Kapellmeister’s activity of J. Jurjāns in musical life of Kharkiv at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to clarify the specifics and role of J. Jurijāns’ kapellmeister’s activity in the musical life of Kharkiv at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries.
 The methodology of the research is based on a combination of historical, systematic and art-historical approaches, empirical and comparative methods of analysis, the application of which ensures the determination of the specifics and role of the kapellmeister’s activity of J. Jurijāns in the musical life of Kharkiv at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries.
 The scientific novelty lies in the introduction into the scientific circulation of art history of little-known, previously undisclosed facts from the musical history of Kharkiv, which highlight the specifics of J. Jurijāns’ professional self-realization as one of the adepts of academic musical art within the framework of his kapellmeister’s activitiy.
 Conclusions. In the course of the research, it was found out that J. Jurijāns’ carried out his kapellmeister’s activities in Kharkiv from 1890 to 1906 striving for professional self-realization. Having started this path by working with an amateur children’s wind orchestra, the musician then professionalized to lead the wind orchestra of the students of KhMU; the next step was to work out the specifics of leading a symphony orchestra, first with an amateur team and, finally, with a daily practicing orchestra of professional musicians. The specified professionalization was carried out in the context of J. Jurijāns’ development of the kapellmeister’s functions: organizational (selection of talented children, then professional musicians, to the orchestra, solving issues of the rehearsal process and concert practice), pedagogical (preparing children to play in the orchestra), educational (instilling a culture of learning highly artistic repertoire based on the ideological foundations of academic music), repertoire creator (implementation of repertoire policy based on public reproduction of academic music), performing and conducting (direct management of the process of music reproduction during concert performances). The influence of J. Jurijāns’ kapellmeister’s activity can be traced in the context: the spread of musical professionalism in the amateur environment of Kharkiv, its use in KhMU as a type of performance practice of the wind orchestra, the successful continuation of the tradition of summer symphony concerts in the city as an artistic phenomenon.