Chuvash gusli in the scientific heritage of V.A.Moshkov

Abstract

The subject of the study was instrumental music of the Chuvash and wider – instrumental gusel tradition of the Volga region. The object of the research is the work on the music of the peoples of the Volga region by the scientist-ethnographer of the XIX century V.A.Moshkov "Melodies of the Volga-Kamya" (1894), the first serious study and musical-theoretical monograph on the traditional music of the peoples of the Volga region. Applying the method of performing approbation, the author for the first time gives instrumental comments on the materials, explores the notation and the structure of the gusli, as a result of which the important role of the positional thinking of the musician is revealed - an aspect that regulates the key parameters of the performing process and plays an essential role in the instrumental music of the peoples of the Volga region.   The scientific novelty of the article lies in the instrumental analysis, applied for the first time to the notes of V.A. Moshkov, which had not previously been subjected to the performing-approbation method of research and affecting the most important elements of music - the features of instrument tuning and notation of the playing. The study of the problem of matching the structure of the instrument to the recorded playing is one of the most pressing questions of the researcher when trying to reproduce notations, the further alignment of the entire performing body of notation - fingering, agogics, textural accompaniment, strokes and ultimately the structure of the playing depends on it. Having examined Moshkov's materials, the author of the article discovers identical elements of performing culture in the Mari tradition, geographically and historically existing in the neighborhood of the Chuvash ethnos, which confirms the general opinion of researchers about the Volga-Kamya region as a multiethnic space of "mosaic" cultural elements, a unique combination of which constitutes the identity of each tradition.