«Жёлтые звёзды»: память о Холокосте в музыкальном проекте Санкт-Петербургской филармонии

In the previous lectures, which made up the cycle “Classics of Russian Music of the 20th Century”, the works of Sergei Rachmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, Georgy Sviridov, Rodion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke were examined. Let us supplement this panorama with two final lectures: the first is intended to extend the range of composers’ names, the second will be devoted to an overview of 20th century music with an outlet into the universal space. As it is well-known, since the time of Peter the Great, who established St. Petersburg, two capitals coexisted in Russia, each of which possessed its own face and style, among other things, in the creation of music. By the end of the 19th century, two compositional schools had developed: the St. Petersburg school, the core of which was the “Mighty Handful”, and the Moscow school, headed by Piotr Tchaikovsky. During the 20th century, these schools continued their fruitful interaction. Among the names presented in the main sections of my lectures, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Shostakovich, Sviridov began their activities in St. Petersburg- Petrograd-Leningrad, and later they became Muscovites (except for Stravinsky, who lived abroad from the early 1910s). In the second half of the 20th century, the leaders of the musical process in Russia were the Moscow composers Rodion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke, along with whom many other names can be mentioned, including Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Vladimir Martynov. Representatives of the Leningrad school continued to make a significant contribution to the treasury of Russian music. The following short overviews of the works of Sergei Slonimsky and Valery Gavrilin will testify to this. In addition to the two capitals, composers from a number of other cities in Russia, primarily, those with conservatories, have worked tirelessly in the field of the art of music, which has significantly expanded the scale of the panorama of the musical art in our country — the creative heritage of Elena Gokhman is cited as a characteristic example.

The historical features of the playing of the flute group in the symphony orchestra, the ability of soloists-instrumentalists to be performers of a single group and a single whole among the large composition of members of the symphony orchestra are analyzed. The authors substantiate the expediency of the development of instrumental musicians first of all as orchestra players, and then as solo performers. The aim and the tasks: to analyze the historical development of the ensemble playing of the flute group as part of the symphony orchestra. The tasks of the research are the analysis of publications on this issue and the selection of the necessary components for playing a group of flutes in a symphony orchestra.Research methods: the research methodology consists of the ratio of traditional and modern expedient, ascent from individual to generalized (generalizing principle) from abstract to concrete. Research results: a wide range of research on the musical performance process from the New Age to the present is analyzed. Analysis of new modern concepts of training of instrumental musicians in institutions of higher education is carried out. The European search for new forms is characterized by the search for objective regularities in music education of past centuries, taking into account the modern demand for orchestra players on the European labor market. Discussion. What should come first in the training of an orchestra playerindividual classes or his training in a team. Conclusion. Thus, the analysis of the historical development of the ensemble playing of the flute group in the symphony orchestra allowed us to draw the following conclusions: during the reign of the classicism and romantic styles, an understanding of the necessary components for a symphony orchestra artist in the flute group was formed: a the component of pure vertical and horizontal intonation; a the component to feel the dynamic balance of all participants in the ensemble playing of the flute group as part of the symphony orchestra; a component of the timbre fusion of the flute group and full sounding in different registers; a component understanding in performing strokes in groups of flutes; a component of expressiveness and vivid phrasing of the ensemble playing of a group of flutes as part of a symphony orchestra; a component of metrorhythmic feeling in ensemble playing; a component of the collective understanding of style by a group of flautists in a symphony orchestra. All these components in their unity will allow the group of flutes to sound as a single harmonious whole.

“The musical legacy of Sergei Rachmaninoff” — this is the first lecture from the authorial cycle of Doctor of Arts, Professor Alexander Demchenko “The Classics of 20th Century Russian Music.” Its following sections will be dedicated to such composers as Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, Georgiy Sviridov, odion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke. The lecture is supposed to include listening to a number of musical fragments chosen to give a general perception of the range of the composer’s artistic explorations. The preferential performance versions and durations of the corresponding musical fragments are given. The publication of the lecture is addressed to students and faculty members of conservatories, artistic institutions of higher education, as well as music colleges and high schools.

The phrase “author’s speech” the most frequently uses in musicological texts without exact definition but rather as a metaphor. However, its senses are not clear enough. The correlation of original and “borrowed” elements in music work also needs clarification. The objective of this article is to analyze the role of the author’s and borrowed elements, as well as their impact on artistic value of musical work on the examples of creativity by the composers of the XX century. Some examples of the “author’s speech” do not show any problem, as we clearly feel, when exactly the author suggests his/her personal commentary to the “events” that were depicted before. Among these are the sorrow solos of wind instruments in the symphonies by Dmitry Shostakovich, which he usually introduced after tragic culminations or the D minor orchestral interlude before the last episode of “Wozzeck” by Alban Berg. The author himself characterizes this interlude as the “author’s speech” directed to the audience, which represents the humankind. However, episodes of similar character (author’s “direct speech”) are not obligatory in music. Huge number of works by Shostakovich, Berg and other authors does not include them. Certainly, this does not mean they lack the “author’s speech”. While identifying this element in the piece, it is important to reject the stereotype to bind it with slow music of certain character (meditative, melancholic, sorrow, festive, solemn, etc.). In the same time, although such connotations sometimes are working, the faster episodes of another nature, with thematic contrasts and intensive development, should not be associated only with dramatic quasi-theatrical action. The author cannot avoid various emotions (doubt, trouble, uncertainty, protest, searching for a decision, multivalency of reaction, and many others), which definitely will be reflected in his/her piece and will producing a music of very different kinds. If we consider the music work in technical aspects, we find the combination of individual and “borrowed” elements at all levels of the compositional structure. So, we may conclude the author’s individuality manifests itself everywhere, and the meditative episodes do not enjoy any priority in comparison to episodes of another figurative character and type of movement. “Suite in the old style” for violin and piano (harpsichord) by Alfred Schnittke is a good example of such practice. In his dialogues with Dmitry Shulgin Schnittke characterizes this work as total stylization, except several tiny details. Nevertheless, the analysis of the piece reveals the more serious personal contribution. In addition to found by the researcher Olena Vashchenko harmonic and melodic elements that have their origin rather in the 20th century, the present article shows similar content in formal structure of the Suite and in part-writing of its polyphonic movements. Individual style reveals also in Schnittke’s choice of certain elements of “old styles” and their combination with the 20th century musical writing. Why Schnittke ignored his real stylistic contribution and qualified his Suite lower than it deserved? The author of the article finds an explanation in the composer’s work of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Suite was composed. In those years, the main Schnittke’s phenomenon – poly-stylistic writing – was coined in such wide-scaled works as the First Symphony, Piano Quintet, Requiem and others. Being occupied by these works that indicate his personality much stronger, Schnittke mentions just that feature of Suite, which stayed in his conscious as dominant, exactly stylization, so the explanation may be found in psychological field. Totally stylized piece would never become so popular and beloved both by the performers and the public as the Suite does. There is no reason to play and listen to pure stylization, when it is possible to have dealing with an original work. A listener and a performer are attracted by the combination of the original and stylized elements in the Suite, their interaction and flexible transition of one into other. This may be called as “modernized antiquity”. Due to this feature, the piece stays one of the most popular and wellknown works of the composer. Conclusion. The importance of the original and “borrowed” elements does not depend directly on the quantity of these elements and even on the ratio between them. The author’s individuality may show itself in various aspects in the context of the dominating stylization. The creative power of the author depends, first of all, on the strength of the author’s personality and his/her ability to adapt somebody else’s achievements to his/her own tasks, to fill them with new content and to create a new context for them. In case of a positive answers to these challenges the author gets the ability to utilize somebody else’s idiom similar to his/her own, and a listener, a performer and a researcher get a reason to refresh in memory the poetic prophesy by Osip Mandelstam: “… and will again the skald create somebody else’s song, and he will utter her as if it will his own”.

The purpose of this critical commentary is to explore the concept of the composerperformer relationship. In order to do so, it will consider some famous composer-violinist partnerships, which have produced repertoire reflecting both musicians’ contribution - Johannes Brahms and Josef Joachim, Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrakh, and Alfred Schnittke and Gidon Kremer. In addition, the commentary also seeks to ground itself in my own experience, and document the process of commissioning and performing a solo work for violin. It explores the relationship between composer Joseph Twist and myself as a violinist, specifically relating to the work performed in my final recital in March 2005, and allows me to experience first hand the composer-performer dynamic and compare my experience with those I have researched.

The lectures on 20th century Russian music published in previous issues of our magazine were devoted to the work of such outstanding composers as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Georgy Sviridov, Rodion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke. In the last of the published lectures brief sketches on the music of Sergei Slonimsky, Valery Gavrilin and Elena Gokhman were presented. Completing this cycle of lectures, we shall give a general overview of the art of music of the previous century, which is examined on the basis of choral music and in the successive evolutionary movement of three periods. The beginning of the 20th century (the period between the 1890s and the 1920s) was a time of both gradual and abrupt transition from classics to modernity. During these decades the classical arts went through a period of gradual fading. Modern art asserted itself in all sorts of forms of pivotal renewal of all aesthetic and technical foundations, which received its extreme expression in the phenomenon of avant-garde art. The middle of the century (from the 1930s to the 1950s) was in no small measure opposed to the attitudes of the beginning of the century. In this time period it was dominated by a desire for orderliness and balance, for clarity and intelligibility, to the extent that this was possible in the highly contradictory reality of the 20th century, which was accompanied by a clearing and enlightenment of the musical style, as well as a return to tradition. In turn, the second half of the century (from the 1960s to the 1980s) in many respects opposed itself to the previous period with the processes of rapid modernization of composers’ thinking, intense artistic exploration and unrestrained experimentation, which resulted in an extremely representative movement, which began to be called the second avant-garde (in contrast from the first or early avant-garde which emerged at the beginning of the century). A radical renewal of artistic matter found itself in the mass of all kinds of inventions and sound techniques.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) were three of the most important avant-garde Russian composers of the twentieth century. Even though their music shares a number of important traits, their work also reflects very individualized and distinct compositional styles. This study illustrates the similarities in their approach and the contrasting elements present in three selected pieces: Stravinsky´s Suite Italienne for Violin and Piano (1933), Shostakovich’s Violin Sonata in G Major, Op. 134 (1968), and Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style for Violin and Piano (Harpsichord) (1972). The study disseminates Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Schnittke’s musical influences in these works, focusing particularly in the use of baroque elements by tracing a number of important aspects from their backgrounds. In addition, a chronological outline of compositions containing baroque elements is provided. Finally, this research examines stylistic traits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the three selected compositions: Suite Italienne, Violin Sonata, Op. 134, and Suite in the Old Style.

This study identifies women in the United States who were trained in the classical tradition and chose to perform trumpet professionally as their full-time career choice during the period of the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Although many classically-trained female trumpet players have developed successful professional careers in the genres of jazz and commercial music, specific focus for this study is on classical solo and chamber artists, members of full-time professional symphony orchestras, and members of professional bands. It examines the performance opportunities that were available to female trumpeters, the music they performed, and whether or not they encountered particular challenges arising from their attempts to succeed professionally in a discipline mostly dominated by men. Chapter Two (Brass Bands and the Golden Age of Cornet) discusses the opportunities created by the professional band movement, which allowed women to perform as section players and also as featured cornet soloists. Chapter Three (Women's Ensembles and the Transition from Cornet to Trumpet) focuses on the development of the orchestra and the initiative taken by women in creating their own ensembles. Chapter Four (New Opportunities Resulting from World War II) examines the performance opportunities for women created by men leaving their positions to serve in the armed forces. Chapter Five (Women in Major Symphony Orchestras) examines the initial acceptance of female trumpeters into the major professional symphonies. Appendix A is a list of women who obtained positions in symphony orchestras, and Appendix C provides transcripts of interviews with select orchestral and solo performers: Barbara Butler, Joyce Johnson-Hamilton, Susan Slaughter, and Marie Speziale.

Alfred Schnittke’s Symphony No. 2, “St. Florian”, for soloists, mixed choir, and symphony orchestra, written in honour of Anton Bruckner and premiered on 23 April 1980 in London by Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, is one of the crucial works for understanding the spiritual side of Schnittke’s oeuvre. Aside from being an expression of Schnittke’s personal spiritual quest, the Symphony No. 2, completed a few years before his baptism, was also part of a broader trend in late Soviet music, namely a fascination with religious and/or mystical topoi. The lack of analytical interest is quite surprising, because Schnittke himself emphasised that the image of the crucifix determined the form and content of the entire work.

The article examines the activities of the Musical Classes of the Rostov and Novocherkassk Sections of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) from the perspective of the role of practical music-making in acquiring knowledge of the art of music. The statistics of the student concerts is brought in, the consistency in their organization is marked, on the basis of which the conclusion is arrived at that the main particular feature of the Musical Classes affiliated with the IRMS was the practical orientation of the instruction. Various forms of music-making are examined: solo performances, as well as those as part of ensembles and symphony orchestras. The repertoires of the student concerts were comprised predominantly of works by the composers of the Classical-Romantic period. The program of the student chamber ensemble morning and evening concerts were distinguished by the diversity of their programing, their cognitive constituent, as a rule, was connected with a panorama of names, genres and forms. The programs of the student orchestral concerts are perceived to have been more organic in their constituency. They were also frequently comprised according to the principle of contrast. Of great significance were the student opera productions. As the result of active work of the Opera Classes of the IRMS, the students mastered in a practical way large strata of Western European and Russian opera classics. In the general educational process a significant role was also played by the “adult” concerts, especially in such formats as monographic and historical concerts, as well as concert-lectures. Keywords: musical education, the musical life of Rostov, the musical life of Novocherkassk, student concerts.

The metropolis offered a cornucopia of musical entertainment to well-to-do members of English society. Such large-scale musical organizations as the King’s Theatre, Ancient Concerts, and the Philharmonic Society were com plemented by the smaller-scale ventures of individual and collective musicians. Among these were benefit concerts put on by solo performers in pursuit of per sonal profit; charitable music-making, such as for the Adult Orphans’ Institution; the concerts of the Royal Academy of Music; the Vocal, City, and Amateur, concerts; and, in addition, the other subscription concerts and private music-making that went on in the homes of the wealthy. Since Dragonetti spent such a long period in England, changes inevitably took place in musical taste and expectation during his time. In his early years, the impact of Haydn’s visits and the predilection for virtuosity were very strong. The taste for virtuosity moved from a diversity of instruments to focus mainly on pianos and vio lins in the last thirty years of Dragonetti’s life. A corresponding shift towards chamber music echoed this changing fashion.

Relevance of the research. The music art of Zaporizhzhia region of the period is an interesting, diversified and complex phenomenon of the contemporary Ukrainian culture with its regional specific character. Despite the significant increase in the research interest in music regionalism of Ukrainian musicology the study of music art in Zaporizhzhia region has many unexplored issues.The aim of the studyis to represent the main performance ensembles of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Philharmonic Society, which have been functioning in this institution for many years. The paper intends to describe the genesis and development of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Philharmonic Society as a regional art centre, to display the formation process of the main performance ensembles of the Philharmonic Society and to demonstrate their significance in the light of the professional academic music development in Zaporizhzhia and Ukraine.Research methodology. The author applies the principles of historicism, source studies, and archival documentary to study the music culture in connection with historical, socio-political and cultural phenomena in their cause-effect interaction. In addition, the methods of retrospect, structural and system analysis, interpretation of factual material, and generalization are involved.Results. The author defines the mainstreams and achievements of the performance ensembles of the Zaporizhzhia Philharmonic Society in the development of professional music art of the region. The study demonstrates that professional academic music art in Zaporizhzhia has been formed at the turn of the 1930s-40s with the opening of a regional Philharmonic Society in the city. As the main centre of academic music art in the region, the Zaporizhzhia Philharmonic Society organized a number of large performance ensembles in its structure representing the main genres of professional music activities, in particular: vocal and choral, orchestra and symphonic, folk ensembles, variety and jazz and others. The author concludes thatthe musicians of the Zaporizhzhia Philharmonic Society have achieved significant results and wide audience recognition. This is confirmed by the number of concerts, foreign tours and performances at the well-known festivals; close collaboration with many world leading musicians; the recognition of the musicians of the Philharmonic Society by the national and international music critics and the press.Novelty.The paper presents an attempt to systematize factual material in the making of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Philharmonic Society as an important art centre of the south of Ukraine.The practical significance. The material of the article can be used for teaching the courses “Music Local History”, “History of National Performing Arts”, etc., as well as for further studying of music regionalism, in particular, the music art of the Zaporizhzhia region.

Directions of concertmaster activity of Oleksandr Nazarenko

The article offers a detailed overview of the historical path of development of performance on percussion musical instruments, starting from their original functions in ritual rites and ending with the formation of modern academic status, including various musical and stylistic trends. The study covers a wide chronological period, allowing us to trace how the perception of percussion instruments in society and musical art gradually changed. The influence of different cultures on the development of performance on percussion instruments is studied. The evolution of technical techniques of playing percussion instruments is analyzed, noting how rhythmic patterns, dynamic nuances, and technical capabilities of performers became more complicated with the development of music. Special attention is paid to the development of the repertoire for percussion instruments. An important aspect of the research is the analysis of the organization of learning to play percussion instruments. The author traces how teaching methods changed, new teaching aids were developed, and special educational institutions were created to train professional drummers. The article also highlights the key stages of recognition of percussion instruments as an integral part of orchestral and solo performance. Issues such as the inclusion of percussion instruments in a symphony orchestra, the development of a solo repertoire for percussionists, as well as the emergence of new genres of music in which percussion instruments play a leading role, are considered. Based on the conducted research, the author emphasizes the importance of percussion instruments in modern musical culture. Percussion instruments have become a universal means of musical expression, capable of conveying a wide range of emotions and creating various sound images. They have found wide application in various musical styles, from classical music to jazz, rock and electronic music. Percussion instruments have demonstrated their ability to adapt to ever-changing musical conditions. They became carriers of new sound ideas, expanded the possibilities of musical expressiveness and enriched the sound palette of modern music.

SEER, 95, 3, JULY 2017 544 discussions of the post-1932 era benefit greatly from ideas that Clark explored in her book, which provides a more interdisciplinary prism through which to examine Soviet musical life. A similar trope, this time referring to Clark’s other seminal work, Petersburg: Crucible of Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1998), would have enriched the book’s overview of 1920s musical culture, particularly given Fairclough’s valuable observation with regard to the importance of Marxist-Leninist historiography for the selection process of Western culture in the early Soviet years (p. 27). Parallels with theatre might also have proved useful for another important episode in the book, concerning the appearance of numerous amateur music groups and composer societies in the 1920s and their subsequent fates (pp. 40–41). The great volume of the research material that provides the building blocks for thisstudyisbothavirtueandadrawback.Thehugenumberofpropernamesand specialist or untranslated Russian terms — such as chastushki and khaltura — might prove off-putting for the non-expert reader. Nor is the inner organization of the chapters always convincing. A number of glaring contradictions — as, for example, regarding the dates of activity of the Leningrad Radio Committee Orchestra during the blockade (p. 176) — suggest a lack of careful copy-editing. There are also some frustrating aspects with regard to referencing the precious archival material; for instance, during the discussion of ticket prices it is not obvious where the information is derived from (p. 41). Even so, Fairclough’s book is a revealing and much-needed study that fills a major lacuna in Soviet music scholarship, providing new perceptions of Soviet musical policies and the mechanisms at work in their implementation. That it appears almost simultaneously with Marina Raku’s study indicates that the subject matter is timely. And one incidental pleasure at the time of writing is to see the term ‘vetting’ used in a scholarly context rather than an ugly political one. Department of Music, Université Paris Sorbonne; Michelle Assay Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies University of Sheffield Dixon, Gavin (ed.). Schnittke Studies. Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2017. xxvii + 273 pp. Figures. Music examples. Notes. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. £95.00. Alfred Schnittke (1934–98), widely regarded as the leading Russian composer after Shostakovich, has a particular association with Great Britain; several of his works received first performances in London, and Alexander Ivashkin(1948–2014),thecharismaticprofessorofRussianmusicatGoldsmiths REVIEWS 545 College, pioneered study of his work and brought a large part of his archive to this country, so that it is entirely appropriate that the collection of essays under review is dedicated to his memory. The first part of Dixon’s preface is a generous tribute to his work, and the final chapter in the book is the dedicatee’s last contribution to Shnittke studies, a very personal piece, ‘The Shnittke Code’ particularly as demonstrated in ‘Klingende Buchstaben’, one of several pieces he dedicated to Ivashkin. The central part of the book is divided into three sections: ‘Interpretative Studies’, ‘Theoretical Studies’ and ‘Russian Perspectives’. Ivana Medić in ‘“Crucifixus etiam pro nobis”: Representations of the Cross in Alfred Schnittke’s SymphonyNo.2,“St.Florian”’demonstratesbyuseofmaterialfromsketchesand drafts of this work Schnittke’s continuation of the practice of J. S. Bach in musical representations of the cross. Emilia Ismael-Simental in ‘Alfred Schnittke and the Znamennyi raspev’ traces with great thoroughness the elements of traditional Orthodox church music in many works, including those that introduce the form of the ancient chant in vocal and purely orchestral passages. A quite different treatment of religion is discussed in Amrei Flechsig’s ‘Negative Spirituality and the Inversion of Christianity as Media of Social Criticism in Alfred Shnittke’s Opera Life with an Idiot’; finally, in the first part is Gavin Dixon’s own fruitful discussion of one of this composer’s best-known features, polystylism, treating it with the help of literary theory, particularly dialogue in Bakhtinian form: ‘Polystylism as Dialogue: Interpreting Schnittke through Bakhtin’, makes particular reference to the composer’s Piano Quartet (1988). The theoretical studies of part two begin with Gordon E. Marsh’s ‘Schnittke’s Polystylistic Schemata: Textural Progression in the Concerti Grossi’, in which he argues that what is sometimes seen as randomly open in...