Russian Music Research Articles

Развитие российской музыкально-образовательной школы в странах Северной и Южной Америки после революции 1917 г.

Развитие российской музыкально-образовательной школы в странах Северной и Южной Америки после революции 1917 г.

Urbanisation as a factor of diversification of the Russian musical vocational education at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries (in terms of the Povolzhye)

The article analyses the features of the diversification of musical vocational education in the region of Povolzhye at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries as a result of the process of urbanisation. The paper presents evidence that as a result of industrial development and an increase in urban population, there was a need for skilled music professionals. At the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries, thanks to the activities of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, an extensive network of musical educational institutions appeared in the region of Povolzhye, musical vocational education would start to include several levels (music classes – music schools – conservatoire). Against the background of changes in the social composition of cities, the content of music vocational education would be transformed, with the range of musical specialties expanding, new forms and methods of teaching and education emerging. The study stressed the importance of using historical experience to improve the Russian system of training practitioners at the present stage.

Альбан Берг. «Дневник» поездки в Ленинград (по материалам записных книжек композитора)

The article is based on previously unpublished archival materials from the Alban Berg Foundation of the Austrian National Library. These are, namely, the composer’s notebooks with his account of the trip to Leningrad to the premiere of the opera Wozzeck in June 1927. The article features facsimiles, transcriptions, and translations of some materials as well as their general description. The jewel of the collection is the notebook that Berg took with him on his trip to Leningrad. It resembles a diary with a detailed account of the trip to Leningrad and back. Inter alia, it describes what Berg did on each of the five days of his stay in Russia and provides a record of cash payments in several currencies. Besides, the new materials reveal that Berg visited a rehearsal and two performances at MALEGOT (now know as the Mikhailovsky Theatre), a performance at the Moscow Art Theater, and one dress rehearsal of Wozzeck. The notebook contains information about the meetings with stage directors N. Smolich and J. Lapitsky, conductor N. Malko, and members of the ASM Leningrad (Association for Contemporary Music). The records also feature numerous addresses of Moscow musicians. The new materials complement the available information on the plans for the production of Wozzeck in other cities and theaters, primarily in the Bolshoi. They also provide a broader context for interpreting the little that is available about Berg’s trip in his letters and interviews. Another notebook, used by Berg on his return from Leningrad, documents the beginning of correspondence with Russian counterparts, much of which is poorly-preserved. It also provides information about translation of Russian reviews through Universal Edition and sheet music sent to Russian musicians. The documents featured in the article shed light and provide important details of Berg’s visit to Leningrad; they contribute to our understanding of relations between Russia and Austria of that time and open up new vistas for archival research.

Российский музыкант Иоганн Леопольд Фукс (1783-1853): взгляд современного исследователя

The article focuses on Johann Leopold Fuchs – a distinguished, but undeservedly forgotten Russian musician of the first half of the 19th century. A native of Germany, who spent more than 50 years in Russia, he considered it to be his second homeland and “wanted to be helpful mainly to Russian artists.” Fuchs proved himself as a talented teacher, composer and author of music theory manuals. He taught such outstanding musicians, composers and music educators as M. Glinka, F. Tolstoy, M. Rezvoy, Y. Arnold, and M. Vielgorsky. Fuchs is the author of the first composition guide “A Practical Guide to Music Composition” (1830). Published in Russia, the work, due to its Russian translation, was a great contribution to the development of Russian-language terminology of music theory. In Russia, life and career of J.L. Fuchs remain little studied. An illustrative example is the incorrect information about his date and place of birth found in the Encyclopedia of Music. Until recently, nothing was known about the musician’s life. However, a thorough investigation carried out by a German researcher Robert Weissmann has made a difference. The article is the first attempt to introduce the evidence found by Weissmann into the Russian-language academic discourse. Together with the materials obtained by the author of the article, it helps bring a new, broader focus on the personality of the outstanding musician, as well as to highlight the dramatic impact Fuchs made on Russian music culture of the first half of the 19th century.

Визуализация музыки как способ функционирования современного произведения: Эдисон Денисов, «Три картины Пауля Клее»

This publication presents informational and analytic materials to a class in 7th grade of children’s music schools with commentaries and elucidations of the artistic style of German artist Paul Klee and the personal perspective of his art works by 20th century Russian composer. Examination is made of the questions of visualization as a means of impact on the perception of a contemporary classical musical composition. The central portion of the class material is taken up by an analysis of Klee’s works (the visual element) and the analysis of the musical score of Denisov’s cycle. The musical score and the illustrations of the artist’s works are projected on the screen, and the musical fl ow is superimposed on the visual depiction. Thereby, the content of Denisov’s chamber cycle is comprehended in interconnection with and through the components of the visual means of the composition’s functioning. As the result of the attempt of a synthetic perception of art, the visual element provides essential help in providing instruction at the elementary stage of musical education. The choice of the composition is stipulated by the revised content of the 7th grade textbook for children’s music schools by Olga Averyanova “Otechestvennaya muzyka XX veka” [“20th Century Russian Music”, Moscow, 2014]. The article suggests a consistent and interdependent examinations of the parameters of connections between music and painting and their refl ection in the individual, sonorous fl ow of the musical composition

Творчество С.В. Рахманинова

“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.

Императорское Русское музыкальное общество в Крыму. К изучению деятельности

The article examines the situation which developed towards the present time in research of the respective Sections of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) which emerged in the pre-revolutionary period in Crimea: Yalta (1905), Kerch (1905) and Simferopol (1908). The topicality of setting of the problem connected with the absence of specialized research of the Crimean sections of the IRMS, while the formation of the metropolitan and other regional sections of the Society has been studied in sufficient detail by Russian musicologists, culturologists and local history experts. The author of the article evaluates the contemporary situation: Russian scholars have created an overall methodology of research of such phenomena, having elaborated the necessary approaches towards integral cognition of those significant phenomena of the past as dynamic transition toward professional academic musical life and education within the framework of the entire Russian Empire. The existent results are shown on concrete examples, especially within the sphere of study of the activities of the IRMS in Yalta. However, the reason for the belated establishment in Crimea of the respective sections of the IRMS have not been disclosed. The description of the musical performance life of Simferopol and the utter absence of scholarly information on the Kerch Section of the IRMS calls for an activation of research by representatives of humanitarian knowledge.

Императорское Русское музыкальное общество и становление российского вокального образования

The article is devoted to the role of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) in the process of formation of Russian vocal education. As a result of the Society’s work, the art of Russian singing became established onto a sturdy systemic basis and acquired high professional orientation directed at the time of the Rubinstein brothers. Some of the results of these activities became visible in the first decade of the existence of the conservatories in St. Petersburg and Moscow. However, they revealed themselves especially distinctively at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries, when the general standard in academic singing became quite high. Moreover, this pertained not only to opera, but also to the chambersinging genre, which found its confirmation on an official governmental level. The archival materials demonstrate that one of the most crucial roles in this work belongs to the Imperial Russian Musical Society. As the result of its highly developed regional infrastructure it made musical and, in particular, vocal education accessible for the broadest strata of the population. In the long run, this would necessarily affect the formation of the national school of performance, a gradual rise of the overall level of professional singing culture, which reached its peak at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. In such a context the significance of the Imperial Russian Musical Society in the act of formation of Russian vocal education cannot be overestimated.

Любительское фортепианное музицирование и Уфимское отделение Императорского Русского музыкального общества

The geographic position of Ufa, which in the early 19th century was a deep province, was not conducive to the development of musical culture. However, we must consider as an important element in its formation the active spread of household music-making and the wish of amateurs to participate in the city’s concert life. The “Society for Singing, Music and the Art of Drama” was founded in 1885 in Ufa following the wishes of the city residents. The twenty-year-long existence of the Society has left a considerable trace in the development of musical education and the exposure of the public to the academic genres of the art of piano performance; it played a significant role in the development of musical literacy and the musical hearing of the residents of Ufa. In virtue of a number of existing social reasons the Society was closed down, but following the request of the most educated part of the local nobility and intelligentsia the Ufa Section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS). Having existed for only a few years, until the revolution of 1917, it was able to lead the art of music to a new, higher level. Professionals with a higher musical education were conducive to the further expansion of promotion of music with their concert performances and teaching lessons in the musical classes and enhanced the development of the art of professional music in Bashkiria.

The Moscow Section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society and the Concert Agencies Outside of Russia

The article poses a scholarly issue, which has not yet found reflection in musicology in Russia and in other countries: the issue of the interaction of Russian and Western European musical culture in the focus of the collaboration of the Moscow Section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) with concert agencies in other countries. A broad overview of the present phenomenon, based on study of printed and manuscript documents from the funds of the Russian National Museum of Music and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art is offered. The emergence of the phenomenon of specialized concert agencies in Europe dates back to the 1870s and the 1880s. The period of the most fruitful interaction between the Moscow Section of the IRMS and concert directorates in other countries, especially, the most large-scale concert agency of the final fourth of the 19th and the first third of the 20th centuries, the Concert Directorate of Hermann Wolff, occurred during the years 1890–1913. In connection with the toughening competition between the orchestral assemblies of the RMS in Moscow and concerts of other philharmonic organizations, the head of the Moscow directorate Vassily Safonov established a stable business relationship with his partners in concert management abroad, which subsequently expanded and solidified, which eventually led to the intensification of connections between Russian musicians and those of other countries. The outlined scholarly direction discloses new perspectives for study of the phenomenon of the musical culture of the Silver Age. Keywords: Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS), the musical life of Moscow, concert management, Vassily Safonov, the Concert Direction of Hermann Wolff.

The Innovations of the Imperial Russian Musical Society of the Second Half of the 19th Century: The Dialogue between the Government and the Musical Community

The Innovations of the Imperial Russian Musical Society of the Second Half of the 19th Century: The Dialogue between the Government and the Musical Community

От регионального отделения Императорского Русского музыкального общества к консерватории: становление профессионального музыкального образования в Нижнем Новгороде

The article is devoted to study of the main stages of formation of the tradition of professional musical education in Nizhny Novgorod. Definition is given to the key factors which conditioned the establishment in 1873 of the Nizhny Novgorod Section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) and specified the directions of its activities. The essential specific features of the founding in 1907 of a Musical College in the city and the enlightening activities of its employees and students are demonstrated. The most significant premises are brought to light, as is the argumentation of the necessity of the establishment in 1946 of the Conservatory, which has become a contemporary center of academic musical culture in the region. Basing themselves on archival sources, as well as on publications of recent years, the authors come to conclusions about the connection of recurrent and random factors, which determined the particularities of the formation of the Nizhny Novgorod musical enlightenment. Argumentation is given to the decisive significance in the given process of collaboration of professional musicians, musically gifted Nizhny Novgorod residents, as well as patrons. The present unity turned out to be decisive not only in the strengthening of positions in education, but also in the activation of the spheres of concert enlightenment, musical criticism and musical scholarship. In conclusion, substantiation is given to the necessity of further search for historical testimonies and their description with the aim of reconstruction of an integral model of development of musical education in Nizhny Novgorod. Keywords: The Nizhny Novgorod Section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, Musical College, conservatory, professional musical education, musical enlightenment.

The Moscow Conservatory: From the Russian Musical Society to the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment

The history of the Moscow Conservatory has been actively researched, however, many themes and subjects from its past have remained insufficiently studied up to the present time. Among them are the activities of the Conservatory during its first post-revolutionary years, in particular, the procedure of its nationalization and transferal from subservience to the Russian Musical Society (RMS) to the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros). It becomes possible to fill in the indicated gap by means of turning to archival sources, which bear witness that in mid-1918 the Narkompros prepared the project of a special decree about the separation of the conservatories of the two capital cities from the RMS and their transferal to the Narkompros. This project was examined and affirmed with a few minor changes at the session of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR on July 12, 1918. The “Decree Concerning the Moscow and Petrograd Conservatories” proclaimed these educational institutions as belonging to the state, equal in their status to institutions of higher education. After this decree was issued, a specially created commission of representatives of the RMS, the Narkompros, its Music Section and the Moscow Conservatory carried out the acceptance and transferal of the Conservatory from one department to the other. The Narkompros, and from it the Conservatory, received from the RMS financial means, the building with the concert halls, the musical instruments present in it, various other property and the inventory. From the 1918–1919 academic year the Conservatory gradually began to witness transformations taking place in it along the vein of establishment of the cultural and educational polity of the Soviet regime. Keywords: Russian Musical Society (RMS), People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment, the Moscow Conservatory.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Russian Musical Society. The Creative Aspect of Interaction

The present work is devoted to the little researched influence of the Russian Musical Society (RMS) on the artistic activities of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Examination is made of composer’s original musical works performed in the concerts of the Russian Musical Society, as well as his orchestrations, which are viewed for the first time in the historical realities of the life of the Society and the artistic priorities of this organization. The fact of regular performances of the composer’s music in the Society’s concerts is presented as a manifestation of the realization of one of the crucial positions of the Statute of the RMS. The other position of this document substantiates the monetary payments to Tchaikovsky for the first performances of his compositions in the Society’s concerts. The special attention which the RMS gave to the composers’ works in the orchestral genre is highlighted and explained. Four compositions by Tchaikovsky connected with orchestrations of works by other composers are illuminated in detail. It is demonstrated on the basis of analysis of these works that by means of the choice of a particular instrumental range of the orchestra and the use of particular techniques of orchestration, in each of the four cases the composer made attempts to reconstruct the absent scores. The article is concluded of a brief generalization of Tchaikovsky’s contribution to the activities of the RMS and the role of the Society in the composer’s creative development. Keywords: Russian Musical Society (RMS), musical education, concert life, orchestration, Piotr Tchaikovsky.

Музыкальная жизнь Владивостока и местное отделение Императорского Русского музыкального общества (1909–1920)

The article examines the ten-year-long activities of the Vladivostok Section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) in the context of the cultural life of the city. The administrative and economic status of the main outpost of the Russian Far East made it possible to accumulate towards the early 20th century a cultural potential necessary for the formation of a cultural milieu. In 1909 upon the initiative of the local intelligentsia a new musical infrastructure with governmental subsidy was created – a section of the IRMS. The local section immediately took the leading position in the musical life of Vladivostok and the Primorsky Region, while the coordinating and material assistance of the center were conducive to a purposeful preparation of musical personnel for teaching and concertizing activities. Emphasis is made that among the cities of the Russian Far East Vladivostok possessed the most developed and diverse organizational structure in the sphere of musical enlightenment and performance. A substantial influence on the effective work of the local section of the IRMS was exerted by the directorship of the musical Society, which in many ways determined the sociocultural field of the capital of the Primorsky Region of those years. The activities of the Vladivostok Section were carried out as the result of the synthesis of the sociocultural processes of the Russian Empire and the regional characteristic features and served as a foundation for musical-educational and cultural-enlightening system within the country up to the present day. Keywords: the musical culture of Russia, the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS), professional musical education, the musical life of Vladivostok.

Императорское Русское музыкальное общество в городах Сибири конца XIX – начала XX столетия: проблемы и достижения

The work of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) in the cities of Siberia is examined in the article. Two main directions of activity – performance and education. The success of the work on organizing concerts was connected with the cities of Tomsk, Tobolsk, Omsk and Irkutsk, where professional musicians performed, efforts were undertaken in creation of orchestral and choral ensembles, and tours were organized by European performers. The programs included compositions by European and Russian classics, contemporary works, including little known oeuvres. By the efforts of the members of the organization, numerous thematic concerts devoted to the musical legacy (Mikhail Glinka, Anton Rubinstein, Piotr Tchaikovsky) were arranged. The genre scope of the compositions was quite broad – from songs and art songs to string quartets and symphonies. Outstanding performers took part in the concerts. Graduates of the Musical Classes of the IRMS had the opportunity to continue their education in conservatories, some of them became professional artists. The work of the Society was widely covered in the Siberian press, including the publications “Sibirskaya zhizn'” [“Siberian Life”], “Tomskiy listok” [“The Tomsk Leaf”], “Vostochnoe obozrenie” [“The Eastern Overview”], and “Sibirskiy vestnik” [“The Siberian Herald”]. The reported study was funded by Russian Foundation for Basic Research: Grant No. 17-04-00443 a. Keywords: Russian Musical Society (RMO), the musical culture of Siberia, Musical Classes, the Siberian press, musical performance.

The Role of the Imperial Russian Musical Society in the Development of the Choral Culture of the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries

The Role of the Imperial Russian Musical Society in the Development of the Choral Culture of the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Provincial Conflicts: Concerning the Issue of “the Center vs the Periphery” in the Activities of the Imperial Russian Musical Society

Provincial Conflicts: Concerning the Issue of “the Center vs the Periphery” in the Activities of the Imperial Russian Musical Society

Practical Music Making in the Context of the Educational Process of the Musical Classes of the Imperial Russian Musical Society in the South of Russia

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.

Казанское отделение Императорского Русского музыкального общества и его роль в развитии музыкальной культуры Волжско-Камского региона

Казанское отделение Императорского Русского музыкального общества и его роль в развитии музыкальной культуры Волжско-Камского региона