scholarly journals Violin and non-violin in the performing activity (the Concert for violin with orchestra D-dur, op. 35 is consideredby P. I. Tchaikovsky)

Author(s):  
Aleksandra Onishchenko

Background. The matters of performing and composing art of the XIXth century are considered in this article. The way of formation and changes that have been brought into the violin literature for 100 years ‒ extension of performing techniques, breaking stereotypes that had been built for centuries ‒ were taken as a standard in the repertoire of the violinists of that time. The development of the concert genre by famous performers – composers and division of these two functions by the end of the century encouraged musicians to talk about «violin» and «non violin», limiting performer’s opportunities, by giving them anti violin tasks. It was encouraged by the presence of certain templates that were formed in the period of Italian violinists-composers, who defined a specific format of sound performances, formed definite formulas of technical phrases, and developed a full range of performing tools that built the violin-performing machine. In their turn, composers of the late XIX century had an opportunity to look at the performing structure from another perspective, bringing new acoustic author’s expressions into the violin literature. E. Lalo, A. Dvořák, К. Saint-Saens, J. Brahms, P. Tchaikovsky laid the foundation for new trends and performances that created a discussion about violin and non-violin. During 5 years (from 1874 until 1879), the mentioned authors were divided into two camps – followers of traditions E. Lalo, A. Dvořák, К. Saint-Saens and innovators in the concert genre J. Brahms and P. Tchaikovsky. The latter ones managed to avoid violin clichés and despite much resentment in the musical world showed those sides of performer’s characteristics that could not be positioned with related to violin performance. Objectives. This article is aimed at defining the range of techniques that allow to talk about «violin» and «non-violin» following the analysis of musical edition of the Concert for violin with orchestra by P. Thaikovsky. Results. Every era of violin art has brought its elements of expressive means that extended the violinists’ capabilities, thereby enriching the performing palette with new techniques and at the same time a range of complicated figurativesemantic objectives are given to performers. During a long period (from the seventeenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries), performers-composers, creating compositions for violin, did some methodical work as well, using specific technical tools for specific artistic objectives. In other words, musical value was intrinsically connected with the comfort while performing. Types of fingerings, dashes, chord techniques, timbres – what makes a performer’s toolbox ‒ was determined in the study and performance practice as a certain template. Over time teaching materials in form of «schools of violin performance», used for mastering performer’s technique, focused the composers on certain sound technical models, that particular «violin» structure that could be easily «read» not only the time of the composition creation but its style belonging and even its authorship. However, in the history of musical art the cases when the author’s imagination goes beyond templates, setting difficult objectives, including technical ones, for the performer are not so rare. Premier failures, musicians’ refusal to participate in the performance of a new composition ‒ all of it was the consequence of inertial processes of concert practice, its «delay» towards the composer’s practice. A clear example of such a situation is the Concert for violin with orchestra by P. Tchaikovsky, the composition that generated a discussion about «violin» and «non-violin» in musical art. It is evident that the modern performing toolbox allows mastering and overcoming those difficulties, which created an opinion about the composition as inconvenient and «non-violin» in days of the composer. So, what is the meaning of «violin» and «non violin»? Can «non violin» be outdated or is it a phenomenon at different stages of the evolution of musical stylistics? Conclusions. The end of the XIXth century was marked not only by the renewal of violin material, but also by extension of performer’s techniques, withdrawal of stereotypes that had been built for centuries and were taken as a standard in the repertoire of the performers of that time. The richness of the Concert for violin by P. Tchikovsky with technical discoveries, going ahead of the time, caused L. Auer’s refusal to take part in the premiere. A young soloist A. Brodsky needed more than a year to learn the musical language, dramaturgy and all those difficulties that were mentioned above. Nowadays the Concert for violin by P. Tchaikovsky is a mandatory composition in all prestigious violin contests. It is evident that modern violinist’s toolbox allows them to master and overcome all those difficulties that earlier were told to be «inconvenient» and «non-violin» in the composition. These days «non violin» can be considered a thing of the past. A range of authors of remarquable methodical works of the XX‒XXI centuries (К. Flesch, K. Mostras, I. Yampolsky, Yu. Yankelevich, L. Gurevich, M. Berlianchik) relied on their own experience while answering the questions that worried all the performers without any exception during the development of the whole complex of techniques. However, none of them studies the notion «non violin» as a methodological problem because the practice proves: the technical inconveniences are overcomed in case the performer can hear and understand the innovations, offered by a composer, that raise the performer above any stereotypes.

2020 ◽  
Vol 384 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-232
Author(s):  
P. V. Menshikov ◽  
G. K. Kassymova ◽  
R. R. Gasanova ◽  
Y. V. Zaichikov ◽  
V. A. Berezovskaya ◽  
...  

A special role in the development of a pianist as a musician, composer and performer, as shown by the examples of the well-known, included in the history of art, and the most ordinary pianists, their listeners and admirers, lovers of piano music and music in general, are played by moments associated with psychotherapeutic abilities and music features. The purpose of the study is to comprehend the psychotherapeutic aspects of performing activities (using pianists as an example). The research method is a theoretical analysis of the psychotherapeutic aspects of performing activities: the study of the possibilities and functions of musical psychotherapy in the life of a musician as a “(self) psychotherapist” and “patient”. For almost any person, music acts as a way of self-understanding and understanding of the world, a way of self-realization, rethinking and overcoming life's difficulties - internal and external "blockages" of development, a way of saturating life with universal meanings, including a person in the richness of his native culture and universal culture as a whole. Art and, above all, its metaphorical nature help to bring out and realize internal experiences, provide an opportunity to look at one’s own experiences, problems and injuries from another perspective, to see a different meaning in them. In essence, we are talking about art therapy, including the art of writing and performing music - musical psychotherapy. However, for a musician, music has a special meaning, special significance. Musician - produces music, and, therefore, is not only an “object”, but also the subject of musical psychotherapy. The musician’s training includes preparing him as an individual and as a professional to perform functions that can be called psychotherapeutic: in the works of the most famous performers, as well as in the work of ordinary teachers, psychotherapeutic moments sometimes become key. Piano music and performance practice sets a certain “viewing angle” of life, and, in the case of traumatic experiences, a new way of understanding a difficult, traumatic and continuing to excite a person event, changing his attitude towards him. It helps to see something that was hidden in the hustle and bustle of everyday life or in the patterns of relationships familiar to a given culture. At the same time, while playing music or learning to play music, a person teaches to see the hidden and understand the many secrets of the human soul, the relationships of people.


Notes ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 907
Author(s):  
Tilden A. Russell ◽  
Valerie Walden

Kick It ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Matt Brennan

This chapter explains the motivations for researching the social history of the drum kit. It traces the history of drummer jokes and outlines the structure of the chapters to follow. Chapter 1 traces the racist roots of linking drummers to primitive stereotypes and contrasts this against the cleverness of drummers that culminated in the invention of the drum. Chapter 2 shows how drummers in fact contributed to redefining the boundaries between noise and music. Chapter 3 reveals how drummers developed new conventions of literacy while standardizing both the components and performance practice of their instrument. Chapter 4 examines the development of the status of drummers as creative artists. Chapter 5 looks at drumming as a form of musical labour. Chapter 6 considers attempts to replace the drum kit and drummers with new technologies, and how such efforts ultimately underscored the centrality of the drum kit as part of the contemporary soundscape.


Author(s):  
Judith I. Haug

Abstract The compendium of the Polish-born Ottoman court musician and interpreter ʿAlī Ufuḳī/Albert Bobowski, MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Turc 292, is a crucial source of the history of music in the Ottoman Empire and at the same time a highly individual document. On 626 pages it contains notations of the most diverse genres, song texts and many marginal notes relating to various aspects of music. Composed between the 1630 s and 1670 s in Istanbul, it can be understood as a still image of the predominantly oral tradition. This results in special challenges to edition and performance practice. In exchange with three Turkish experts in the fields of performance, musicology and instrument building, the present contribution explores possible interpretations and inspirations for a historically informed performance practice of Ottoman music on the basis of ʿAlī Ufuḳī’s notations.


1962 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
M. Schwarzschild

It is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the past decade in astronomy that the evolution of some major classes of astronomical objects has become accessible to detailed research. The theory of the evolution of individual stars has developed into a substantial body of quantitative investigations. The evolution of galaxies, particularly of our own, has clearly become a subject for serious research. Even the history of the solar system, this close-by intriguing puzzle, may soon make the transition from being a subject of speculation to being a subject of detailed study in view of the fast flow of new data obtained with new techniques, including space-craft.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211
Author(s):  
Patricia E. Chu

The Paris avant-garde milieu from which both Cirque Calder/Calder's Circus and Painlevé’s early films emerged was a cultural intersection of art and the twentieth-century life sciences. In turning to the style of current scientific journals, the Paris surrealists can be understood as engaging the (life) sciences not simply as a provider of normative categories of materiality to be dismissed, but as a companion in apprehending the “reality” of a world beneath the surface just as real as the one visible to the naked eye. I will focus in this essay on two modernist practices in new media in the context of the history of the life sciences: Jean Painlevé’s (1902–1989) science films and Alexander Calder's (1898–1976) work in three-dimensional moving art and performance—the Circus. In analyzing Painlevé’s work, I discuss it as exemplary of a moment when life sciences and avant-garde technical methods and philosophies created each other rather than being classified as separate categories of epistemological work. In moving from Painlevé’s films to Alexander Calder's Circus, Painlevé’s cinematography remains at the forefront; I use his film of one of Calder's performances of the Circus, a collaboration the men had taken two decades to complete. Painlevé’s depiction allows us to see the elements of Calder's work that mark it as akin to Painlevé’s own interest in a modern experimental organicism as central to the so-called machine-age. Calder's work can be understood as similarly developing an avant-garde practice along the line between the bestiary of the natural historian and the bestiary of the modern life scientist.


Author(s):  
Naomi A. Weiss

The Music of Tragedy offers a new approach to the study of classical Greek theater by examining the use of musical language, imagery, and performance in the late work of Euripides. Drawing on the ancient conception of mousikē, in which words, song, dance, and instrumental accompaniment were closely linked, Naomi Weiss emphasizes the interplay of performance and imagination—the connection between the chorus’s own live singing and dancing in the theater and the images of music-making that frequently appear in their songs. Through detailed readings of four plays, she argues that the mousikē referred to and imagined in these plays is central to the progression of the dramatic action and to ancient audiences’ experiences of tragedy itself. She situates Euripides’s experimentation with the dramaturgical effects of mousikē within a broader cultural context, and in doing so, she shows how he both continues the practices of his tragic predecessors and also departs from them, reinventing traditional lyric styles and motifs for the tragic stage.


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