In the latter half of the 19th century, Russia faced an identity crisis and sought to find the distinctiveness of the Russian artist. In this period, Russians made efforts to boost nationalism and increase domestic activity in cultural development. The Russian Musical Society achieved this by the creation of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The contentious curriculum of the conservatory was the reason for the creation of the Mighty Kuchka. The musical habits and practices of both groups will be discussed according to how they represented Russia and the Orient in their music. The St. Petersburg Conservatory addressed the cultural drive for nationalism through an education practice that included Western and Eastern models and created individuality …show more content…
Members of the group include Mily Balakirev (the leader), César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin. The group was created in response to the creation of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. They were all mostly self-trained musicians and believed that the conservatory put too much emphasis on studying and producing Western style music. The group emphasized a strive for national character. Along with many others at the time, they were primarily concerned with identity. They distinguished themselves from other Russian composers and Europe as the only ones who could replicate the “oriental element.” In addition to this unifying characteristic, many of the members had diverse musical interests. Mussorgsky believed in musical realism and that “art must mirror the conditions of real life.” Rimsky-Korsakov was influential to the Romantic era through his use of musical imagery. While this group was united in their belief in Russian nationalism, they each had their own interests. They are all notable for their frequent use of oriental or Russian themes and folk songs from across the empire to express musical nationalism. Balakirev was the most reverent and dogmatic in his use of national color. Eventually, in 1871, Rimsky-Korsakov joined the St. Petersburg Conservatory’s staff with the support of Balakirev, who had …show more content…
Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories created the most tension, due to their emphasis on Western styles of music education and the study of Western music. However, these criticisms came at a time when Russians were facing a cultural identity crisis, especially in relation to Western Europe. Therefore, the conservatory was constantly bombarded with inquisitions into its dedication to Russian nationality. Tchaikovsky said, in response to these accusations, that the conservatory should not share the fear of other Russian artists towards “tradition and of the European mainstream” that was deemed as an “other” in Russia and, therefore, avoided. Quickly glancing over the curriculum at the conservatories reveals an evident emphasis on the study of Western regional music styles, including Italy and Germany, and the study of common practice, or Western practice. At a time of cultural tensions, the rise of criticisms can be understood. However, the conservatory provided courses on the study of Russian music and folk culture. In addition, the conservatories and larger school “offered instruction on all orchestral instruments, including harp, as well as theory and composition… music theory, including harmony and instrumentation, solfege, music history, and, for non-pianists, applied piano.” The conservatories offered an intensive musical education to skilled artists but received criticism for its education
The Five, The Mighty Handful, and The New Russian School all depict the five Russian composers who came together in 1856-57 in St Petersburg. Their ultimate goal was to portray and produce a Russian style of music , and this is exactly what they would accomplish. Though one of "The Five" goes farther than this with his works, this being Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky was a composer born march 21st 1839, with one of the most controversial names and spellings of a name. He was born to wealthy land owners and was raised for the military life. Studying piano at a young age in St. Petersburg, then later arriving at a cadet school.
Shostakovich wasn’t the first to be exploited by malicious leaders. Tsar Nicholas I “cruelly manipulated Alexander Pushkin” (Dmitri), and St. Petersburg, as portrayed by Russian poets and writers, was “a place of “doubles” and ruined lives.”(Volkov, Testimony xx) In Russian biographer Solomon Volkov’s eyes, “this is what happened to artists in a cruel age.” (Dmitri) During Stalin’s reign of terror, influence over the people was a crucial thing, so he wanted to have a firm grip on liberal arts in Russia. One good example of his manipulation of artists in Russia was when Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of The Master and the Margarita, was rumored to be leaving the Soviet Unio...
For almost half a century, the musical world was defined by order and esteemed the form of music more highly than the emotion that lay behind it. However, at the turn of the 19th century, romantic music began to rise in popularity. Lasting nearly a century, romantic music rejected the ideas of the classical era and instead encouraged composers to embrace the idea of emotionally driven music. Music was centered around extreme emotions and fantastical stories that rejected the idea of reason. This was the world that Clara Wieck (who would later marry the famous composer, Robert Schumann) was born into. Most well known for being a famous concert pianist, and secondly for being a romantic composer, Clara intimately knew the workings of romantic music which would not only influence Clara but would later become influenced by her progressive compositions and performances, as asserted by Bertita Harding, author of Concerto: The Glowing Story of Clara Schumann (Harding, 14). Clara’s musical career is an excellent example of how romantic music changed from virtuosic pieces composed to inspire awe at a performer’s talent, to more serious and nuanced pieces of music that valued the emotion of the listener above all else.
Fay, Laurel E. ‘Shostakovich vs. Volkov: whose Testimony?’ The Russian Review (October 1980), pp. 484-93.
Antonin Dvorak was one of the leading composers of the late Romantic period and one of many composers that utilized portions of music from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds in his compositions. The idea of Music Nationalism can be found in many of his works, especially in his Symphony no. 9 in E minor “from the New World”, which incorporates ideas from the American culture.
First off, it changed the purpose of music by having a young composer, if they wanted to, have their compositions in the “musical museum”, model their compositions after what they believed previous composers had set their minds to. As Burkholder states, “...they sought to create music in the tradition of art music which would say something new, while incorporating what was best and most useful from the music of the past” (Burkholder 120). Yes they had to create music that model their compositions after previous composer, but still had to express their personality in these compositions, by still pulling from older compositions of the masters. This in turn, presents the proof that the purpose of music had changed from trying to appeal to the present audience, to instead having young composers make their music to reach a higher more valuable goal, making an impact and immortalizing their music in the “musical museum”. Secondly, the conception of music saw a change through the present audience at the time. Since composers focused less on what the audience would think of the music it brought a mass of dislike among the audience, and made these compositions esoteric. With these two changes in music came the creation of the “musical
This is the second volume of Richard Taruskin's historical work, and it highlights composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He examines the progression of different styles and eras of music.
- Norris, Jeremy Paul. The development of the Russian piano concerto in the nineteenth century. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1988. Print.
TitleAuthor/ EditorPublisherDate James Galways’ Music in TimeWilliam MannMichael Beazley Publishers1982 The Concise Oxford History of MusicGerald AbrahamOxford University Press1979 Music in Western CivilizationPaul Henry LangW. W. Norton and Company1941 The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Classical MusicRobert AinsleyCarlton Books Limited1995 The Cambridge Music GuideStanley SadieCambridge University Press1985 School text: Western European Orchestral MusicMary AllenHamilton Girls’ High School1999 History of MusicRoy BennettCambridge University Press1982 Classical Music for DummiesDavid PogueIDG Books Worldwide,Inc1997
Baroque music is characterized by its development of tonality, elaborate use of ornamentation, application of figured bass, and the expression of single affections. A considerable philosophical current that shaped baroque music is the interest in Renaissance ideas that spawn from ancient Greece and Rome. Ancient Greeks and Romans considered music to be an instrument of communication that could easily stimulate any emotion in its listeners. Therefore, musicians became progressively knowledgeable of the power one’s composition could have on its audiences’ emotions. Because of this, one of the primary goals of baroque art and music was to provoke emotion in the listener, which is closely connected to the “doctrine of affections”. This doctrine, derived from ancient theories of rhetoric and oratory, was the theory that a single piece of art or a single movement of music should express one single emotion. Intrinsically, instead of music reflecting the emotions, composers aspired to cause emotions in the listener. Ma...
This paper will explore Vladimir Tatlin and Naum Gabo's differences in the role of the Avant-Garde artists and how their beliefs influence the kind of work they produce. A pioneer of Russian design, Vladimir Tatlin is a representative of Russian Realism. He left home when he was fifteen and served on the shipboard. When he became a painter, he often represented sailors in his pictures. Art and culture in Russia after Revolution was a tool for creating industrially aesthetic reality.
The term romantic first appeared at sometime during the latter half of the 18th Century, meaning in quite literal English, "romance-like", usually referring to the character of mythical medieval romances. The first significant jump was in literature, where writing became far more reliant on imagination and the freedom of thought and expression, in around 1750. Subsequent movements then began to follow in Music and Art, where the same kind of imagination and expression began to appear. In this essay I shall be discussing the effect that this movement had on music, the way it developed, and the impact that it had on the future development of western music.
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
Roughly from 1815 to 1910, this period of time is called the romantic period. At this period, all arts are transforming from classic arts by having greater emphasis on the qualities of remoteness and strangeness in essence. The influence of romanticism in music particularly, has shown that romantic composers value the freedom of expression, movement, passion, and endless pursuit of the unattainable fantasy and imagination. The composers of the romantic period are in search of new subject matters, more emotional and are more expressive of their feelings as they are not bounded by structural rules in classical music where order, equilibrium, control and perfection are deemed important (Dorak, 2000).
Russian Avant-Garde was born at the start of the 20th century out of intellectual and cultural turmoil. Through the analysis of artworks by Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky this essay attempts to explore the freedom experienced by artists after the Russian Revolution in 1917. This avant-garde movement was among the boldest and most advanced in Europe. It signified for many artists an end to the past academic conventions as they began to experiment with the notions of space, following the basic elements of colour, shape and line. They strove for a utopian existence for all benefited by and inspired through the art they created. They worked with, for and alongside the politics of the time. The equality for all that they sought would eventually take from them the freedom of their own artistic individuality.