Category Archives: Russian Music

Ilya Repin’s Horse

02 Saturday Feb 2019

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Music, The Human Condition

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Horse by Ilya Repin (Wikiart.org.)

Repin’s Horse

The horse featured above is an artwork by one of Russia’s foremost portraitists, Ilya Repin (5 August [O.S. 24 July] 1844 – 29 September 1930). No date is given and I haven’t found a signature. We do not know when Horse was completed. Nor do we know whether Repin wanted this work to be shown.

It is lovely, but it differs from other paintings by Repin. To my knowledge, the colour indigo was not used to depict horses in 19th-century Russia. Nor were blues, greens, and turquoise, a mixture. The background, sand with a golden hue, is almost traditional. It could be used as the background to a portrait. However, in Horse, the background is primarily flat. Moreover, were it not for a larger number of gold-coloured speckles in the sand, in the lower part of the painting, Repin would not have ‘sat’ his horse. You may have noticed also that Repin’s horse does not cast a shadow and that its snout as well as its lower legs are ‘interrupted.’ We are therefore reminded of Japonism and childhood. Horse is classified as a realist work of art. It is a realist work of art in as much as we know the figure it portrays is a horse, but the horse is of a different colour.

“A Moral Social Purpose”

In 1878, Repin joined the Society of the Peredvizhniki or Itinerant’s Society, which can be traced back to the “Rebellion of the Fourteen,” when 14 young artists left the school after refusing to paint mythological paintings for their diplomas. “In 1891 he resigned from the Itinerants’ Society in protest against a new statute that restricted the rights of young artists.” (See Ilya Repin, Wiki2.org. & Ilya Repin, Wikiart.org.)

However, Repin was not a rebel. By and large, he followed in the footsteps of his teacher, Ivan Kramskoi. He may have been influenced by Ivan Bunakov, with whom Repin’s father helped him apprentice. With Bunakov, a local icon painter, “he restored old icons and painted portraits of local notables through commissions.” (See Wiki2.org.) However, although he was familiar with impressionism, and “admired some impressionist techniques, especially their depictions of light and color, he felt their work lacked moral social purpose, key factors in his own art.”

A Portrait Artist

“Repin had a set of favorite subjects, and a limited circle of people whose portraits he painted. But he had a deep sense of purpose in his aesthetics, and had the great artistic gift to sense the spirit of the age and its reflection in the lives and characters of individuals.”
(See Ilya Repin, Wiki2.org.)

Repin was a portraitist, though not exclusively. Philanthropist and art lover and collector Pavel Tretyakov, a patron of Repin, expressed a need for depictions of his contemporaries. Repin’s portrait of composer Modest Mussorgsky (21 March 1839 – [16 O.S..] 28 March 1881), one of the Five, is unforgettable. It was painted shortly before the composer’s death. Mussorgsky’s family lost half of its estate in 1861, the year serfs were emancipated, which precipitated a crisis. Mussorgsky also joined a group indulging in an “intense worship of Bacchus.” (See Modest Mussorgsky, Wiki2. org.). Alcoholism destroyed him. This portrait suggests compassion on the part of Repin.

Ilya Repin‘s celebrated portrait of Mussorgsky, painted 2–5 March 1881, only a few days before the composer’s death (Wiki2.org.)

The Common People

Repin’s “paintings show his feeling of personal responsibility for the hard life of the common people and the destiny of Russia.” (See Ilya Repin, Wiki2.org.)

Repin’s Barge Haulers on the Volga may well be his most famous comment on the life of “the common people.” The barge haulers were called burlaks and attracted Repin’s attention between 1870 and 1873. They resembled convicted men condemned to row galleys.

The industrial revolution may have liberated the barge haulers, but if it did, liberation was probably achieved in the manner serfs were emancipated. Many former serfs had to pay for the land they had tilled and had fed them. Former serfs were also employed in factories where they worked 15 hours a day, which I suspect was the fate of burlaks. (See Bloody Sunday, Wiki2.org.)

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Barge haulers on the Volga by Ilya Repin, 1873 (Russian Museum and Wikiart.org)

Burlak by Ilya Repin, 1870-1873 (Wikiart.org.) 

1902 Song of the Volga Boatmen record by Feodor Chaliapin  ✔

The Penates, Finland

In 1872, Repin married Vera Shevtsova. His marriage lasted ten years. Natalia Nordman (14 December 1863 – 30 June 1914) was “the love of Repin’s life.” (See Wikiart.org.) They lived in her house, called Penaty (the Penates), in Kuokkala, Finland. According to Wikiart.org., Repin designed and built the Penates (See Wikiart.org.). I am therefore confused. However, the common denominator is that Ilya Repin and Natalia Nordman-Severova lived at the Penates. On Wednesday, the couple received guests. Repin made sketches of their guests and Natalia Nordman was the keeper of the album. The Album is entitled Portrait from the Album of Natalia Nordman-Severova.

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The Penates, the Repin House-Museum in Kuokkala, now Repino, Saint Petersburg (Wiki2.org.)

Conclusion

Repin chronicled a golden age: Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, the Five, Ilya Repin, Isaac Levitan, Alexei Savrasov. Yet it was a bleak world. Russia was at a turning-point. Peasants had lived in communes, the Mir, but the industrial age would impair the Emancipation of Serfdom, 1861. As noted, several former serfs worked in factories, where working conditions were unacceptable. Building a railroad could be the source of enormous wealth for Russians who had money to invest, but did former serfs have money?

So Horse makes sense. It is fanciful, but not too fanciful. In fact, it is little more than, as noted above, a horse of a different colour. However, horses of a different colour may constitute not a new, but a gentler reality.

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Ressources

 

Love to everyone and apologies for a lenghty absence. 💕

—ooo—

One must watch the video on YouTube. Click on rendez-vous.

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Natalia Nordman (Wiki2.org)

© Micheline Walker
2 February 2019
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The Eastern Church’s Theotokos

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Orthodox Churches, Russian Art, Russian Music, Spirituality

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Theotokos of Vladimir, tempera on panel, 104 x 69 cm, painted about 1130 in Constantinople (Wiki2.org.)

Icons

  • the Eastern Church
  • the Western Church

In Eastern or Orthodox Churches, the Western Church’s Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, is called the Theotokos, a Greek word meaning literally the “Birth-Giver of God.” Moreover, in Orthodox Churches, also called the Byzantine Rite, the Theotokos has always been portrayed in the same way. In the Western Church, depictions of Mary differ from artist to artist and from art movement to art movement. The Western Church has paintings and statues of the Virgin Mary, but the Theotokos is an icon.

The Theotokos

The image at the top of this post shows a very precious icon, the Theotokos of Vladimir. It is a Byzantine icon of the Virgin and Child dating to the Kormenian period and predating the Fall of Constantinople, on 29 May 1453, the capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire, further dividing the Eastern and Western Churches, which separated in 1054. Byzantine icons survived the Great Schism.

kazan_moscow

Our Lady of Kazan, a 16th-century copy (Yelokhovo Cathedral, Moscow)

The Theotokos of Vladimir was painted in Constantinople and resembles the Theotokos of Kazan. The Theotokos of Kazan is a copy, the original was likely destroyed 1904, but I would call it archetypal. It was likely painted in or about 1131 and was a gift from the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople to Grand Duke Yury Dolgorukiy of Kyiv. The Icon was housed in Mezhyhirskyi Monastery. But the Theotokos of Vladimir was stolen when Andrei Bogolyubsky sacked Kyiv, in 1169. It was taken to Vladimir, a medieval capital of Russia located two hundred kilometers east of Moscow. (See Theotokos of Vladimir, Wiki2.org.)

The Theotokos is regarded as the holy protectress of Russia.” The Theotokos of Vladimir is now housed in a functioning church in the Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow. (See Theotokos of Vladimir, Wiki2.org.) Vladimir’s Theotokos is described as iconography of the Eleusa (tenderness). Such icons of the Theotokos show Jesus “cuddling up” to his mother.

The Great Schism of 1054

  • the Original Sin
  • the Immaculate Conception
  • Saint Augustine

East and West remained united despite several disputes, but these culminated in the  Great Schism of 1054. The East-West Schism involves many issues, such as the Trinity. God is one but in three coeternal consubstantial persons or hypostases. However, we will focus on one dispute: the Immaculate Conception. 

In 1054, the Eastern Church rejected the Immaculate Conception. According to Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430 CE), a revered father of the Church, humans were born guilty of the Original Sin. They were tainted until Baptism.

However, Mary, the mother of the Redeemer could not be born stained. She had to be born free of the Original Sin. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,

[t]he formal active essence of original sin was not removed from her soul, as it is removed from others by baptism; it was excluded, it never was in her [Mary’s] soul. Simultaneously with the exclusion of sin.

(See The Immaculate Conception, The Catholic Encyclopedia.)

Mary was not “exempt from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death,” but she was redeemed through the same merits of Christ.

The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism.

The Eastern Church  rejected the rather convoluted Immaculate Conception.

Dogmas

The Immaculate Conception was indeed difficult to accept. Yet, this doctrine was not dogmatically defined in the Catholic Church until 1854 when Pope Pius IX, declared ex cathedra, i.e., using papal infallibility, in his papal bull Ineffabilis Deus, the Immaculate Conception to be doctrine. (See Immaculate Conception, Wiki2.org.)

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

(See Ineffabilis Deus, Wiki2.org.)

Not only does the Eastern Church reject the Immaculate Conception, but it also rejects papal infallibility. In the Eastern Church, the Theotokos falls asleep, which is called the Dormition of the Mother of God. But, on 1 November 1950, in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus, Pope Pius XII used papal infallibility to make the Assumption of the Virgin Mary a dogma.

The Immaculate Conception is celebrated on 8 December in the Western Church and 9 December, in the Eastern Church. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary is celebrated on 15 August in both the Western and Eastern Churches, but 15 August is August 28, N.S. for those following the Julian Calendar.

Conclusion

Would that I could conclude this post appropriately. The Parables of Jesus of Nazareth and Mariology are favourite topics. Dogmas are not.

Eastern Orthodox concepts of Mary have been mostly expressed in liturgy and are not subject to a central dogmatic teaching office.

(See Mariology, Wiki2.org.)

But the debate is over. “In 1965, Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras I  nullified the anathemas of 1054 although this nullification of measures taken against a few individuals was essentially a goodwill gesture and did not constitute any sort of reunion.” (See East-West Schism, Wiki2.org.)

It may be that this nullifaction was a “goodwill gesture,” but there were genuine benefits to this goodwill gesture. Basically, East or West, a Christian is a Christian. The Theotokos of Vladimir is in the Tretyakov Gallery, in a functioning church.  It cannot go out of style.

I read a sentence, the source of which is Britannica, but cannot find again. However, it read that “[t]he Byzantine heritage survived … mainly because the Orthodox church showed an astonishing internal strength and a remarkable administrative flexibility.” The eastern church has Synods, each of which is autonomous, rather than one Holy See. (See Autocephaly, Wiki2.org.)

However, what led me to investigate the Immaculate Conception and, in the process, mention the Assumption, is the extraordinary spirituality of Russia’s liturgical music. It shows “astonishing internal strength.”

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Love to everyone 💕

kazan_moscow

© Micheline Walker
12 January 2019
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Becoming a Senior Citizen

09 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Music, Sharing

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A Fisher Girl, by Ilya Repin, 1874 (wikiart.org.)

I apologize for not posting for a long time. I was asked to prepare a “protection mandate” and a Will. I am told that it is ordinary business. However, if at all possible, I will take care of my cat until nature takes him away. He will be eleven in April. I will also take care of myself.

However, I’ve not been idle. I have been comparing the Western Church, Catholicism’s Virgin Mary in particular, and the Eastern Church’s Theotokos, the Birth-Giver of God.

This subject is a little more complicated than one would suspect. The two Churches are both united and different.

I will publish my post as soon as my cat lets me use the computer’s keyboard.

Nikolai Lugansky plays Rachmaninoff‘s Études-Tableaux, Opus 33

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A bouquet of flowers by Ilya Repin, 1878 (wikiart.org.)

© Micheline Walker
9 January 2019
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Hymn of the Cherubim

31 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Music, Spirituality

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In the forest at winter by Isaac Levitan, 1855 (WikiArt.org.)

Let this be my shortest post. The painting is by Isaac Levitan and the music, Tchaikovsky‘s. Choirs are Russian or Bulgarian.

 

Love to everyone 💛

Hymn of the Cherubim by The USSR Ministry Of Culture Chamber Choir

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In the forest at winter by Isaac Levitan, 1855 (WikiArt.org.)

© Micheline Walker
31 December 2018
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The Art of Aleksey Savrasov

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Music

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Early Spring Thaw by Aleksey Savrasov, 1785 (Wikiart.org.)

Early Days and Education

  • a Romantic

I have mentioned Savrasov (1830 – 1897) in two earlier posts. In one of these posts, I combined a short discussion of the artist and a list of newspapers. I also wrote that Aleksey Savrasov was Isaac Levitan’s teacher and had been a member of the Peredvizhniki group. The Peredvizhniki (the Wanderers) group protested academic restrictions. I will add that, at the beginning of his career, Savrasov’s paintings were considered Romantic. The romantics expressed sentiment and individualism as their country entered its Industrial Age, William Blake‘s “dark, satanic mills.”

Savrasov was born in Moscow and studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MSPSA) under professor Karl Rabus (1800-1857). In 1852, Sarasov traveled to the Ukraine. Then, in 1854, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, commissioned several works from him. Savrasov therefore moved to Oranienbaum, near Saint Petersburg.

Oranienbaum

“View in the Neighbourhood of Oranienbaum,” 1754, earned Savrasov his membership in the Russian Academy of Arts.

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View in the Neighourhood of Oranienbaum, Aleksey Savrasov, 1854 (Wikiart.org.)

In 1854, Savrasov’s View in the Neighbourhood of Oranienbaum (1854), earned him membership in the Imperial Academy of Arts. By the invitation of the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, he moved to the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg.

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Winter by Aleksei Savrasov, 1873 (Wikiart.org.)

Winter by Aleksei Savrasov, 1870 (Wikiart.org.)

The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MSPSA)

  • a teacher
  • a friendship with Vasily Perov
  • a rich social life

In 1857, the year Savrasov married Sophia Karlevna Hertz, the sister of art historian Karl Hertz (1820-1883), he became a teacher at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MSPSA). His best students were Isaac Levitan and Konstantin Korovin, who had fond memories of him.

In Moscow, he and his wife entertained art lovers and art collectors, including Pavel Tretyakov, who gave his art gallery to Russia in 1892. At this time in his life, Savrasov had a fine and productive relationship with artist Vasily Perov. Savrasov helped Perov paint his Bird catcher and Hunters on Bivouac and Perov helped Savrasov paint the boat trackers in his Volga.

The International Exhibition in England

  • England
  • Switzerland

In 1662, Savrasov travelled to Europe to see England’s International Exhibition and also went to visit Switzerland. The lesson he drew from visiting the International Exhibition in England was that no academies could so promote an artist as an international exhibition. (See Aleksey Savrasov, Wiki2.org.)

Alcoholism and Death

In the late 1870s, after the death of this daughter, Savrasov became an alcoholic. No one could help. In 1882, he was dismissed from the MSPSA. The following line is very moving: “Only the doorkeeper of the MSPSA and Pavel Tretyakov, founder of the Tretyakov Gallery, were present at his funeral in 1897.” (See Aleksey Savrasov, Wiki2.org.)

The Rooks have returned by Aleksey Savrasov, 1871  (Wikiart.org.)

A Spring Day by Aleksei Savrasov, 1873 (Wikiart.org)

Comments

  • masterpieces
  • the transitional & the eternal
  • the lyrical landscape

Savrasov’s “The Rooks have returned” (1871) is considered one of his finest, if not his finest, painting. But so many of Savrasov’s paintings are masterpieces that saying one is the best is a genuine challenge.

For instance, “A Spring Day” (1873) is perfection and it touches us because it depicts the beginning of a season. Human beings have painted the seasons for a very long time and they have kept Books of Hours. Jean de France, duc de Berry‘s Très Riches Heures depicts each month of the year and its labour. Savrasov’ paintings often portray transitions and, therefore, renewal They show the end or beginning of a season, the end of winter, in particular. Seasons follow seasons eternally. Life rises again, irrepressibly.

Note that smoke comes out of the chimney of the first little brown homes. Until now, the Industrial Revolution, humans have protected themselves. We have dealt with the elements, found a refuge and built roads and fences. The pale green of trees in the background allows us to get a clear view of the disheveled trees burgeoning.

From the point of view of composition, “A Spring Day” has several golden sections. A golden section/ratio resembles an off-center crucifix. One of two lines, an horizontal and a vertical line, is longer than the other line. “A Spring Day” shows a long horizontal line that crosses a vertical line. The meeting point is a group trees. Perspective is achieved by the change in colouring from dark to pale. Moreover, there is a road, or vanishing point (le point de fuite). There is no flaw in the composition of “A Spring Day.”

The sky sits above a long arched line supported by small trees on the right and the bulkier houses on the left.

“A Spring Thaw,” the painting placed at the beginning of this post, combines diagonal and other lines. They are hints of Japonisme. Moreover, the colouring is very smooth.

Savrasov’s softens his landscapes as though each were a praise of nature and a prayer.

RELATED ARTICLE 

  • The Art of Isaac Levitan (8 December 2018)

Sources and Resources

 

Love to everyone 💕

On the music of Sergei Prokofieff

Basso profondo as accompaniment

The Rooks have arrived by Aleksey Savrasov, 1880 (Wikiart.org)

© Micheline Walker
27 December 2018
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A Merry Christmas to All

25 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Music

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I wanted to copy a post, but something went wrong. My computer or platform could not copy the post. I did not attempt to revive the computer.

However, I found a winter scene painted by Aleksey Savrasov. Aleksey Savrasov was Isaac Levitan‘ teacher. Savrasov created the lyrical landscape and Levitan, the mood landscape. The terms are interchangeable.

Both joined the Peredvizhniki group, but Levitan did so later than Savrasov.

The group was superseded by Mir iskusstva, a movement, but later a magazine, whose chief editor was Sergei Diagnilev, of the future Ballets Russes.

The post I wanted to publish a second time was Salve Regina: the Season’s Antiphon, published on 3 August 2017.

RELATED ARTICLE

I lost my voice on 11 December. I phoned my doctor, whispering. He asked that I visit him at the clinic. When I phoned, whispering, he diagnosed sinusitis. He was busy. The pharmacy sent a nose cleaning kit. It was and remains bronchitis. The pharmacy will send medication this afternoon.

The video is a short piece, but very moving. I am very fond of liturgical music.

My best wishes to all of you.  May this be your finest Christmas or holidays ever.

—ooo—

“Our Father” from “Sacred Treasures III:”
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Performed by St. Petersburg Chamber Choir
Directed by Nikolai Korniev
Recorded in St. Catherine’s Lutheran Church, St. Petersburg, Russia

The Rooks have come back by Savrasov, 1871 (Wikiart.org.)

© Micheline Walker
25 December 2018
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Pushkin, Bilibin, and Rimsky-Korsakov

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Literature, Russian Music

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The 19th century was the century of nationalism. The Brothers Grimm went from German-language land to German-language land to collect folklore, which they believe would help reveal distinct German roots. Germany had yet to unify and become the German Empire.

As for The Five, our Slavic composers, they attempted to express Eastern Russia. Music in Russia had been westernized since Peter the Great. The Five did not turn their back fully on classical harmony and counterpoint, but they started using whole-tone scales leading Western composers to create new scales.

The Programme

However, the “programme” remained to be established. In the 19th century, several composers favoured “programmatic” music. Music had to tell a story. Despite his early death, in a duel, poet Alexandre Pushkin (1799-1837), wrote poems that were Russian fairy tales, whatever their origin. A nation acculturates folktales.

Our examples are Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas entitled The Tale of the Tsar Saltan, which premiered in 1900, and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel first completed in 1907  and premiere in 1909, with a set designed by Ivan Bilibin. Ivan Bilibin who had gained notoriety in 1899, when he published illustrations of Russian fairy tales, including The Tale of the Tsar Saltan and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (Le Coq d’or). The Tale of the Golden Cockerel had Arabic roots, the Legend of the Arabian Astrologer. It had been retold by Washington Irving (The Tales of Alhambra), Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (Der goldene Hahn [1785]) and Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov (Kaib [1792]). Yet, it was Russian folklore. It had been acculturated.

“In turn, all of them borrowed from the ancient Copts legend first translated by the French Arabist Pierre Vattier in 1666 using the 1584 manuscript from the collection of Cardinal Mazarin.”

(See The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, Wiki2.org)

Ivan Bilibin had studied at the Anton Abže Art School in Munich and had been influenced by Art Nouveau and Japanese prints. But he also studied under Ilya Repin. However, he became interested in folklore. It was a magnet. He graduated from the Anton Abže Art School after publication of his illustrations of Russian fairy tales. He was associated with Mir iskusstva, an association and a magazine. Bilibin fled Russia, during the October Revolution in 1917. In 1925, he settled in Paris where he worked for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and decorated private mansions and Orthodox churches. But he was homesick. After decorating the Soviet Embassy, in 1936, he returned to Soviet Russia. He died of starvation during the Siege of Leningrad, in the land whose fairy tales he had illustrated.

Ivan Bilibin‘s 1909 stage set design for Act 2: The Tsardom of Tsar Dadon, Town Square (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comments

At first, we associate The Tale of the Tsar Saltan and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas. But operas are programmatic music or program music. So, the full dimension of the above-mentioned operas is not revealed until we know that their programmes were fairy tales written by legendary poet Alexander Pushkin. The libretto, in Russian and French, of The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, is by Vladimir Belsky.

As for Ivan Bilibin‘s delightful illustrations of Pushkin’s fairly, they are yet another lovely and universally enjoyable expression of a ‘distinct’ Russia.

Sources and Resoources

The Gallery

(above)
-Tsar Dadon meets the Shemakha Queen
The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, 1906
(below)
–The Merchants visit Tsar Saltan (WikiArt.org.)
–Princess in the prison tower ‘The White Duck’ (WikiArt.org.)
–From the Tale of the Tsar Saltan (The Isle of Buyan; WikiArt.org.)
–The Tsaritsa and Her Son Afloat in the Barrel (WikiArt.org.)
–From the Tale of the Tsar Saltan (WikiArt.org.)

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bilibin_-_the_tsaritsa_and_her_son_afloat_in_the_barrel


Love to everyone 💕


illustration-for-alexander-pushkin-s-fairytale-of-the-tsar-saltan-1905(1).jpg!PinterestSmall
© Micheline Walker
23 December 2018
revised 24 December 2018
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Mikhail Glinka & Mily Balakirev

17 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Music

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Portrait of the Composer Mikhail Glinka by Ilya Repin, 1887 (Wikiart.org.)

The Five may have been looked upon as lesser musicians by members of the musical establishment in Russia. For instance, Mily Balakirev did refuse appointments because he had little formal training. I spent the most important years of my life in academic establishments and have seen colleagues finding fault with other colleagues. So, the Russian Five may been ridiculed.

However, I would like to point out that Mikhail Glinka (1 June 1804 – 15 February 1857) respected Mily Balakirev (2 January 1837 – 29 May 1910), the leader of The Five, and that Tchaikovsky applauded Balakirev.

The Five took their lead from him Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, who could be called the father of classical music in Russia. Moreover, Mily Balakirev befriended Glinka and they composed music together. When Glinka and Balakirev’s patron, Alexander Ulybyshev (Oulibicheff) (1794-1858) died, Balakirev lost support that was vital to him.

In other words, The Five did not oppose classical music. Their wish was to give Russian classical music its Slavic character. As we have seen, Rimsky-Korsakov sent Tchaikovsky ten fugues he had composed, which Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) examined and found “impeccable.” (See RELATED ARTICLE.)

As for Tchaikovsky himself, let us read:

“Tchaikovsky’s training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy.”
(See Tchaikovsky, Wiki2.org.)

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Nikolay Kuznetsov‘s portrait of the composer Tchaikovsky, 1893

A National Effort

I should also note that in 1867, after hearing a concert given by Slavic composers, critic Vladimir Stasov wrote an article entitled Mr. Balakirev’s Slavic Concert. Composers included Mikhail Glinka,  Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Mily Balakirev, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The concert was performed for visiting Slav delegations at the “All-Russian Etnographical Exhibition” in Moscow.

God grant that our Slav guests may never forget today’s concert; God grant that they may forever preserve the memory of how much poetry, feeling, talent, and intelligence are possessed by the small but already mighty handful of Russian musicians.

— Vladimir Stasov, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, 1867

A Consecration

Vladimir Stasov’s article was consecration for The Five and Slavic composer Alexander Dargomyzhsky. Their work now belonged to an all-Russian effort to express Russia’s distinct and distinguishable Slavic roots.

Similarly, the great Glinka, associated with Romanticism, recognized The Five. He and Balakirev composed The Lark.

It could be said that The Five were a baudelaireian frisson nouveau: a new shudder. But were it not for The Five and Tchaikovsky, would classical music have inherited its internationally-acclaimed Russian répertoire?

Glinka drawn in the 1840s, portrait by Yanenko (Wiki2.org.)

RELATED ARTICLE

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (29 November 2018)

—ooo—

Love to everyone 💕

Glinka – Nocturne In E-flat major – Valeri Kamyshov, piano

 

Mikhail Pletnev plays Glinka-Balakirev The Lark – live 1982

© Micheline Walker
17 December 2018
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On Mily Balakirev, not to mention all the scales

15 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in Russian Art, Russian Music

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slavic-composers-1872.jpg!Large (1)

 

We have already seen the above image. It represents The Five  Slavophile composers, including their leader Mily Balakirev (1837 – 1910) and unidentified figures. The Five were: Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov.

This post was to contain a discussion of the three gentlemen portrayed below, but I divided my subject matter, so that we would first be acquainted with changes brought about by The Five. How did they express an Eastern Russia? There had to be technical departures from traditional harmony and counterpoint. 

It also seemed important to feature the music composed by Mily Balakirev, the rather troubled leader of The Five. Balakirev had a fine piano teacher in Karl Eisrach. Through Eisrach, he found a patron in count Alexander Ulybyshev, Alexandre Oulibicheff FR, and a kind predecessor in Mikhail Glinka. But Bakakirev was not born to a well-to-do family and, at times, he lacked tack. When the opportunity arose to work as a director of the Russian Musical Society (RMS), replacing Anton Rubinstein, his expressed preference for modern composers alienated Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, the conservative patron of the RMS. He was dismissed. 

It would seem, however, that the greatest disservice Balakirev did to himself was to refuse formal instruction in harmony and counterpoint. It could be that tuition fees were unaffordable, but even less affordable was his disdain for such disciplines. He would turn down possible appointments because he had not studied theory: harmony and counterpoint, yet say that formal instruction was unnecessary. Truth be told, he knew harmony and counterpoint, but could not, for instance, put little numbers identifying chords. (See the example in Wiki2.org.’s entry on Figured Bass.)

An example of figured bass in context. Taken from Beschränkt, ihr Weisen, by J. S. Bach (BWV 443) (Wiki2.org.)

At any rate, when Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov started purchasing paintings from contemporary artists, he also called for portraits of eminent contemporaries. Ilya Repin heard the request and included the Slavic composers, The Five, several portraits of authors, Tolstoy in particular, and various prominent figures in the world of visual arts,  music, literature, or culture in general. Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov is the founder of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which he donated to the Russian nation in 1892.

I wanted to discuss the three gentleman featured at the centre of Ilya Repin’s Slavic Composers. The next post features Mikhail Glinka, a predecessor and collaborator to Mily Balakirev. In the middle, smoking a cigar, is Prince Vladimir Odoyevsky. Vladimir Odoyevsky was an aficionado of Gothic fiction, a music critic, and more. He published The Living Corpse, in 1844.

Portrait of (left to right) Balakirev,  Vladimir Odoyevsky and  Mikhail Glinka by Ilya Repin. The painting is somewhat anachronistic – Balakirev is depicted as a man approaching middle age, with a full beard; however, Glinka died in 1857, when Balakirev was only 20 years old. (Balakirev, Wiki2.org.)

Traditional Scales

One may skip the technical information.

The following are useful sites: Diatonic and Chromatic scales (Wiki2.org, and Chords, Wiki2.org.)

The C major scale

The C major heptatonic (7) scale consists of two identical tetrachords (4) c-d-e-f and g-a-b-c. A tone separates c & d, but e & f are placed next to one another on a keyboard. They are a semitone. C major has no sharps ♯ or flats ♭. On a keyboard, it is played entirely on the seven white keys. The second tetrachord, g-a-b-c-, is the beginning of the following scale in one sharp ♯.  The scale following C major is G major (f ♯ ).  It starts on the dominant (5th degree) of  C major. These scales contain sharps (♯).

 

The F major scale has a key signature: b♭. The next scale following the F major scale begins on the fourth note (the subdominant) b♭. Both tetrachords (4 notes) are identical. The scale following B♭ major begins on e♭. It is E♭ major or E-flat major. Its key signature has three flats ♭ (b♭, e♭, a♭).

There are seven ♯ and seven ♭.

The A minor scale

Each major key has a relative minor key located a tone and a half lower than its relative major key. Students play the A harmonic minor scale, but there are a natural A minor scale and a melodic A minor scale.

The Keyboard: 12 keys

A keyboard has seven (7) white keys and five (5) black keys: 7 + 5 = 12. A scale may begin on all twelve keys. J. S. Bach composed The Well-Tempered Clavier, 48 Preludes and Fugues. (See Chromatic scale, Wiki2.org.)

Whole-Tone Scales

The Five did not hesitate to use different scales, such as whole-tone scales and other scales. The did so systematically. Whole-tone scales consist of full-steps (tones rather than semitones). European and Russian composers started to experiment with new scales. Whole tones had been used in Western music, but not systematically. To know changes made by The Five, see their Wiki2.org entry.

Whole-tone scale (Wiki2.org.)

1947 coloring book (Wiki2.org.)

After The Five, several scales would be developed: octatonic, pentatonic, twelve-tone technique… Inspired by The Five, European and Russian composers started using other scales or made change to certain degrees of scales: major, minor, sharp and flat. The Five exerted enormous influence on Western composers: Maurice Ravel, Olivier Messiaen, Claude Debussy, and Russian composers. Maurice Ravel arranged Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, a remembrance of Viktor Hartmann 🎶(Viktor Hartmann) ten suites for the piano, for an orchestra. Paul Dukas’ L’Apprenti-sorcier 🎶(The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) is “Russian.” French composer Hector Berlioz has been looked upon as a precursor of Russian music. Sergei Prokofiev‘s Peter and the Wolf 🎶is a delightful Russian composition.

New scales do not necessarily yield better compositions. I have often run back to Tomás Luis de Victoria.

Balakirev’s Islamey &  Ouverture on 3 Russian Themes

Mily Balakirev’s Islamey, an Oriental Fantasy is western music with departures that give pieces Slavic flavour. It is a very difficult to play. To make it simpler, or more difficult, one may use and ossia, an alternative rewriting. The word ossia (ou soit; or else) is associated with Balakirev’s Islamey.

However, consummate virtuoso pianists, such as Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886) and Vladimir Horowitz (1903 – 1989) could play such pieces without encountering difficulties. We will listen to Horowitz’s interpretation.

Love to everyone 💕
I apologize for the delay. It’s bronchitis. I cannot speak.

Vladimir Horowitz plays Balakirev’s Islamey

Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev: Overture on 3 Russian Themes ❤

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The Church in Plyos by Isaac Levitan, 1888 (Wikiart.org.)

© Micheline Walker
15 December 2018
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