Music to metalcasting's ears. (Shakeout).

While many metalcasters would say that the sounds of a foundry are music to their ears," few outside of the industry would concur. However, not only have the sounds of a foundry been put to music, they represent a pioneering moment in musical modernism. Russian composer Alexander Mosolov (1900-73) is best known for his composition Zavod, which translated into English is "The Iron Foundry." The piece, which was first heard as part of Mosolov's ballet Stal ("Steel") and intended as a glorification of the new Soviet industrialization program, was the first orchestral composition designed to convey mechanization in musical language.

Mosolov attended the Moscow Conservatory where he studied piano with Grigorij Prokofiev and composition with Nikolaj Mjaskovskij. At the age of 25, he joined the Assn. for Contemporary Music and became its director of chamber music. During the 1920s, Mosolov's compositional output was prolific, including orchestral works, a-symphony, two operas, numerous pieces of chamber music, and sonatas and nocturnes for piano.

His defining composition, "The Iron Foundry," written in 1928, split critics of the day, who either lauded it for its experimentation and sound or condemned it for bringing industry into the concert hall. The pounding, onomatopoeic machine-rhythms of the piece and his use of a metal sheet to simulate the sounds of clashing iron and steel earned him notoriety, but caused him great political strife.

In 1934, the government dissolved the Assn. for Contemporary Music and Mosolov was denounced as a counter-revolutionary by the Russian Union of Proletarian Musicians. In order to continue composing, Mosolov was forced to adopt a more conservative style influenced by Russian and Asian folksongs.

Even after his death in 1973, official condemnation of his early work was not tempered. As late as 1985, the Soviet Composers Union refused to grant permission to his piano concertos in East Germany.