Sergei Prokofiev Research Articles

Музыкальное искусство XX века (на материале хорового творчества)

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.

Integrated Soundtracks, Sergei Eisenstein, and Man-Eating Mermaids that Sing

This article analyses the relationship between integrated soundtracks and genre through an examination of The Lure (2015). I discuss the filmmakers’ collaborative practice, and identify how the film integrates music, sound, and image in order to manipulate the codes of horror, fantasy, and the musical in a seamless and cohesive way. As well as positioning this practice within contemporary trends, this article also finds a historical precedent in Sergei Eisenstein’s writings and films. First, I chart the overlaps between Eisenstein and composer Sergei Prokofiev’s fluid collaborative working methods and those of The Lure’s filmmakers. Second, I use Charles Morris’s semiotics to account for the generation of meaning in The Lure as well as Eisenstein’s films at the level of semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. Reading Eisenstein’s methods and his films’ intended meanings through The Lure and vice-versa helps illuminate the relationship between craft and form as it pertains to classical (music-sound-image relations) as well as contemporary (the rise of integrated soundtracks and genre experiments) research questions in film studies.

Leonid Myasin's Music Laboratory: on the 125th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding choreographer

The article is devoted to the consideration of the musical component of the artistic activity of the outstanding choreographer of the Russian diaspora Leonid Myasin (1895-1979), whose 125th birthday is celebrated by the theatrical world in 2020. The main milestones of the choreographer's musical education are noted, the spectrum of his musical interests is revealed, and techniques of working with the music of the created ballets are studied. The purpose of the research, carried out using historical and typological methods, is to study the stages of the formation of the choreographer's musical maturity, his author's style. The circumstances of Myasin's collaboration with contemporary composers Manuel de Falla, Eric Satie, Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith are considered. Special attention is paid to the process of formation of a system of artistic methods of working with music in the joint work of the choreographer with Igor Stravinsky on the implementation of the ballets "Pulcinella", "Sacred Spring". The questions of Myasin's attitude to such spheres of musical expressiveness as rhythm, dynamics, timbre are highlighted. The methods of the choreographer's work with works of symphonic music are studied, the methods of achieving musical and plastic synthesis in the stage solutions of Myasin's choreographic symphonies are analyzed: "Omens" (1933) to the music of the Fifth Symphony by P. Tchaikovsky, "Choreartium" (1933) to the music of the 4th Symphony by I. Brahms, "Fantastic Symphony" (1936) to the music of the symphony of the same name by G. Berlioz, etc. It is concluded that the laws of musical composition and dramaturgy were a source of artistic renewal and enrichment of the author's style for the choreographer, the development of the intellectual beginning of his choreography.

«Стальной скок» С. С. Прокофьева в Париже и Лондоне (1927 год)

The creative dialogue between Sergei Diaghilev and Sergei Prokofiev is one of the key issues on the agenda of modern musicology. Among the productions developed for Diaghilev’s ballet company, one work with a whimsical and somewhat clumsy name—The Steel Step (Le Pas d’Acier)—definitely stands out. The ballet took two years, from 1925 to 1927, to compose. It had a stunning success in Paris and London, where it remained in the repertoire up until Diaghilev’s death in 1929. The article aims to identify general tendencies in the opinions about The Steel Step voiced in print media after its premiere. The focus of the study is the critique of Prokofiev’s work in British and French press as well as in print media of Russian emigration. The analysis of data obtained from publications by French, Russian, and English authors was made with a due regard to the historical and cultural contexts relevant for the 1927 premieres of the ballet in Paris and London. Out of the plethora of critical reviews we chose 24 French articles, 9 articles by the authors of Russian emigration (including one interview with Diaghilev) and 47 English articles (including one more interview with Diaghilev). The three basic artistic components of the production (design by George Jakoulov, choreography by Leonide Massine and music by Sergei Prokofiev) shaped very different associations in French, English and Russian critical reviews. A special focus was given to the possible Bolshevistic footprint in all the components of the controversial performance. The study is the first attempt to analyse the diverse range of opinions about Prokofiev’s ballet. The study identified the characteristic features of the then international press and traced the stage life of the ballet during the 20th, 21st and 22nd Seasons of the Ballets Russes. We deem that the paradoxical success of The Steel Step in Great Britain was related not only to the political context of that time—the 1927 premiere of the ballet coincided with the diplomatic break between Great Britain and the USSR. It also had to do with the aesthetic preferences of the British audience, namely, with their interest in constructivism as a single style found in different kinds of art.

Творчество Г.В. Свиридова

The previous issues of the journal featured publications of lectures about such outstanding 20th century Russian composers as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofi ev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian. This series is continued with a lecture about the music of Georgy Sviridov. After a general characterization of his musical legacy (in the preamble), the respective sections of the fi rst part of the lecture (The Musical Oeuvres of Sviridov in the Mid-20th Century, The Musical Oeuvres of Sviridov in the 1960s and 1970s, the Late Oeuvres of Sviridov) examines the foundational principles of the composer’s vivid individual style and evaluates the signifi cance of his contribution to the treasury of Russian art of the middle and second half of the 20th century. During the exposition of the lecture fragments of his musical compositions are presented for analysis in performances recommended by the author, in their sum, providing a perspective of the most substantial aspects of Sviridov’s musical legacy.

Творчество А.И. Хачатуряна

The previous issues of the journal featured publications of lectures about such outstanding 20th century Russian composers as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofi ev, Nikolai Myaskovsky and Dmitri Shostakovich. This series is continued with a lecture about Aram Khachaturian’s music. After a general characterization of his musical legacy (in the preamble), the respective sections of the fi rst part of the lecture (the trajectory of the artistic path, “The Feast of Music”) examines the foundational principles of the composer’s bright individual style and evaluates the signifi cance of his contribution to the treasury of Russian art of the mid-20th century. During the exposition of the lecture fragments of his musical compositions will be offered for analysis, in their sum giving a perspective of the most substantial aspects of Khachaturian’s musical legacy.

ДЕТСКАЯ ОПЕРА А. Н. ФАТТАХА «БРАТЕЦ КРОЛИК»: ОСОБЕННОСТИ ЖАНРА И КОМПОЗИЦИИ

Azon Nurtynovich Fattah (1922–2013), an outstanding composer, pianist, Honored Artist of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, is known among professional musicians primarily for the charm of his songwriting. Yet his music is little known to modern audience. The peak of composer's popularity came in the 1960–70s, when his songs were performed, for example, by Joseph Kobzon and Lev Leshchenko, Maya Kristalinskaya, Gelena Velikanova and Elena Kamburova. Fattah's works include a significant number of chamber-instrumental compositions and plays for orchestras by Yu. V. Silantyev, B. P. Karamyshev, V. V. Meshcherin, several musical comedies, the most famous of which was “Winged” (on the libretto of the wonderful children's poet V. I. Viktorov). The composer also created three operas, among which — the children's opera “Brother Bunny”. The interest of the widest audience in Fattah music at that time was initiated by the composer's film works, namely, music for tapes for children and youth: “The Tale of the Boy-Kibalchish”, “Scuba Diving at the Bottom”, “Young from the Schooner Columbus”. The audience especially remembered the songs that became real hits: “There Was a Stormy Time”, “How Can We Live Without the Sea”, “Song of Cycling Tourists”. Thus, the children's theme occupies one of the central positions in the composer's heritage. It is important that “Brother Bunny” opera stands out among the composer’s opera works by genre type and performing composition and continues the line of Soviet music compositions for the youngest ones, begun by Sergei Prokofiev. “Brother Bunny” is not only an opera for children (figuratively and subjectively accessible to the younger audience of listeners), it is intended for execution by children themselves, which determines the features of its structure, the composition of the participants and some characteristic features of the musical language. This article is an attempt to analyze this opus from the perspective of style guidelines and musical language in the context of Russian music traditions.

Society as the Paradigm of 20th Century Art (on the Materials of Sergei Prokofiev’s Music)

Society as the Paradigm of 20th Century Art (on the Materials of Sergei Prokofiev’s Music)

Balys Sruoga – the first translator of Anna Akhmatova’s poetry

The article considers both the history of the creation of translations of the writer Balis Sruoga, who translated poems by Anna Akhmatova, and the translations themselves. Three verses translated by Sruoga were intended for the creative evening of the Lithuanian author in Moscow and are the first transcriptions of the Russian poet into Lithuanian. Akhmatova’s poems were part of the creative interests of the Lithuanian translator as the work of a representative of Russian modernism, not so much as a post-Symbolic plan, but rather a symbolic one. For the first time, taking into account the fact that Sruoga relied on the verbal texts of Akhmatova and their musical adaptation’s by the composer Sergei Prokofiev when translating, the analysis of the equirhythmic correspondence of the translations to the original is proposed.

Genre modifications of concerts’ cello by S. Prokofiev as a display of commonwealth from composer and performers

The purpose of the article is consist of identification andsummarization the disparate little-known facts of the creative communityof Sergei Prokofiev with Gregory Pyatigorsky and Mstislav Rostropovich,which preceded the creation of the „Concerto for Cello and Orchestra”op. 58 and „Symphony Concert for Cello and Orchestra”, op. 125. Theauthor is determining the reasons of the transformation from the soloconcert genre into a genre of a symphony-concert, taking into account thehistorical and biographical aspect. The research methods are based on theuse of various research approaches. The method of complex musicologicalanalysis is used, synthesizes historical and theoretical aspects andcombines disparate, little-known facts of biographical information. Thecomparative method involving such methods as analysis, synthesis,comparison, allows to reveal the features of the performance interpretationof the works. Axiological approach is the basis where the value criteria ofinterpretation versions are formed. Structurally analytical method is thebasis where the logic of a statement of a material and conclusions ofresearch is formed. The empirical method allows to carrying out the studyof the proposed topic at a practical level. Scientific novelty consists ofargumentation of the fact that the creative community of the composer andperformer is one of the determining factors in the formation of theimmanent properties of the work. For the first time, the development of thecello concert genre in the works of S. Prokofiev was proposed intoanalisys through the prism of the creative tandems of the composer withG. Pyatigorsky and M. Rostropovich. This perspective of the comparativeanalysis of works represents an understanding of the basis for thetransformation of the genre of a solo concert into the genre of a symphonyconcert. The conclusions highlight the importance of creative interactionbetween the composer and the performer. The base from the analysis ofthe two works a namely „Concert for cello and orchestra” op. 58,dedicated to G. Pyatigorsky and its late edition, known as „SymphonyConcerto for Cello and Orchestra” op. 125, dedicated to M. Rostropovich, generalize the specifics of the composer’s creative tandem withperformers, substantiates the hypothesis about the transformation of theConcert genre model (romantic concert model) into the ConcertSymphony (synthesis of the baroque and romantic model). The communityof S. Prokofiev with G. Pyatigorsky and M. Rostropovich enriched themany-sidedness of the composer’s ideological and compositional designthanks to a wide range of methods of translating the musical material thatthese soloists owned.

On the Particular Commonalities of Compositional Approach in the Works of the St. Petersburg Classics

This article presents an analysis of the commonalities of compositional approach in Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky cantata, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7. The features of the St. Petersburg Classics’ object-oriented creative method are examined by means of conceptual pairing of morpheme and morph. A description is provided of the morpheme of the event, and its morph of the prayer ritual, in the first and third movements of the Symphony of Psalms. A comparison is drawn between the morph of the prayer ritual and the morph of the enemy invasion in “The Battle on the Ice” from Alexander Nevsky and in the invasion episode from the first movement of Symphony No. 7. In the “Crusaders in Pskov” section of Alexander Nevsky, the textual realization of the morpheme of the environment has been traced, in the form of the morph of the Teutonic yoke. The melodic, rhythmic, and textural resources in the morphic implementation of the morphemes of space, motion, and dissonance, and the Janus morpheme, are revealed. Common approaches to choral and orchestral writing are identified, as are similarities in melody and rhythm, which bond together these three masterpieces of 20th-century musical culture. Keywords: Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Symphony of Psalms, Alexander Nevsky cantata, Symphony No. 7, morphological analysis, morph and morpheme in music.

ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЕ АСПЕКТЫ ВЛИЯНИЯ ТВОРЧЕСТВА СЕРГЕЯ ПРОКОФЬЕВА НА КИТАЙСКУЮ ФОРТЕПИАННУЮ МУЗЫКУ ХХ ВЕКА

The purpose of the article and its novelty are in the fact that for the first time in the Russian musicology the author considers historical parallels and intersection points of Sergei Prokofiev’s creativity, aesthetics and style with the Chinese piano music of the ХХ - early ХXI century. The topicality of the proposed material is conditioned, on the one hand, by the need to “expand the horizons” of the study of Prokofiev’s influences on world music processes, on the other hand, by the urgent need to generalize the experience reflecting the Chinese piano music evolution over the last century. The paper presents the results of studying historical parallels between Prokofiev’s works and the Chinese piano school, as well as a wide panorama of the long and fruitful interaction of the Russian and Chinese cultures at various time stages. Each of them differs both in a special format and specificity of aesthetic and style characteristics.

Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky by Kevin Bartig

Reviewed by: Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky by Kevin Bartig Terry L. Dean Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky. By Kevin Bartig. (Oxford Keynotes.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. [161 p. ISBN 9780190269562 (hardcover), $74; ISBN 9780190269579 (paperback), $14.95.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index, companion website. A product of collaboration between Sergei Eisenstein and Sergey Prokofiev, the film Alexander Nevsky [Aleksandr Nevskĭ] (1938) boasts a rich sociopolitical and cultural history. Those acquainted with the film are likely familiar with its status as an artifact of Soviet propaganda. With regard to Eisenstein, discussions of Nevsky, which was his first film in nearly a decade and his first contribution to the medium of sound film, often recount creative challenges experienced by the director that led to his complicity in propagating Party ideology as well as his role in helping to foster Joseph Stalin's association with heroic figures of Russia's distant past. Similarly, the discourse surrounding Prokofiev's role in the project frequently focuses on his efforts to cultivate a nationalist style appropriately accessible for Soviet audiences. Consequently, it is easy to perpetuate an overly simplified understanding of Alexander Nevsky founded on stereotypical images of the Soviet artist working under the burden of socialist realism. Fortunately, however, Kevin Bartig's Sergei Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky," which appears as part of the publisher's new Oxford Keynotes series, offers a more nuanced understanding of Prokofiev's music for the film in a multitude of new contexts. Having written previously about Nevsky in Composing for the Red Screen: Prokofiev and Soviet Film (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), Bartig returns to and expands upon a number of topics in his new monograph. Among these are Prokofiev's concerns about the legitimacy of film music as serious art as well as its role in establishing a type of "light-serious" music (p. 18) [End Page 657] that would resonate with broad audiences. As a newly repatriated Soviet composer, Prokofiev was bound by the aesthetic demands of socialist realism, at the heart of which was a call for accessibility. Although his music had already undergone a process of simplification during the 1920s, ultimately yielding what he referred to as his "new simplicities," Prokofiev continued to weigh questions about whether he wanted to be identified with such music well into the next decade. Bartig underscores the fact that the lucrative potential offered by film indeed motivated the composer's continued interest in such projects as well. Eventually, Prokofiev came to terms with the idea of a "light-serious" style and carefully shaped the narrative surrounding his simplified musical style. Bartig reveals, however, that Prokofiev's concerns were consistent with and shared by other composers of the time. Citing the writings of Kurt Weill, Carlos Chávez, and Aaron Copland in particular, Bartig contextualizes the simplification of Prokofiev's compositional style as part of a greater trend among composers of the time. While individual motivations varied, he asserts that efforts of composers to cultivate an "accessible musical style was a common concern" during the period leading up to Alexander Nevsky and as such contributed to the work's "broad international resonance" (p. 20). In doing so, Bartig effectively redresses our understanding of Nevsky (and Prokofiev's Soviet works in general) as something other than political pandering. Bartig also revisits Prokofiev's creation of a sonic backdrop for Alexander Nevsky. Throughout much of the film, the composer employs a sound palette that evokes various nineteenth-century Russian classics, in particular works by Mikhail Glinka, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, and Aleksandr Borodin. Such a strategy is easily understood as a response to the expectations of socialist realism, especially when considered in conjunction with the ideological conservatism that followed the infamous admonishment of Dmitrĭ Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District [Ledi Makbet uezda] in Pravda in January 1936. Bartig demonstrates, however, that rather than surrendering to the precepts of socialist realism, Prokofiev's music for Alexander Nevsky is consistent with Eisenstein's intentions. A patriotic film such as Nevsky requires music of a correspondingly patriotic nature. In the absence of historically appropriate models, Bartig points out that "as images of the thirteenth century flashed on...

Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky by Kevin Bartig

Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky by Kevin Bartig

Генеральная интонация в спектакле «Борис Годунов» В.Э. Мейерхольда — С.С. Прокофьева

The article dwells upon the process of the artistic cooperation between Vsevolod Meyerhold and Sergei Prokofiev by the example of their collaborative work on Alexander Pushkin’s play “Boris Godunov.” The preparation for the actualization of the conception had started long before the main rehearsing period — in 1934, after the issuance of the edict of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) (Communist Party) “Concerning the Foundation of the All-Union Pushkin Committee in connection with the centennial anniversary of the death of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.” The performance was supposed to have become the appropriate response to the festivities of the Pushkin jubilee, but it never got round to being performed at that time. The peculiarities of the interpretation of the drama in the dialogue of the two Masters are examined on the basis of the materials connected with the history of the creation of the performance and the music to it. Analysis is made of the semantic content of the musical numbers (“The Song of the Lonely Wanderer” and the “Songs of Loneliness”), which carry out the function of the through leit-motifs and indirectly characterize Boris Godunov and the Pretender, and also play an important role in the formation of the “general intonation” of the performance. The conclusion is arrived at that the “politically saturated” production of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Sergei Prokofiev touched upon the prohibited “territory of meanings”: the denoted implication unwittingly projected itself on the personal fate of the ruler of the Soviet state.

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.

Touching the Heart (to the Memory of Galyna Neporozhn)

The well-known Ukrainian pianist, a former senior teacher at the Kyiv State Conservatory (1969–2000), Professor at the conservatory Arenas-Albenis Galyna Neporozhnya was born on March 19, 1942 in the city of Ulyanovsk (Russia). She received her primary musical education in Ukraine, at the Kyiv Secondary Specialized Music School named after M. V. Lysenko in the classes of Rosie Rozhok and Evgenia Frankin. After graduating from KSSMS, she studied at the Kyiv State Conservatory in the class of People’s Artist of Russia, Professor Tatyana Kravchenko and Honored Artist of Russia Alexander Aleksandrov. In 1966 she graduated with honors from the conservatory, and in 1968 – assistant-internship under the direction of Professor T. Kravchenko.After graduation, Galyna Neporozhnya joined the active concert activity. In her concert repertoire were the works by Y. S. Bach, V. A. Mozart, L. V. Beethoven, F. Schubert, F. Chopin, R. Schumann, J. Brahms, M. Ravel. She was also a thoughtful interpreter of the music of the twentieth century. In particular, in her repertoire were Sonata № 7 and “Tales of an old grandmother” by Sergei Prokofiev, sonatas for piano by B. Bartok, I. Stravinsky and others. Galyna played many masterpieces accompanied by symphony orchestras (in particular performing the first concert of P.I. Tchaikovsky), she had a significant number of records in the Ukrainian Radio fund.In 1969, Galyna Neporozhnya’s pedagogical activity began at the Kyiv Conservatory. Until 1990 she worked as a senior lecturer at the department of special piano No. 1, then till 2000 at the department No. 2. In 1977, she undertook a refresher course at the Moscow State Conservatory in the class of Professor Rudolf Kerer. During these years Galyna Neporozhnya has brought up a large number of talented pianists.In 1993, a distinguished meeting took place in the life of G. Neporozhnya: the director of the conservatory “Arenas Albenis” (Spain), Donna Aida Rodriguez Oheda, passed a course of advanced training at the Kyiv State Conservatory in the class of Galyna Neporozhnya. Between these musicians there was a powerful creative connection and mutual understanding that they felt during all their communication. After completing the training, Donya Oheda invited Galyna to take part in the project of the Conservatoire Arenas Albenis.After moving to Spain in 2000 and starting to work, G. Neporozhnya quickly adapted to new forms of study and other professional requirements of the Arenas-Albeniss Conservatory. As a teacher, G. Neporozhnya closely followed the creative development of each student, treated carefully and with respect to his individual abilities, tried to give the natural qualities of each maximum professional growth. She carefully selected the repertoire for each student, taking into account his potential and technical capabilities. Despite some problems with the Spanish language, he has always been able to convey the main idea put forth by the composer to the student artist. Galyna worked in detail on each piece, helping to construct an interpretation from the very beginning to the stage of stage performance. Her students both in Ukraine and in Spain achieved high results and continued their development as professional musicians.G. Neporozhnya was always open for communication with colleagues, professors who needed her experience, always sincerely shared with them. Even after retirement in 2012, she did not stop her creative and personal contacts with the teachers of the Conservatoire Arenas Albenis. Her sincerity and communicability were reflected in the hearts of the students, they always responded with reciprocity. She spent every lesson with such inspiration and ingenuity that young musicians were extremely interested in communicating and growing alongside such a master. The directorate of the Conservatoire Arenas Albenis highly respected and appreciated Galyna Neporozhnya for her ability to work, elegant creative nature and an elite professional level.Galyna adored her family, children and granddaughter. Having quickly mastered the computer, she communicated with her students around the world, worried if they left a concert activity.Until recently Galyna did not leave work. One of her last disciples was Isaac Martinez. He came to class during the last two years of her life. They worked on the F. Chopin Concerto No. 1, op. 11, who pianist performed on the stage of the Philharmonic Orchestra Las Palmas (the city where Galyna lived in recent years). Another concert – F. Liszt No. 2 Galyna worked with Isaac when she was already seriously ill in bed after an oncological operation. Despite the bad state of health, she remained the creator until the last minute. Galyna Neporozhnya died on May 26, 2017 in Las Palmas (Canary Islands, Spain) after a serious illness at 76 years of age.March 30, 2018 in the Small Hall at the National Music Academy in Kyiv (Ukraine) there was the grand concert dedicated to the memory of Galyna Neporozhnya, attended by her students, colleagues, close friends who expressed their deep respect to her as a man and highly professional musician.

К вопросу об интерпретации фортепианных произведений С. С. Прокофьева

In this article an analysis of performing interpretations of Prokofiev’s piano compositions is carried out from the positions of a hermeneutical approach. Interpretation is examined as a means of existence for the musical composition demanding an active creative co-participation of the performer in the recreation of the composer’s artistic conception. Special importance is attributed to the question of the boundaries of interpretation: the necessity of penetration into the innermost semantic strata of the performed composition, the aspiration towards the comprehension of the composer’s conception and the infeasibility of willful treatment of the musical text. The notion is elaborated on that the character of interpretation, its adequacy and convincing qualities depend not only on the musician’s professional level, but also on the magnitude and significance of the personality of the performer. The assertion is made that the analysis of various interpretations of any particular musical composition makes it possible not only to define the performer’s spiritual reference points and value preferences, but also the spiritual atmosphere of the society in which he or she is artistically active, as well as the demand for certain moods or meanings which the composer’s music conveys. The presumption is expressed that the active interest in the music of Prokofiev on the part of performers is stipulated by the character of the intense historical situation in the world creating the feelings of alarm and blight: in Prokofiev’s music especially attractive for musicians are the aspiration towards light, self-assuredness and optimism. The renditions of the piano compositions by Svyatoslav Richter, Maria Grinberg, Emil Gilels, Marta Argerich, Nikolai Petrov, as well as by contemporary pianists, Andrei Gavrilov, Evgeny Kisin, Daniil Trifonov and Grigory Sokolov. Keywords: Sergei Prokofiev, piano compositions, performer’s interpretation, composer’s conception.

Sergei Prokofiev and William Primrose. The Dream of the Violist

Sergei Prokofiev and William Primrose. The Dream of the Violist

The correspondence of Sergei Eisenstein and Gavriil Popov, 1933–1939

This article presents the correspondence of director Sergei Eisenstein and composer Gavriil Popov, with whom Eisenstein collaborated on three stage and film projects during the 1930s: the play The Second Moscow (Moskva vtoraia), and two films, MMM and Bezhin Meadow (Bezhin lug). The correspondence is particularly revealing concerning Eisenstein’s practical approach to music, aspects of which shaped his later and more well-known work with composer Sergei Prokofiev.