to the styles of the mentioned composers. Moreover, in the creative position of the composer, we can determine his desire to recycle, imaginatively, almost all the directions that were accepted by Benjamin Khaèt, excluding modernization and that of constructivism.
However, here we can see some selectivity, except the filtering of everything that was not close. In particular, it is very difficult to draw parallels between two phenomena of Russian music that present Scriabin and Shostakovich. It is possible to capture the «Fancy shade» of Khaèt under the influence of these same two composers. The Jewish intonations of his string «Quartet» suggest the possible absorption of Shostakovich's creative aesthetics. On the other hand, there are certain parallels between the symbolic elements and those of impressionism in the compositions of B. Khaèt. We can meet these same parallels between fabulous images by Prokofiev and Khaèt's music, as it is impossible not to remember there his overture to Jewish themes.
There is a superficial comparison of stylistic cues. His analysis reveals that Benjamin Khaèt does not aspire to a closed style space. In his creativity, he tried to assimilate everything, by his opinion, what was valuable and really accepted himself in contemporary music. At the same time, a selectivity testifies to the presence of a central criterion of his style. His position of his individual styles defines his creative position. Preference is given to everything emotional and vital. In these, the positive and offensive dynamism of the type dominates. The cold and transparent lyric refracts the external impression. This one paradoxically obtains its subtle nuances for their inner contemplation. Everything ecstatic and everything symbolic are considered by brutal and urban and are contemplated as certain non-viable music that slips episodically by the contrasting shadow of the negative character.
In general, the style of B. Khaèt's academic compositions reveals that the composer was avidly interested in all musical events, despite the fact that he was removed from the centers of active musical life. He was informed through all the directions of contemporary music. He correctly accepted the best composers of his time. The combination of physical remoteness and spiritual curiosity formulated the creative appearance of the composer. His synthetic polystylism has developed its principles which have been linked with the musical school of Russian composers. This was presented in the voices of his two great contemporaries - Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
As already mentioned, the entire vast creative heritage of the composer can be divided into three essential parts: 1) Non-academic works with their light genres, 2) some theatrical (applied) music and 3) academic compositions for several instruments. This separation is very conditional, just as the definition of its creative layers was formulated. In this essay, we will focus on his works of the academic character and the applied one that we can meet on his site. Unfortunately, many of the composer's works are completely lost (or their fate is unknown). Something has been preserved for the piano in the form of keyboards. Many of Khaèt's cyclical works have lost many pages of their scores which have disappeared. During his lifetime, only the «Sinfonietta» for string orchestra was recorded on an amateur tape recorder from a radio broadcast.
We can regret that the knowledge with the works of Benjamin (Veniamïn) Khaèt cannot be complete. Convincingly, his preserved scores testify to the magnitude of the gift of this same composer.
teacher and arranger: Underrated Master
The creativity of Benjamin Khaèt is probably unknown to a wide range of fans and connoisseurs of academic music. The fate of this composer was composed in such a way that, due to various reasons, he could not be at the center of the musical life of the USSR. The heyday of his work coincided with the epoch, when the mechanism for the construction of a new totalitarian state was launched, which broke several destinies of people, not counting their personal qualities, intelligence and creative talent. In this whirlwind of events, the Khaèt family has also been dragged along - with all the ensuing consequences. Their essential peculiarity (from the point of view of creative realization) reflected its isolation from the great cultural life. Precisely in many respects, this distance from the epicenter of musical events did not allow to actively participate in elite concerts. Fate did not allow this composer to find his listener to play, to be heard and to fully realize his creative power. Finally, this distance led to the fact that the composer's name and his music still remain almost unknown to the wide circle of music lovers.
In particular, I draw attention to the details of the composer's biography. Benjamin Khaèt was removed from active participation in concert life. He had to hide from the secret services and change several cities of his accommodation in the USSR in order to earn money on his living for composing his own music in provincial theaters. It is important to take these circumstances into account to understand the particularities of his music. On the one hand, we see a lot of his unfinished (or lost) works, sketches and drafts. Everything that was not embodied in his academic and instrumental genres is realized in his musical compositions for numerous shows. His musical pieces go far beyond purely theatrical music. Inside these, we feel the symphonic reflection, despite several restrictions of the instruments used by the composer; he was able to concentrate on all styles.
The stylistic diversity is one of the particularities of the creative heritage of Benjamin (Veniamïn) Khaèt. In this respect, he stands out from other composers and stands apart from all of them. Most of the composers of this period use certain stylistic specialization of their concrete genre, while each author works on the basis of traditional academic styles. The other composers approach modernism, or they dedicate their music to jazz and non-academic genres. On the fingers it is possible to calculate the limited quantity of omnivorous composers. There were not many people who enjoyed deserved respect in their academic environment. At the same time, if some composer was like, for example, Shostakovich or Prokofiev and tried to compose his music of genres unusual for himself, he would radically transform them and subordinate the mentioned genres to his own creative individuality and to his own style.
There is the other particularity which is more characteristic for the reflection of the composers of the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. It is clearly observed in the musical compositions of Benjamin Khaèt. Here we can meet samples of styles and those of genres that take their sources that are realized in his traditional romanticism, in his children's songs and in his jazz pieces. At the same time, Khaèt's works are rising towards their academic and complex compositions. Stylistically and aesthetically, his music comes into contact with the creativities of contemporary composers - Prokofiev, Hindemith, Bartók and Stravinsky. We will meet here everything except that works by an extreme modernist. What is most interesting is that Benjamin Khaèt uses different styles and genres. The composer feels completely free and confident; he does not break anything under himself. Fully, he accepts the conditions of the game and realizes his own creative individuality already within the framework of each concrete task.
The omnivorous diversity of styles could be explained through the need to work, in several theatrical genres, which requires the composer to possess the full range of stylistic diversities. The motivation is his feeling of a particular responsibility for his gift of writing his music of all genres. The composer's conscience accepts the need to polish this high compositional ability and his multilateral competence. This gift had to be embodied in his mastery, and that it possessed all the forms. It can be assumed that the inner imperative brought this composer to the musical theater, as to the place to realize his concepts different from his creativity.
From different angles, we can consider the stylistic omnivore of B. Khaèt. Obviously, he had an internal need to play and compose his music in different styles. He had the desire to express his distinct levels of musical expression. He united their elementary sensuality and their intellectual reflection. In other words, not all human melodies should be driven out of the realm of his creativity. The «lower» genres and «Academicism» should not oppose each other - they can get along well peacefully. Their connection and coincidence become the obvious confirmation of all the works of Benjamin Khaèt.
This creative position explains his interest in jazz (however, this can be considered through his interest in several new phenomena in creative music in general). This is the reason why his great legacy embraces the genres of songs. We must not forget about the artistic activities of Khaèt as well as the conductor. The composer brings his professional attitude to music from various stylistic directions.
There is a prerogative that determines the categories of the incarnations of the creative gift. In the same way, the composer's technical mastery is affected through his professionalism. This is its ability to achieve the maximum effect from its minimum sources. The preserved scores of B. Khaèt demonstrate the composer's professional competence, as he directed the orchestra of the peripheral theater. The number of its musicians was very limited, where amateurs participated. On the other hand, we can see that many fragments were written during the short term. Despite these same conditions, the orchestra sounds perfectly. To write music in this same way, you need to have a superior mastery of your profession as a composer (and conductor). Khaèt's music has the sharpening of his compositions. She reveals the precision of her texture, phrasing, her definition of voices and her harmony. All these same possibilities are reflected in his works which are academic. Benjamin Khaèt's music is comparable to the examples of outstanding composers like Prokofiev and Miaskovsky. It is understandable that this comparison is deficient, according to its very essence. But, by its musical quality, this parallelism is acceptable.
In applied and light genres, the composer focuses on the Western style. He manifests his creative individuality in his frame, where in the first place is his academic style. Individually, it is necessary to consider his instrumental compositions. It can be stated that in this area the main events of the creative activity of Benjamin Khaèt are reflected. Here the creative individuality of the composer appears in his nakedness. Its obtaining presents its results which are assimilated in the contemporary semantics of the musical language.
Above, I have already indicated the circle of composers with whom it is possible to discover certain stylistic links of Benjamin Khaèt. It is important not only to concretize these same links with one's ideals. It is necessary to try to determine the peculiarities of B. Khaèt's creativity that reflect his individual and his traits that distinguish him from all the mentioned composers. We will try to examine the specific works of B. Khaèt who are individual and distinctive, while their particularities never meet in the compositions of his symbolic ideals. We can detect most of the points of his contacts with the creativity of I. Stravinsky and, above all, with that of S. Prokofiev. Still, there are the stylistic links of B. Khaèt with some other composers of the early twentieth century. These are G. Popov, V. Schebalin, P. Hindemith, K. Debussy and B. Bartok. Generally, their relationships can be considered through the prism of the more direct influence of Stravinsky and that of Prokofiev on the music of Benjamin Khaèt. These influences are stylistically associated with the creativity of the listed composers only insofar as their works stylistically intersect with works by Prokofiev and with those of Stravinsky.
Analyzing the links of Khaèt's music with Stravinsky's creativity, I would like to emphasize the fact that their relations are not localized by a certain creative period of Stravinsky. But they manifest themselves quite unexpectedly in the combination of Stravinsky's Russian style and the neoclassical one. On the contrary, Khaèt's stylistic links with Prokofiev's music focus mainly on his second foreign period. Although there is a certain influence of the initial music of Prokofiev. Immediately it should be noted that such localization is very conditional. Stylistically, Benjamin Khaèt's music is not limited to the styles of the mentioned composers. Moreover, in the creative position of the composer, we can determine his desire to recycle, imaginatively, almost all the directions that were accepted by Benjamin Khaèt, excluding modernization and that of constructivism.
However, here we can see some selectivity, except the filtering of everything that was not close. In particular, it is very difficult to draw parallels between two phenomena of Russian music that present Scriabin and Shostakovich. It is possible to capture the «Fancy shade» of Khaèt under the influence of these same two composers. The Jewish intonations of his string «Quartet» suggest the possible absorption of Shostakovich's creative aesthetics. On the other hand, there are certain parallels between the symbolic elements and those of impressionism in the compositions of B. Khaèt. We can meet these same parallels between fabulous images by Prokofiev and Khaèt's music, as it is impossible not to remember there his overture to Jewish themes.
There is a superficial comparison of stylistic cues. His analysis reveals that Benjamin Khaèt does not aspire to a closed style space. In his creativity, he tried to assimilate everything, by his opinion, what was valuable and really accepted himself in contemporary music. At the same time, a selectivity testifies to the presence of a central criterion of his style. His position of his individual styles defines his creative position. Preference is given to everything emotional and vital. In these, the positive and offensive dynamism of the type dominates. The cold and transparent lyric refracts the external impression. This one paradoxically obtains its subtle nuances for their inner contemplation. Everything ecstatic and everything symbolic are considered by brutal and urban and are contemplated as certain non-viable music that slips episodically by the contrasting shadow of the negative character.
In general, the style of B. Khaèt's academic compositions reveals that the composer was avidly interested in all musical events, despite the fact that he was removed from the centers of active musical life. He was informed through all the directions of contemporary music. He correctly accepted the best composers of his time. The combination of physical remoteness and spiritual curiosity formulated the creative appearance of the composer. His synthetic polystylism has developed its principles which have been linked with the musical school of Russian composers. This was presented in the voices of his two great contemporaries - Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
As already mentioned, the entire vast creative heritage of the composer can be divided into three essential parts: 1) Non-academic works with their light genres, 2) some theatrical (applied) music and 3) academic compositions for several instruments. This separation is very conditional, just as the definition of its creative layers was formulated. In this essay, we will focus on his works of the academic character and the applied one that we can meet on his site. Unfortunately, many of the composer's works are completely lost (or their fate is unknown). Something has been preserved for the piano in the form of keyboards. Many of Khaèt's cyclical works have lost many pages of their scores which have disappeared. During his lifetime, only the «Sinfonietta» for string orchestra was recorded on an amateur tape recorder from a radio broadcast.
We can regret that the knowledge with the works of Benjamin (Veniamïn) Khaèt cannot be complete. Convincingly, his preserved scores testify to the magnitude of the gift of this same composer.