Persimfans was a conductorless orchestra in Moscow in the Soviet Union that was founded by Lev Tseitlin (or Zeitlin) and existed between 1922 and 1932.
Lev Zeitlin was concertmaster in Serge Koussevitzky’s orchestra (1908-1917); after this disbanded in 1920 he became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, also playing with colleagues at the Bolshoi Theater.
[1][2] In 1922, influenced by the Bolshevik idea of collective labour, he proposed the creation of an orchestra that would work without a conductor, relying on the creative initiative of each of the musicians.
[1] Rehearsals took place around the musicians’ full-time work – early in the morning, during lunch breaks, etc – and concerts on Mondays, because this was when the theatre was closed.
[4] The absence of a conductor was partly compensated for by the concertmaster being able to give clear cues to all the players; some accounts suggest he might sometimes have been seated on a raised platform for greater visibility.
Fifteen rehearsals to play a famous program from Beethoven...[13]Otto Klemperer joked, after a performance of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony by Persimfans, "if things continue like this, we conductors will soon have to look for another calling.
"[14] Darius Milhaud, who visited the USSR on tour in the spring of 1926, recalled in his memoirs that the orchestra was a complete success, but it was only an experiment based on a political idea: "A conductor would undoubtedly have achieved the same results and, one must assume, much faster.”[15] Sergei Prokofiev was invited back from exile abroad to play two concerts with Persimfans in January 1927.
Here the players are very conscientious, play by nature musically and with great concentration; all dynamics and nuances are precisely observed.
On the orchestra’s 5th anniversary in 1927, he awarded the ensemble the honorary title of Honoured Collective of the Republic, together with a large cash prize.
Trotsky’s fall from favour created further difficulties, as his sister Olga Kameneva was head of the "Society of Friends of Persimfans".
More generally, the word Persimfans acquired a negative, ironic meaning in the Russian language as a symbol of anarchy and inconsistency.
[21] In 2008, a contemporary revival of Persimfans was created by Konstantin Dudalov-Kashuro, Peter Aidu and Gregory Krotenko under the aegis of the Moscow School of Dramatic Art's Music Laboratory.