Music of the turn of the century - Silver age of Russian music. The Silver Age and the work of A.N.

MOU "Kokinskaya basic comprehensive school"

Report on the topic: "Music of the Silver Age"

Completed by: Marina Zaitseva

Khaidalov Alexander

Checked by: Volkonitina E.V.

2010

Wake up in Heaven, dreaming on Earth,

Scattering whirlwinds of sparks in the pierced haze,

In the burning of the victim he was unrelenting.

And so he twisted in a fiery vent,

That in Death he woke up with a shine on his forehead,

Crazy elf, howling, ringing Scriabin...

Konstantin Balmont

"He felt the symphonies of light..."

"This time is called the Russian spiritual renaissance." N. Berdyaev about the Silver Age.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the pre-October decade, the theme of expectation of great changes that should demolish the old and unjust passes through all Russian art, and music in particular.

Even the images of folk life, epic, history take on a lyrical coloring. The beauty of nature, the human heart, the right to happiness are the leading themes of this period. Increased interest in the embodiment of philosophical problems, reflections on life. The intensified struggle of directions in the art of the 19th century. Influenced the development of music. In the work of many composers, the classics are combined with modernism. Appeal to the world of individual experiences, the complication of the musical language, the one-sided development of any one means of musical expression.

"To become an optimist in the true sense of the word, one must experience despair and overcome it." The young Moscow composer Alexander Scriabin wrote these words in his diary at the age of 28. And the “Pathetic Etude”, a fragment of which is heard, was completed six years earlier, at the beginning of 1894. In this composition, the part of the left hand is extremely difficult - much more difficult than the right. This is not very noticeable to non-musicians, but at the end of the 19th century, when Scriabin began his journey, a very sophisticated audience filled the concert halls. And he was remembered by many, according to the first impression: a pale, fragile young man who went on stage in red woolen armlets and embarrassedly pointed to his right hand. He seemed to apologize in advance for possible failures - after all, his right hand was “replayed”, sick.

Scriabin's life is like the flight of a bright, dazzling comet. Two thousand years after the legendary Orpheus and other musical magicians of antiquity, he reiterated that music can change the laws of space and time, awaken mysterious psychic powers in a person, make him the master of his own destiny, and eventually give him immortality.

He was already called a "musical science fiction writer" during his lifetime, and the most insightful critics noticed that Scriabin would be understood by the next generation. Indeed, everything in him was amazing - from an attempt to combine sounds with colored light, unprecedented in the history of music, to strange, mysterious images of his latest works, playing which Scriabin easily put his listeners into a state close to a hypnotic trance.

It turns out that the composer intuitively predicted those ideas about the world that would appear in science only many years after his death. Scriabin's "waves of consciousness", which create reality, find an unexpected correspondence in the theory of the structure of matter.

The infinite cosmos fits inside the tiny human consciousness.

Most people, Scriabin believed, do not even suspect that they are cosmic beings, and the energy of their thought is the most important and powerful in the Universe.

All events of human life, according to Scriabin, are subject to an unknown Plan, which is connected by mysterious threads with the general evolution of the Universe. At the beginning of the 20th century, mankind (and, first of all, Russia) lived with the expectation of grandiose changes in the very way of its being.

Against this disturbing background, the worldview of Russian symbolism arose, where the "fatal secrets of the universe" and the paths to other worlds were "revealed" through an exalted artistic impulse, and the most remote areas of knowledge merged into a mystical All-Unity. Scriabin's music, as well as himself, was idolized by Russian symbolist poets Konstantin Balmont, Vladimir Solovyov.

The future composer was born in Moscow on January 6, 1872. He could not remember his mother, the talented pianist Lyubov Petrovna Scriabina, since she died a year later from consumption. Father Nikolai Alexandrovich - served abroad, and raised the "Glass Boy" (and any trifle could offend him) aunt. Sasha was serious beyond his years...

“To become an optimist in the true sense of the word, one must experience despair and overcome it.” At the most terrible moment of his life, when "the doctors pronounced their sentence" and his right hand was almost paralyzed, he continues to write music - such as he himself is still able to perform: for one left hand!, amazingly, but in these bright and sublime pieces (Prelude and Nocturne op. 9) there is not a hint of the author's desperate situation. He emerges victorious from this test. He is convinced that the strength of the spirit, multiplied by art, can not only defeat any disease, but also heal a person and all of humanity from the main ailment - the gray vulgarity of everyday life.

His light symphony remained a huge mystery. The part of light, which Scriabin introduced into the symphonic poem "Prometheus" (its other name is "The Poem of Fire"), was recorded in ordinary notes, but it had to be performed on an unusual instrument - the "light keyboard", which then, of course, did not exist. The composer, who saw the color of each musical sound, left the following explanations:

Do - red, simple

Salt - orange, fiery

C - blue with blueness

F sharp - deep blue leaning towards purple

Fa - crimson red.

Etc.

But what should be the forms of colored light? After all, Scriabin was not satisfied with the play of multi-colored rays on the screen. As well as the screen itself - he dreamed of creating some new space, where in a luminous

matter, the thoughts and feelings of performers and listeners come to life…

How can one know what Scriabin would have achieved if he had at his disposal the computer technologies of our twenty-first century? There is no doubt that he foresaw the emergence of a reality created by thought - virtual reality.

The words of the composer about "a small keyboard on which all the rulers of the world play" - isn't it a hint of a grandiose computer illusion, masterfully described in our time in the film "The Matrix"? Scriabin is coming close to the interface that connects the human mind and the "world computer";

His life and work are shrouded in an atmosphere of inexplicable disturbing mystery.

Legends begin to be made about Scriabin - about his amazing intuition and the gift of clairvoyance. He finds the right person in the crowd, not knowing him by sight. He stares unblinkingly at the sun at its zenith, and then easily reads the fine print. He accurately (perhaps without even knowing it) predicts the day of his death - he concluded a three-year contract for renting his last apartment in Bolshoi Nikolopeskovsky Lane, 11 on April 14 (27), 1912 and died three years later on that very day ...

Mark Meichik wrote: “...He did not die, he was taken from people, when he set about implementing his plan, it is not for nothing that there is a saying that “in heaven they make sure that the trees do not grow into the sky”

Literature

A.I. Bandura Articles about the work of A. N. Scriabin. M 2005

“What do you think about the work of this somewhat forgotten composer? A close friend of Akhmatova and the one whom Stravinsky called the only rival in music ... I heard several of his chamber works ten years ago and was shocked ... I have been looking since then, I can’t find it ... "

“It's good that you wrote about Arthur Lurie - this pioneer of the musical "avant-garde" of the 20th century. Few people remember him, and almost no one knows his music - amazing for its time. Anna Andreevna probably highly appreciated her. And his influence on her Muse is probably quite significant. I happened to hear something (very little) from his works - very fresh, original, full of innovation at the level of his great contemporaries: Stravinsky, Prokofiev, early Shostakovich, Schoenberg and his entire school. Great!"

These two comments, left on my favorite classical music forums, perfectly sum up “the situation with the composer Arthur Lurie,” as art officials would say.

Why is the author, in honor of whom an international colloquium is held in Basel, practically known in his homeland only to musicologists (the position obliges) or philologists (in connection with Akhmatova)? Let's try to figure it out.

From various reference manuals, you can find out that Naum Izrailevich Luria (1892-1996) was born on May 14, 1892 in St. Petersburg into a wealthy Jewish family. In 1913 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the class of A.K. Glazunov, at the same time became close to N. I. Kulbin and the Futurists, participated in their collections "Slap in the Face of Public Taste", "Our Answer to Marinetti", wrote the manifesto "We and the West" (1914), developed the theory of "theater of reality". He was friends and collaborated with poets and artists of various non-academic trends, participated in musical and poetic evenings, performed in the then famous Stray Dog cabaret, which reopened in 2001.

After the revolution in 1917, he worked as head of the music department at the Commissariat of Public Education. At first, he favorably treated the new regime, but already in 1921 he refused to return to the Soviet Union from Berlin, where he was on an official visit. After that, his works were banned for execution, but the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg keeps portraits of Lurie by his friends - P. Miturich, L. Bruni, Yu. Annenkov and other artists of the "Silver Age".

As the musicologist L. Kazanskaya writes, “Lurie translated many of the experiments of his artist friends into the language of music. In his atonal compositions (the First String Quartet, the piano cycles “Syntheses”, “Daytime Pattern”, “Forms in the Air. Sound Painting by P. Picasso” - in the latter the bar line is canceled and the music is freely located on the musical space like the geometric figures of the Cubists) he anticipated later searches of A. Schoenberg, D. Cage and D. Krum in the field of free circulation with sound space and time”.

Already an adult, he converted to Catholicism and was baptized in the Maltese Chapel in St. Petersburg, changing the name of Naum Luria to Arthur Vincent Lurie, pseudonyms were then in vogue. According to the testimony of the poet Benedikt Livshits, who was shot in Leningrad in 1938, "the composer named himself Arthur in honor of Schopenhauer, Vincent in honor of Van Gogh."

M. Kralin, a specialist in the work of Anna Akhmatova, with whom Lurie was very close at one time, one of the first who became interested in the work and personality of the composer back in the 1970s, notes in his book Arthur and Anna that with Lurie in Akhmatova’s poetry the image of Tsar David, the ancient Hebrew musician king, is connected, and that the Jewry, which Lurie abandoned in favor of the European in himself, was probably important for Akhmatova, who wrote:

From the day of Bathing-Agrafena
Keeps a raspberry scarf.
He is silent, but rejoices, like King David.

And mysterious, ancient faces
Eyes looked at me...

Left in the West, Lurie settled in Paris, but after the city was occupied by the Nazis in 1941, he fled to the United States with the help of conductor Sergei Koussevitzky, who at that time led the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

There is evidence that from across the ocean, Arthur Lurie followed the events in the USSR, first of all, what was going on in cultural life. And he was not an indifferent observer, it is enough to read his article “Why did they do it?”, Published in the New Russian Word on March 14, 1948, as a response to the notorious decree of the Soviet government on V. Muradeli’s opera “The Great Friendship”. Here is what he wrote: “In Soviet Russia, people involved in art belong to the state. Belong as an object, as a thing. They are part of the state inventory. At the price of turning into an instrument that serves a purpose not intended by them, musicians acquire the right to activity. Those who have not become a thing are unnecessary and harmful. What else is the freedom of creativity? Empty, sentimental words. In all areas: social, technical or cultural, creativity has long belonged entirely to the Central Committee of the Party, and everyone, without exception, fulfills its directives. But music and poetry, as if, do not fit with the party, what to do? …

Should formalist art be defended? Of course not, but it is necessary to be able to distinguish soulless formalism from free, living creativity, which is also impossible without free formal prerequisites. …

Modern music is annoying, some ridiculous noises, hums, rattles and dissonances. Whether the matter is old, smooth, fluid, melodious and calm. It is necessary that the melody “fits well in the ear”, as they wrote in Russia ten years ago. But with such a melody, it's not easy either. It is also necessary that she be always cheerful - in Soviet Russia there is no despondency. But what to do with human anguish? And what about Pushkin then? From the coachman to the first poet, we all sing sadly. Sad howling Russian song. (The full text of this article, which appeared in the Soviet Music magazine, No. 2, in 1991, can be read.)

However, for the Soviet Union, Lurie did not exist at that time and, perhaps, would have remained in complete oblivion if not for ...

On the website of the Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House, which has become the place where A. Lurie's notes are kept - originals and copies, it is said that in 1992 in St. Petersburg and Cologne, on the initiative of the famous violinist Gidon Kremer, two festivals were held, resurrecting the music of the composer of the "Silver Age" . "In Search of the Lost Orpheus" is the name of a documentary film about him, shot by the American director Elin Flips, which shows the process of resurrection itself: Gidon Kremer searches music libraries for Lurie's notes, performs his music, talks with people who knew Artur Sergeevich. "It was a great discovery for me to come across the work of a completely forgotten Russian composer Arthur Lurie. I want to stand up for this brilliant man ..." - said Gidon Kremer in an interview with the Russkaya Zhizn newspaper.

This statement was not unfounded. As the president of the Basel Association of Arthur Lurie Stefan Hulliger told Nasha Gazeta.ch, with a light hand and with the active assistance of Gidon Kremer, more than fifteen years ago, most of Lurie's scores were acquired, in Paris, from his friends by the Paul Sacher Music Foundation (Paul Sacher Stiftung), bearing the name of the famous Swiss philanthropist, whom we have already told readers about.

And since 2005, the Arthur Lurie Association has been actively promoting the work of this composer - in 2008, in particular, these enthusiasts organized a series of concerts in Zurich, Lausanne and Basel.

And now - a three-day event in Basel, the program of which can be found in detail on the website of the Association. According to Mr. Hulliger, the world's first performance of the cycle of six romances "Narrow Lyre" - "Memories of St. Petersburg" written by Lurie in the period from 1920 to 1941 to poems by Pushkin, Lermontov and Blok and dedicated to Olga will be a "musical shock" Glebova-Sudeikina. (Note that her husband, the famous theater designer Sergei Sudeikin, took over the design of the aforementioned Stray Dog.) The cycle will be performed by the People's Artist of Russia Igor Morozov, who currently lives near Zurich.

If you are interested in little-known pages of the history of Russian music, go to Basel to get acquainted with the work of Arthur Lurie, a composer who considered Kierkegaard's words to be his creative motto: “I would give everything, even my life, for acquiring that expression and that expressiveness that my thought seeks with greater passion than a lover seeks his idol; I am looking for this expression in order to express it when I die.” According to Lurie, expressed in his essay "Children's Paradise", this is the secret of art.

From the editors: An interesting coincidence - on March 4, an evening will be dedicated to Lurie's work, which will be held in the Chamber Hall of the Moscow Philharmonic. So choose what suits you best!

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Music of poems of the Silver Age. Literature lesson.. Completed by students of the 11th grade Mustafina I. and Tychinina I.

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The Silver Age is the turn of the century, it is an unexpected rise in poetry, which required new principles of poetic figurativeness, a new attitude of the poetic word to life. Hence, many literary movements: symbolism, acmeism, futurism, imaginism ... The spirit of the era gave rise to this miracle - the phenomenon of the Silver Age.

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"Silver Age" of Russian Literature. So the turn of the XIX-XX centuries was called. - the time of spiritual innovation, a major leap in the development of national culture. It was during this period that new literary genres were born, the aesthetics of artistic creativity were enriched, a whole galaxy of outstanding enlighteners, scientists, writers, poets, and artists became famous.

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And the century gave birth to so many poets - "good and different", but they all lived a complex inner life, tragic and joyful, foggy and mystical, passionate and rebellious. Their whole life is filled to the brim with quests, feelings, thoughts, music and poetry.

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“Every moment I fulfilled the revelations…” This is what each of the poets of the Silver Age could say about his work.

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SYMBOLISM - a trend in European and Russian art of the 1870-1910s; focused primarily on artistic expression through the symbol of intuitively comprehended entities and ideas, vague, often sophisticated feelings and visions. Symbolists V. Ya. Bryusov; K. D. Balmont; D. S. Merezhkovsky; A. Bely; A. A. Blok

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V. Ya. Bryusov (1873 - 1924) Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was born on December 13, 1873. in a merchant family. In 1921 organized the Higher Literary and Art Institute and until the end of his life was its rector and professor. Died October 9, 1924. in Moscow. And transparent stalls, In the sonorous silence, Grow like sparkles, Under the azure moon. A naked moon rises Under the azure moon... Sounds hover half asleep, Sounds caress me...

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K. D. Balmont (1867 - 1942) Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was born in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province, into a noble family. In 1887-1889. Balmont was engaged in translations of Western European poets. The collections “Under the Northern Sky” (1894), “In the Vastness” (1895), “Silence” (1898) are the forerunners of Russian symbolism. The books “Burning Buildings”, “We Will Be Like the Sun”, “Only Love” (1900-1903) brought glory and recognition to Balmont. They strengthened the poet's authority as one of the leading symbolist poets. In 1920 Balmont emigrated. Died in 1942. I am the sophistication of Russian slow speech, Before me are other poets - forerunners, For the first time I discovered deviations in this speech, Repetitive, angry, tender ringing. I am a sudden break, I am a playing thunder, I am a transparent stream, I am for everyone and no one ...

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N. S. Gumilev (1886 - 1921) Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev was born on April 15, 1886. in Kronstadt in the family of a military ship's doctor. In 1911 together with S. Gorodetsky he created the "Workshop of Poets". In 1914 volunteered for the Russian army. For courage and valor he was awarded two St. George's crosses and promoted to ensign. August 3, 1921 was arrested by the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission, and on August 25, 1921. - shot.

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Anna Akhmatova. Russian Sappho, priestess of love… Her poems are songs of love. Everyone knows her amazing poem "By the Blue Sea", in which the sound of the surf and the cries of seagulls are heard ... It is ridiculous to call the person who created the "Requiem" - the terrible truth about Russia - an "enemy of the people" an "enemy of the people". The choir of angels glorified the great hour, And the heavens melted in fire. Father said: "Almost left me!" And Mothers: "Oh, don't cry for me..."

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O. E. Mandelstam (1891 - 1938) Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born on January 15, 1891. Petersburg Jewish merchant family. In 1913 - the first collection of poems "Stone". In 1928 - the second collection ("Tristia" and poems 1921-1925). In the 30s. - "Voronezh cycle". In May 1934 the poet was arrested, exiled to Cherdyn in the North. Ural, and then transferred to Voronezh. In May 1938 arrested on a ridiculous charge and sent to Kolyma, where on December 27, 1938. died. We live without feeling the country beneath us, Our speeches are not heard ten paces away, And where there is enough for half a conversation, They will remember the Kremlin highlander. His thick fingers are fat like worms, And his words are true like pood weights - Cockroaches laugh their mustaches And their tops shine ... November 1933

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FUTURISM (from lat. futurum - future), an avant-garde trend in European art in the 1910s and 1920s, mainly in Italy and Russia. For literature - the interweaving of documentary material and fiction, in poetry - linguistic experimentation ("words at liberty" or "zaum"). Futurists D. D. Burliuk; V. V. Khlebnikov; V. V. Kamensky; early B. Pasternak; V. V. Mayakovsky

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The cult of the form did not last long, futurism quickly outlived itself. But the work of the futurists was not in vain. In their verses, in addition to the almost perfect mastery of the word, meaning was added, and they sounded like beautiful music. Let us recall Boris Pasternak's poem "Winter Night", in which the song of a blizzard is heard from the first lines. He started out as a futurist. B. Pasternak's talent and his futuristic mastery of form gave an amazing result: Chalk, snow all over the earth To all limits The candle burned on the table, The candle burned.

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V. V. Mayakovsky (1893 - 1930) Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born on July 19, 1893. in the Kutaisi province, the village of Bagdadi (Georgia) in the family of a forester. Was arrested several times. He entered the school of painting, sculpture and architecture. In 1912 - Poems published for the first time. In 1913 published a book called "I". In 1918 organized the Komfut group. Died April 14, 1930. in Moscow.

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov is, along with Tchaikovsky, the most beloved and most popular composer in Russia. However, some rumors often arise around his name. Namely: they say that de Rachmaninov is not recognized abroad. And if they recognize it, then only piano concertos. That serious pianists don't play Rachmaninoff.

Let's take a look at these statements and try to find their cause. The popularity or unpopularity of this or that composer is now easy to check. To do this, you can collect statistics on the performance of his compositions in a particular country, and even easier to look into the catalogs of leading record companies. Naturally, firms do not work at a loss and write down what is in demand. I used the US SCHWANN OPUS catalog, which has data on all CDs sold in the US. So, not only piano concertos, but also Rachmaninov's Symphonies and other orchestral works are present in many interpretations, mostly foreign ones, many of which are performed by very famous musicians. Among the composers who worked in the twentieth century, Rachmaninoff is inferior (and even then only slightly) to Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Shostakovich and Stravinsky (of the Russian period). For example, Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony has 30 interpretations, Symphonic Dances - 28, Concerto 2 - 58! For comparison: Mahler's 9th symphony - 28, Stravinsky's Psalm Symphony - 12, Shostakovich's 7th symphony - 17, Honegger's 3rd symphony - 8, Hindemith's Symphony "The Painter Mathis" - 17, Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra - 34 interpretations. Consequently, the assertion that Rachmaninoff is unpopular abroad is not true. Although, of course, French music is played more in France, Italian music in Italy, and English music in England. And French pianists play more French authors than in other countries, and German pianists play German composers.
Using the same directory, I present a list of well-known foreign pianists who have recorded Rachmaninov's piano concertos: Walter Gieseking, Arthur Rubinstein, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Jorge Bohle, Leon Fleischer, Van Clyburn, Martha Argerich, Alexis Weisenberg, Philippe Antremont, Helene Grimaud, Byron Jainis , Geza Anda, Erd Wald. Musicians born in Russia are not included in the list. There is no one on this list who can be classified as a superficial virtuoso. Moreover, Rachmaninoff's music occupied an honorable place in the repertoire of many of these musicians, and it was in the music of this Russian composer that foreign performers achieved the greatest success. As for the opinion that only Russian musicians can adequately play Russian music, this says nothing but the deep ignorance of the bearers of such judgments.

Yet there is some objective reason in all this talk about Rachmaninoff. What is the special place of Rachmaninoff in the history of world music?
Rachmaninoff became a conservative from a young age. Modern trends in art did not fascinate him, he did not like the poetry of the Symbolists, and only the persistence of one young admirer forced him to write a cycle of romances on the verses of the Symbolists. Rachmaninov was not going to break with the legacy of Tchaikovsky and Liszt. In the era of all sorts of "isms" he was a staunch defender of tradition. There were many conservatives in art, but their name is epigones, and all their efforts have long been forgotten. But Rachmaninoff was not an epigone. Without breaking with the world of late romanticism, Rachmaninoff managed to do what his art colleagues already considered impossible. Rachmaninov created his own unique, easily recognizable style, and the creative manner he found had the ability to develop, and his entire creative life was an evolution. Moreover, Rachmaninov's music bears many features of the music of the 20th century and often directly echoes the music of his more progressive colleagues. Yes, Rachmaninoff remained the last romantic, but a romantic of the 20th century.

In the history of art, examples of fruitful conservatism are not very frequent. Bach, with his complex polyphony, was a retrograde compared to Telemann. Brahms, infinitely preoccupied with the problems of musical form, was a stronghold of conservatism. Time passes, the sharpness of the momentary struggle passes, and it doesn’t matter to us what the disagreements between the “Brahmins” and the “Wagnerians” are. The music of Brahms and Wagner has taken pride of place in the classical heritage, and we perceive it as a product of the same era.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a time of permanent revolutions in art began, when each creator of a new system sought to prove that he was the creator of a new art, that he was the “Chairman of the Globe”. Rachmaninoff did not fit into this picture full of slogans and barricades. And in the unequivocal division into progressive and reactionary, Rachmaninov took his place on the bench of the reactionaries. Later this bench was filled with former revolutionaries (in music Hindemith, Shostakovich, Britten, Honegger, even Schoenberg and Alban Berg turned out to be insufficiently revolutionary), who did not keep up with the uncontrollably running progress, and most importantly did not understand where it was heading. And, perhaps, on the contrary, they understood very well. Extreme intolerance of dissent is an indispensable feature of all dead-end trends in art and ideology, both right and left.

In the twentieth century, the rational principle dominated in music. There is a lot of irrational in Rachmaninov's music, which is not amenable to logical explanation. Probably, this is largely due to the fact that he felt his music as a performer and understood that there is a time when logic should recede (we see the same with Mahler, also a brilliant performer). Formal analysis shows flaws in the form of the Third Concerto, but when a great pianist plays, we don't hear these flaws! Perhaps the point is that the methods of analysis are only a rather rough model of the real world of music.

But let us turn directly to Rachmaninov's music. Among his not very extensive heritage, popular compositions stand out, sometimes overplayed to impossibility, and unpopular ones, which practically do not appear on the concert stage. It is possible that there was a fair assessment of his work and the best was chosen. Or maybe the time for selection and evaluation has not yet come.
Rachmaninov met the beginning of the 20th century hard. In 1895, he experiences an ardent but unhappy love. Written under the impression of what happened, the 1st Symphony in D minor (1895) was not without reason received opus 13. The first performance of the Symphony in 1897 ended in failure. Rachmaninoff burned the score and felt that he was no longer capable of composing music.

They said that the reason for the failure was poor performance (conducted by A. Glazunov). Many years later, the score of the 1st symphony was restored using the preserved orchestral voices. And my God! It turned out that this is one of the best works by Rachmaninov, full of incredible tragedy and pain. It's not a bad job. Shortly before this, the public took the premiere of Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony sourly, contemptuously dubbing the music "valsik". And here is the youngster! What tragedy can such a young master have?
Rachmaninoff got a job, he became a conductor at the Moscow Private Opera, began to be treated by a psychiatrist, Dr. Dahl. It was Dr. Dahl who helped Rachmaninov return to composing music. The composer dedicated the Second Piano Concerto (1901) to him, the music of which is full of energy and courageous optimism. The second concerto needs no explanation, its music sounds so often, so familiar that it does not require effort from the listener. Especially when a very good pianist is playing (the pianist faces a problem in this concerto - it is easy to drown in the full-sounding mass of the orchestra and play not a concerto with an orchestra, but a concerto in an orchestra).

But is Rachmaninoff's music really that simple? I propose to get acquainted with one major, but very rarely performed work by Rachmaninoff - the 1st piano sonata, Op. 28 (1907). I'll try to help you navigate this difficult music.

The 1st part of Allegro moderato (D minor) is written in the form of a sonata allegro. The main part is presented unconventionally - it consists of three elements: the first, introductory, statement of tonality, sharp dotted rhythm; the second element (at a slower pace) is a melodious very expressive theme with unexpected harmonization; the third is a return to the original pace, a rapid motor movement. The main part is widely developed and is replaced by a side theme (B flat major), which at first resembles a stern Orthodox prayer, but gradually acquires a wide melodic development. The final part is light and swift (in G major). A large development leads to a reprise, where the intonations of the main and secondary themes are combined into a single whole.

The 2nd movement Lento (F major) is built on a melodious theme, which is set out in many voices, entwined with expressive undertones. The middle part is based on the same thematic material. When the main theme returns, the presentation is complicated and richly ornamented.

The 3rd movement of Allegro molto (D minor) begins with a rapid motor movement, followed by a series of energetic march-like episodes full of volitional rhythm. The development is preceded by a return to the main (singing) theme of the 1st part. The same theme sounds at the beginning of the reprise of the work.
I don't know what is the reason for the pianists' low interest in Rachmaninov's 1st Sonata. A number of flaws can be found in it, in particular, the motor movement at the beginning of the 3rd movement does not translate into an expressive theme for too long. However, flaws can be found in any music, not excluding Beethoven. The Rachmaninoff Sonata is large in size, it is not inferior to the Concertos in terms of technical complexity and requires a lot of labor from the performer. Probably, it requires labor costs from the listener as well. But doesn't Rachmaninoff deserve Russian pianists to regularly perform all of his piano works?

It is not difficult to see that Rachmaninov's style changed noticeably from the Second Concerto to the First Sonata, there was less open cantilena, more anxiety and tension. These trends will intensify in the further development of Rachmaninov's work.
Rachmaninoff is a unique figure. You can love him or not love him, but he belonged to those composers in the 20th century who showed that the tragedy of the century can be conveyed without abandoning what has been the essence of music since the time of Claudio Monteverdi.

MINISTRY OF CULTURE OF UKRAINE

KHARKOV STATE ACADEMY OF CULTURE

DEPARTMENT OF CULTUROLOGY

Course work

on the topic: ""SILVER AGE" OF RUSSIAN MUSICAL CULTURE"

Performedstudent Kubantseva Anastasia Sergeevna

teacherDoctor of Cultural Studies, Professor Kislyuk Konstantin Vladimirovich

Kharkiv 2012

INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EPOCH

1 Socio-economic, socio-political background. Brief description of the era

2 Ideological orientations of the "Silver Age". Representatives in different genres

SECTION 2. MUSICAL ART OF THE "SILVER AGE"

1 Characteristics of Russian musical art of the late XIX - early XX centuries

2 Works by Sergei Rachmaninov

3 Creativity of Alexander Scriabin

4 Common and distinctive features of the work of Scriabin and Rachmaninoff

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The "Silver Age" of Russian culture for many decades has been the subject of close attention and intense reflection, during which new facets of its unique nature are revealed and its role in the sociocultural genesis is determined.

Relevance of the research topic:at various stages of the existence of human society, musical creativity played an important role in the process of anthropogenesis. In primitive societies, it performed a life-supporting function, which later transformed into the function of satisfying aesthetic needs. This fact demonstrates the relevance and significance of the cultural understanding of the musical heritage of various eras, including artifacts of the musical creativity of the "Silver Age".

Interest in the cultural heritage of the period of Russian history of the late XIX - early XX centuries, known as the "Silver Age", is caused by the uniqueness of the musical culture, formed at the junction of various areas of creativity. The chosen perspective of the study is also important due to the fact that many trends that originated in the era of the "Silver Age" largely determined the appearance of world musical and artistic culture in general in subsequent periods.

SourcesInformation for writing a term paper on the topic "Silver Age" of Russian musical culture" was provided by the basic educational literature, fundamental theoretical works of the largest thinkers in the field under consideration, articles and reviews in specialized and periodicals devoted to the topic "Silver Age" of musical culture", reference literature, other relevant sources of information.

Object of studyin this coursework was the Russian musical culture of the "Silver Age". Subject of studythe musical culture of the "Silver Age" acts as a reflection of the new principles of artistic creativity at a turning point in socio-cultural development.

At work were the following tasks were set and solved: to consider the socio-economic and political background of the late XIX - early XX century; learn the ideological orientations of the "Silver Age", consider representatives in various genres of culture; characterize the musical culture of that time and substantiate its place in the artistic culture as a whole; consider the ideological and artistic position of the composers of the "Silver Age", on the example of the work of Sergei Rachmaninov and Alexander Scriabin.

Course structure:The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, conclusions and a list of references.

CHAPTER 1. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EPOCH

1.1 Socio-economic, socio-political background. Brief description of the era

The situation in Russia at the turn of the century was extremely tense. The complex tangle of contradictions that have arisen - economic, political and social - between the autocracy and the liberal intelligentsia, landlords and peasants, factory owners and workers, the central government and the national outskirts could be resolved without social upheavals only with a global reform. What was needed was the democratization of the country and the capitalization of the countryside.

By the end of the XIX century. Russia was a huge world power that influenced the course of world affairs. While in Europe state power was developing in the direction of parliamentarism and elective structures, the Russian Empire remained the last stronghold of absolutism, and the power of the sovereign was not limited to any elected bodies.

The inviolability of the principle of royal power made the existence of a constitutional regime impossible. The accession to the throne of Nicholas II (1894) aroused hope among those who sought reforms. Nicholas II, speaking to the representatives of the Zemstvos, called the hopes "meaningless dreams." At the turn of the century, the tsarist government was concerned about only one thing - to preserve the autocracy at all costs.

By 1917, the Russian political elite had completely degraded and showed its absolute inability to control the internal political situation in the country, and the people of Russia lost their historical ground under their feet, lost faith in centuries-old moral principles and traditional life, lost faith in the king and God, began to worship other idols who promised paradise not in heaven, but on earth.

The country's economy also had its own specifics and differed significantly from the economies of other countries. Russia was faced with acute problems of modernization, i.e. radical renewal of the most important spheres of society. It should also be taken into account that the severity of the emerging problems was due to the socio-political crisis, rivalry in the international arena, and the uneven nature of economic development.

At the beginning of the XX century. capitalist modernization in Russia intensified. The relatively high rates of industrial growth, the monopolistic restructuring of large-scale industry, transport and credit have placed it on a par with the advanced countries of the West in terms of the level of capitalist socialization of these industries. However, capitalism that had established itself in the economy was not able to completely transform the pre-capitalist structures. In particular, the capitalist transformation of agriculture was not completed, private ownership of land did not finally establish itself as the dominant form of land ownership, and communal land ownership continued to play a huge role.

One of the features of the Russian bourgeoisie was its dependence on the autocratic-bureaucratic apparatus, which not only remained intact, but also intensified. After the revolution of 1905-1907. the conservative part of the bourgeoisie began to defend the positions of the monarchy, but the revolution also contributed to the creation of a liberal-bureaucratic opposition to the autocracy in the country. On the whole, the absence of a mass social base and authority among the people among the Russian bourgeoisie doomed it to political impotence and made it impossible to modernize the social system. The politically dominant class remained the landowners - the backbone of the autocracy, which primarily expressed their interests.

One of the features of the social class structure of Russia, in contrast to the developed capitalist countries, was that the so-called middle class (wealthy owners of cities and villages, average employees, freelancers, etc.) was relatively small: it consisted mainly of the intelligentsia, which supplied ideologists and functionaries to all the struggling classes and parties.

Thus, the common cause of the protracted crisis in the late XIX-early XX century. was the failure of the attempts of the autocracy to adapt to the developing capitalist relations without changing its nature. And this was one of the deepest contradictions in the Russian reality of that time. The crisis of Russian society has raised as the main question of the ways of further development of the country. One way or another, all classes, social strata and social groups, political parties and revolutionaries were drawn into his decision. The choice of the path for the further social development of Russia became the subject of not only creative thought, but also the basis of practical politics.

.2 Ideological orientations of the "Silver Age". Representatives in different genres

Highlighting the most important priorities in the development of Russian culture of the late XIX - early XX centuries, one cannot ignore its most important characteristics. The end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century in the history of Russian culture is usually called the Russian Renaissance or, in comparison with the golden age of Pushkin, the silver age of Russian culture.

This period in the development of Russian culture is associated with an upsurge in all spheres of the spiritual life of Russian society: hence the term "spiritual renaissance". The revival of the best traditions of Russian culture in the widest range: from science, philosophical thought, literature, painting, music and ending with the art of theater, architecture, arts and crafts.

The expression and title "Silver Age" is poetic and metaphorical, neither strict nor definite. It was invented by the representatives of the Silver Age themselves. A. Akhmatova has it in the well-known lines: "And the silver month froze brightly over the silver age ...". It is used by N. Berdyaev. A. Bely called one of his novels "Silver Dove". The editor of the magazine "Apollo" S. Makovsky used it to refer to the entire time of the beginning of the 20th century.

In the name itself there is a certain opposition to the previous, golden age, when Russian culture experienced a rapid flowering. She radiated a bright, sunny light, illuminating the whole world with it, striking it with its strength, brilliance and magnificence. Art then actively invaded public life and politics. It fully corresponded to the well-known formula of E. Yevtushenko: "a poet in Russia is more than a poet." On the contrary, the art of the "Silver Age" tends to be only art. The light it emits appears lunar, reflected, twilight, mysterious, magical and mystical.

The artistic culture of the turn of the century is an important page in the cultural heritage of Russia. Ideological inconsistency and ambiguity were inherent not only in artistic trends and trends, but also in the work of individual writers, artists, and composers. It was a period of renewal of various types and genres of artistic creativity, rethinking. The attitude towards the heritage of the revolutionary democrats became ambiguous even among progressively thinking cultural figures. The primacy of sociality in the Wanderers was seriously criticized by many realist artists.

In Russian artistic culture of the late XIX - early XX century. spread "decadence",denoting such phenomena in art as the rejection of civic ideals and faith in reason, immersion in the sphere of individualistic experiences. These ideas were an expression of the social position of a part of the artistic intelligentsia, which tried to "get away" from the complexities of life into the world of dreams, irreality, and sometimes mysticism. But even in this way, she reflected in her work the crisis phenomena of the then social life.

concept "modernism"(fr. modernus - modern) included many phenomena of art of the twentieth century, born at the beginning of this century, new in comparison with the realism of the previous century. However, new artistic and aesthetic qualities also appeared in the realism of this time: the “framework” of a realistic vision of life was expanding, and the search for ways of self-expression of the individual in literature and art was underway. The characteristic features of art are synthesis, a mediated reflection of life, in contrast to the critical realism of the nineteenth century, with its inherent concrete reflection of reality. This feature of art is associated with the wide spread of neo-romanticism in literature, painting, music, the birth of a new stage realism.

Literature.The most revealing image "Silver Age" manifested itself in literature. On the one hand, in the works of writers, stable traditions of critical realism were preserved. Tolstoy, in his latest literary works, raised the problem of the individual's resistance to the rigid norms of life ("The Living Corpse", "Father Sergius", "After the Ball"). His letters of appeal to Nicholas II, journalistic articles are imbued with pain and anxiety for the fate of the country, the desire to influence the authorities, block the path to evil and protect all the oppressed. The main idea of ​​Tolstoy's journalism is the impossibility of eliminating evil by violence.

A.P. Chekhov during these years created the plays “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard”, in which he reflected the important changes taking place in society.

Socially pointed plots were also in honor among young writers. Ivan Bunin explored not only the external side of the processes that took place in the countryside (the stratification of the peasantry, the gradual withering away of the nobility), but also the psychological consequences of these phenomena, how they influenced the souls of the Russian people (“Village”, “Sukhodol”, the cycle of “peasant » stories). Kuprin A. I. showed the unsightly side of army life: the disenfranchisement of soldiers, the emptiness and lack of spirituality of the “gentlemen of the officers” (“Duel”). One of the new phenomena in literature was the reflection in it of the life and struggle of the proletariat. The initiator of this theme was Maxim Gorky ("Enemies", "Mother").

The lyrics of the "Silver Age" are diverse and musical. The epithet "silver" itself sounds like a bell. The "Silver Age" is a whole constellation of poets. Poets - musicians. The poems of the "Silver Age" are the music of words. In these verses there was not a single superfluous sound, not a single unnecessary comma, out of place put a full stop. Everything is thoughtfully, clearly and musically.

In the first decade of the 20th century, a whole galaxy of talented "peasant" poets came to Russian poetry - S. Yesenin, N. Klyuev, S. Klychkov.

The initiators of a new direction in art were symbolist poets who declared war on the materialistic worldview, arguing that faith and religion are the cornerstone of human existence and art. They believed that poets were endowed with the ability to join the otherworldly world through artistic symbols. Symbolism initially took the form of decadence. This term implied a mood of decadence, melancholy and hopelessness, a pronounced individualism. These features were characteristic of the poetry of K. Balmont, A. Blok, V. Bryusov.

After 1909, a new stage in the development of symbolism begins. It is painted in Slavophile tones, demonstrates contempt for the "rationalist" West, portends the death of Western civilization, represented, including by official Russia. At the same time, he turns to the elemental forces of the people, to Slavic paganism, tries to penetrate into the depths of the Russian soul and sees in Russian folk life the roots of the “second birth” of the country - A. Bely (“Silver Dove”, “Petersburg”). Russian symbolism has become a global phenomenon. It is with him that, first of all, the concept of the "Silver Age" is connected.

The opponents of the symbolists were the acmeists (from the Greek "acme" - the highest degree of something, blooming power). They denied the mystical aspirations of the Symbolists, proclaimed the intrinsic value of real life, called for the return of words to their original meaning, freeing them from symbolic interpretations - N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam.

Painting.Similar processes took place in Russian painting. Strong positions were held by representatives of the realistic school, the Society of Wanderers was active. Repin I.E. graduated in 1906. grandiose canvas "Meeting of the State Council". In revealing the events of the past, V. I. Surikov was primarily interested in the people as a historical force, a creative principle in man. The realistic foundations of creativity were also preserved by Nesterov M.V.

However, the trendsetter was the style, called "modern". Modernist searches affected the work of such major realist artists as Korovin K. A., Serov V. A.. Supporters of this trend united in the World of Art society. They took a critical stance against the Wanderers, believing that the latter, performing a function not inherent in art, harmed painting. Art, in their opinion, is an independent field of activity, and it should not depend on social influences. For a long period (from 1898 to 1920), the World of Art included almost all the major artists - Benois A., Bakst L., Kustodiev B., Lansere E., Malyavin F., Roerich N., Somov K..

In 1907, an exhibition called "Blue Rose" was opened in Moscow, in which 16 artists took part (P. V. Kuznetsov, N. N. Sapunov, M. S. Saryan and others). It was a searching youth, striving to find their individuality in the synthesis of Western experience and national traditions.

A number of major masters - Kandinsky V., Lentulov A., Chagall M., Filonov P. and others - entered the history of world culture as representatives of unique styles that combined avant-garde trends with Russian national traditions.

Sculpture.Sculpture also experienced a creative upsurge. Her awakening was largely due to the trends of Impressionism. P. P. Trubetskoy achieved significant successes on the path of renewal. His sculptural portraits of Tolstoy, Witte, Chaliapin and others became widely known. An important milestone in the history of Russian monumental sculpture was the monument to Alexander III, opened in St. Petersburg in October 1909. It was conceived as a kind of antipode to another great monument - the "Bronze Horseman" by E. Falcone.

The combination of the tendencies of impressionism and modernity characterizes the work of A. S. Golubkina. At the same time, the main feature of her works is not the display of a specific image, but the creation of a generalized phenomenon: “Old Age”, “Walking Man”, “Soldier”, “Sleeping”.

On the whole, the Russian sculptural school was little affected by avant-garde tendencies, and did not develop such a complex range of innovative aspirations, characteristic of painting.

Architecture.In the second half of the 19th century, new opportunities opened up for architecture. This was due to technological progress. The rapid growth of cities, their industrial equipment, the development of transport, changes in public life required new architectural solutions. Stations, restaurants, shops, markets, theaters and bank buildings were built not only in the capitals, but also in provincial cities. At the same time, the traditional construction of palaces, mansions, and estates continued. The main problem of architecture was the search for a new style. And just like in painting, a new direction in architecture was called "modern". One of the features of this trend was the stylization of Russian architectural motifs - the so-called neo-Russian style.

The most famous architect, whose work largely determined the development of Russian, especially Moscow Art Nouveau, was F. Shekhtel. At the beginning of his work, he relied not on Russian, but on medieval Gothic patterns. The mansion of the manufacturer S. Ryabushinsky was built in this style. In the future, Shekhtel repeatedly turned to the traditions of Russian wooden architecture. In this regard, the building of the Yaroslavl railway station in Moscow is very indicative. Subsequently, the architect is increasingly approaching the direction called "rationalist modern", which is characterized by a significant simplification of architectural forms and structures. The most significant buildings reflecting this trend were the Ryabushinsky Bank, the printing house of the Utro Rossii newspaper.

At the same time, along with the architects of the “new wave”, admirers of neoclassicism (I. V. Zholtovsky), as well as masters who use the technique of mixing different sculptural styles (eclecticism), held significant positions. The most indicative of this was the architectural solution of the building of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow.

ballet, theater, cinema.By the beginning of the XX century. Russian ballet has taken a leading position in the world of choreographic art. The Russian school of ballet relied on the academic traditions of the late 19th century, on stage productions by the outstanding choreographer M. Petipa that had become classics. At the same time, Russian ballet has not escaped new trends. Young directors A. Gorsky and M. Fokin, in opposition to the aesthetics of academism, put forward the principle of picturesqueness, according to which not only the choreographer and composer, but also the artist became full-fledged authors of the performance. The ballets by Gorsky and Fokine were staged in radio sets by K. Korovin, A. Benois, L. Bakst, N. Roerich.

The Russian ballet school of the "Silver Age" gave the world a galaxy of brilliant dancers - A. Pavlov, T. Karsavin, V. Nijinsky and others.

A notable feature of the culture of the early XX century. were the works of outstanding theater directors. V. E. Meyerhold searched in the field of theatrical conventionality, generalization, the use of elements of a folk show and mask theater. E. B. Vakhtangov preferred expressive, spectacular, joyful performances.

In the first decade of the 20th century in Russia, following France, a new art form appeared - cinematography. In 1903 the first "electrotheatres" and "illusions" arose, and by 1914 about 4,000 cinemas had already been built. In 1908, the first Russian feature film "Stenka Razin and the Princess" was shot, and in 1911 - the first full-length film "The Defense of Sevastopol". Cinematography developed rapidly and became very popular. In 1914, there were about 30 domestic film companies in Russia. And although the bulk of film production was made up of films with primitive melodramatic plots, world-famous cinema figures appeared: director Y. Protazanov, actors I. Mozzhukhin, V. Kholodnaya, A. Koonen. The undoubted merit of cinema was its accessibility to all segments of the population. Russian films, created mainly as adaptations of classical works, became the first signs in the formation of "mass culture" - an indispensable attribute of bourgeois society.

. "Silver Age" - the period of formation of the Russian avant-garde. There have never been so many trends, groupings, unions, associations in Russian art as at the beginning of the 20th century. Each of them had their own creative theoretical programs, almost all of them denied the achievements of previous generations, were at enmity with each other and tried to predict the future, which was unclear and foggy for them, so there is almost always a tragic shade in the work of many artists and poets.

The most revealing image "Silver Age" manifested itself in literature. Stable traditions of critical realism were preserved in the works (L.N. Tolstoy, I.A. Bunin). The lyrics of the "Silver Age" are diverse and musical. "The Silver Age" is a whole galaxy of talented poets (A. Bely, A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva). One of the new phenomena in literature was the reflection in it of the life and struggle of the proletariat (M. Gorky). The initiators of a new trend in art were symbolist poets who declared war on the materialistic worldview, arguing that faith and religion are the cornerstone of human existence and art (A. Blok, K. Balmont). Similar processes took place in Russian painting. Strong positions were held by representatives of the realistic school, the Society of Wanderers (I. Repin, P. Bryullov, A. Vasnetsov) operated. “Modern” appeared (Korovin K. A., Serov V. A.).

Sculpture also experienced a creative upsurge. Her awakening was largely due to the trends of impressionism (Trubetskoy P.P.). On the whole, the Russian sculptural school was little affected by avant-garde tendencies, and did not develop such a complex range of innovative aspirations, characteristic of painting.

By the beginning of the XX century. Russian ballet has taken a leading position in the world of choreographic art. The Russian school of ballet relied on the academic traditions of the late 19th century. (M. Petip). At the same time, not only the ballet master composer, but also the artist (A. Gorsky, M. Fokin) became full-fledged authors of the performance. The Russian ballet school of the "Silver Age" gave the world a galaxy of brilliant dancers - Anna Pavlova, T. Karsavin, V. Nijinsky and others.

A new art form appeared - cinematography. The first "electrotheatres" and "illusions" arose, and cinemas were built. Cinematography developed rapidly and became very popular. And although the bulk of film production was made up of films with primitive melodramatic plots, world-famous cinema figures appeared: director Y. Protazanov, actors I. Mozzhukhin, V. Kholodnaya, A. Koonen.

The culture of the turn of the century always contains elements of a transitional era, which includes the traditions of the culture of the past and the innovative tendencies of a new emerging culture. There is a transfer of traditions and not just a transfer, but the emergence of new ones, all this is connected with the turbulent process of searching for new ways of developing culture, corrected by the social development of this time. The diversity of directions and schools is a feature of Russian culture at the turn of the century. A feature of the culture of this period is its orientation towards the philosophical understanding of life, the need to build a holistic picture of the world, where art, along with science, plays a huge role. The focus of Russian culture of the late 19th - early 20th centuries was a person who becomes a kind of connecting link in the motley variety of schools and areas of science and art, on the one hand, and a kind of starting point for analyzing all the most diverse cultural artifacts, on the other. Hence the powerful philosophical foundation that underlies Russian culture at the turn of the century.

SECTION 2. MUSICAL ART OF THE "SILVER AGE"

.1 Characteristics of the musical art of the late 19th - early 20th centuries

" The Silver Age" gives the impression of "split" and a drop in the intensity of thought about music. No one poses acute musical and social problems on a large scale, most composers close in a narrow circle of craft interests and prefer to make non-binding judgments about this and that instead of upholding music as a socially active and cultural force and as a sphere of knowledge. The composer becomes only a person who writes music. The rest is not his business. A habit of petty newspaper bickering is introduced and a harmful type of reviewer who settles scores is born.

In Moscow, along with Kashkin, since 1891, the critical activity of S. N. Kriglikov began. As a champion of the interests of the New Russian School, Kruglikov defends in the Moscow environment the creativity, tastes and positions of his teacher N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. In this regard, his work was historically valuable and, of course, contributed to the victory of Korsakov's art in Moscow in the 90s in Mamontov's private Russian opera.

In terms of musical and ideological " silver Age " it was rather a twilight than a renaissance, but nevertheless at that time the spread of musical education throughout the country went its own way, and the activities of the Russian Musical Society in the fortieth year of its existence began to give noticeable results both in the field of concert and musical and pedagogical. The contingent of musically educated performers and listeners began to grow everywhere. Founded in St. Petersburg in 1894, the Russian Musical Newspaper was the first cultural musical organ that, along with historical and aesthetic articles, began to serve the musical educational and musical public interests of the whole country, and not just the metropolitan centers. The same organ published articles on the issues of musical ethnography and the culture of cult singing.

2.2 Creativity of Sergei Rachmaninoff

E years bring a noticeable revival into the public life of Russia. An industrial boom begins in the country, the labor movement grows. The creation by Lenin in St. Petersburg of the “Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class” marks the beginning of a new, proletarian stage in the Russian liberation movement. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the rise of the revolutionary wave, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was created. These years are the time of intensive development of Russian art.

Symbolists, Imagists, decadents of all stripes emerged into the world, renouncing the people, proclaiming the thesis “art for the sake of art”, covering up their ideological and moral corruption by the pursuit of a beautiful form without content. All of them were united by the bestial fear of the coming proletarian revolution.

With great force, the pernicious influence of anti-realistic trends affected the art of music. For many composers, the features of modernism became predominant.

One of the brightest spokesmen of the progressive social aspirations in the musical art of that time was Sergei Rachmaninov. Many of the most important themes that worried the best representatives of Russian artistic culture of that time were reflected in his work. Rachmaninoff continued to champion realistic art.

The composer was distinguished by the greatest creative activity. He not only created new compositions every year, but also carried out intensive performing activities. His name as a composer and artist has gained immense popularity among the general public. In the years preceding the first imperialist war, Rachmaninoff became the idol of Muscovites. His performances turn into genuine triumphs, he is given an enthusiastic ovation, he is showered with flowers. Young people especially loved him. She looked at him with hope, as at the support of Russian music in the years of gloomy "timelessness". Rachmaninov's creative activity in upholding realistic traditions gave rise to sharp controversy in the press. One part of the criticism - the advanced one - raised him to the shield, the other - from the anti-realist camp - was sharply hostile to his work.

Rachmaninoff became in those years the focus of a fierce struggle between the two camps - realistic and modernist. The struggle of opinions around him was carried on with particular bitterness and persistence.

Criticism from the modernist camp often accused Rachmaninoff of "backwardness", "conservatism"; in reality, this was a dislike for his strong connection with the classical traditions. “Rakhmaninov,” wrote, for example, one of the critics, “is a composer with a quite clearly and frankly expressed bias towards the musical ideas of the past. He organically merged with his now somewhat old-fashioned style and stands apart among modern composers, being the last of the musical Mohicans of the last century, stubbornly ignoring new trends in music. Modernists hated Rachmaninov's music for its sincerity, genuine humanity, accessibility to a wide range of listeners, that is, precisely its most valuable, democratic features.

As the critic M. Shaginyan wrote: “Rakhmaninov has no interest in mystical insights, he is all on the ground. His themes are either sincere or tragic, but always artless. “I want to be human,” his music insists.

Gradually, the atmosphere of the “most shameful and most mediocre” decade in the history of the Russian intelligentsia begins to influence him, and twilight, gloomy images, the theme of death are significantly developed in his art, but he remains alien to anti-realistic trends. He managed to truthfully depict in his art a number of significant and, moreover, progressive phenomena of Russian life on the eve of world-historical revolutionary events.

But Rachmaninoff was unable to rise to their correct understanding. This contradiction, in the end, led him to a fatal act of life. Rachmaninoff moves to Sweden. It is bitter to realize that such a great artist, who has intimately connected himself with all his activities with his homeland, did not understand the Great October Socialist Revolution and did not devote his strength to the construction of a new culture. There is no doubt that if he had remained in the Soviet Union, his work would have been more fruitful and would have reached a new high flowering.

Rachmaninoff did not assume that he would no longer return to his homeland and thought that he was leaving for a while. The main reason for leaving was the fear that in the period until a new life was established, it would be difficult for him to work - to compose and give concerts. This departure is demanded by his art, thought Rachmaninov. But this is where he was wrong. Separation from the homeland could not but affect such a truly national composer. Like Antaeus, breaking away from mother earth, who nurtured him, he lost his creative power. For almost twenty years he could not compose.

musical artistic culture rachmaninov

2.3 Creativity of Alexander Scriabin

Scriabin's creative activity captures the end of the 19th century, but to a much greater extent it is associated with the beginning of the 20th, when the composer created his largest and most important works (The Poem of Ecstasy, "Prometheus").

Scriabin conveyed the tense pulse of the pre-revolutionary era as the flight of time towards an inevitable, joyfully awaited and saving “catastrophe”. His art expressed all this with penetrating sincerity, inspiration and poetry. This is the unique "electrification" of Scriabin's music. Those were the years when the revolutionary and artistic principles were intertwined.

In the work of Scriabin, progressive humanistic, worldly ideals were embodied in a symbolically encrypted form. In the center of the imaginative world is a purposeful and powerful man, a titan man, longing for happiness and freedom.

Scriabin was also interested in specific problems of social life. However, his soul was constantly and sharply tormented primarily by the problems of the inner world of man, the state of this world in the surrounding "unsettled" reality, moral and philosophical problems. Not trying to reflect real life conflicts, he, however, expressed the real longing of his suffering soul, which corresponds to the broad social dream of freedom of the spirit, of a relaxed personality and its imperious rebellion. Scriabin's voice was like the rebellious call of Gorky's Burevestnik. Hence the excruciating intensity of Scriabin's work, a tension filled with the spirit of denial and rejection, the spirit of disobedience and often courageously lonely pride.

Scriabin bore the imprint of not only the foreboding of great purifying thunderstorms, but also the joyful insights of the “new spring”, the foresight of the invincibility of the onset of a new era. Scriabin's music is an unstoppable, deep human desire for freedom, for joy, for enjoying life. Constant dissatisfaction and tension of all forces mutually accompany each other in it - and it continues to exist as a living witness to the best aspirations of its era, in the conditions of which it was an "explosive", exciting and restless element of culture. He personified in his work the rich symbolism and passionate pathos of the titanic struggle, for which he experienced an irresistible thirst; strove to express in uniquely original, exquisitely subtle forms the poetry of the heroic principle, in which he truly felt the most vivid manifestation of the sublime in life and in the art of his era.

The imperious beginning and the rebelliousness of the protesting soul, the dramatic sharpness of collisions and the inner truth of the confessional tone - this is a special subtext of Scriabin's work. The composer was able to hear the main thing - the "music of the revolution", delving into the distant rumble of the impending uprising with excitement and hope.

His art is a legend created by him, a life dream really embodied in the sphere of artistic figurativeness. And the struggle for the realization of such a dream was a fierce battle with reality in the conditions of the spiritual constraint of the pre-revolutionary years.

The rise of public life in Russia in the years immediately preceding the first (1905) and February (1917) revolutions brought to life the romance of struggle, a bright dream of the future. However, in the minds of a significant circle of the artistic intelligentsia of those years, these romantic moods were intertwined with symbolistically refined associativity, which difficultly encoded their progressive orientation.

In that extremely difficult period in the development of Russian art, many of the most diverse artists were brought together by the strength of humanism, an ethical impulse, without which the birth of a hot and promising thought, an effectively impressive image, was impossible.

Moral and socio-historical problems constantly worried Scriabin, and this was reflected in his work. The desire for the artistic never obscured in him the desire for the human. And it is no coincidence that no matter what lyrical, personal topic Scriabin touches on, this personal always expands in his work to the universal, worldly, philosophically generalized. Man, and not his own biography in the work of Scriabin, in the final analysis - first of all.

There was a time when Scriabin carefully studied the works of T. Carlyle and even took a great interest in them. These works undoubtedly were, along with the books of A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche, literary sources of his views on the "musical element" of life.

Scriabin sought to saturate his work with ideas, concepts and associations of a philosophical-psychological, and sometimes even abstract-logical order: the concepts of space, time, energy, infinity, death. Scriabin wanted to express in his music not one or another mood, but a whole worldview, which he tried to develop from all sides.

Such an artistic phenomenon as Scriabin, if considered in conjunction with, say, equally central figures of his time, like Vrubel in painting and Blok in poetry, belongs to a certain trend in Russian art of the early twentieth century; a flow that has specific social roots and a special social orientation. It does not entirely fit into other currents of the same historical period (for example, late romanticism, symbolism, impressionism, expressionism), although it is saturated with individual features of each of them.

2.4 Common and distinctive features of the work of Scriabin and Rachmaninov

Scriabin and Rachmaninov are two of the greatest musicians of the turn of the century. They were almost perfect. By birth, they belonged to the same military-intellectual-noble circle, lived in Moscow, rotated in the same musical world, studied with the same professors - Zverev and Taneyev, at the same Moscow Conservatory; creatively worked in the same field - both composers and pianists. And, despite this, it is difficult to imagine two natures as opposed as Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. All their lives they had very little in common with each other, rarely met and never became friends.

Rachmaninoff, who highly valued Scriabin's genius, knew Scriabin's work perfectly and in many respects, although in a completely different way, reflected the same forebodings and the same uplifting moods of Russia on the eve of its great historical changes, did not reflect the impact of Scriabin's language in any of his lines.

B. L. Yavorsky wrote: “Scriabin is rarely played in Paris. The spectators say that he is good, impresses, but he worries them, excites them, and peace is the most precious thing to them; they are afraid to break it, to lose it, they are afraid that this music will make them “live” in a different way. Unlike Rachmaninov's music, which is singsong-lyrical and at the same time motor-energetic, but it is "traditional". It has the embodiment of the Russian beginning without "premeditation", without folklore quotations. This once again proves that Scriabin and the revolution are inseparable, that Scriabin is the threshold of a new culture, he is inconceivable without it and she without him. Scriabin is the most modern in the evolution of mankind, and Rachmaninov's music, no matter how "traditional" and lyrical it may be, leaves people calm, inert, frozen, even ossified in their cultural era.

Rachmaninoff's first review of Scriabin's music was in 1901. After listening to Scriabin's First Symphony, Rachmaninov said: "So I thought that Scriabin was just a pig, but it turned out to be a composer."

Since then, he thoughtfully and attentively followed the work of his friend and rival in popularity, which grew for both, although it captured different categories of the public. Scriabin's audience and Rachmaninov's audience were not the same, they were two audiences of different aesthetic attitudes.

Rachmaninoff liked much in Scriabin's work. But a lot of things repelled and depressed him - they had different musical tastes. Rachmaninoff never understood Scriabin's mystical delusions. Scriabin, on the other hand, never showed the slightest interest in Rachmaninov's works - he did not follow them and for the most part did not know them. When he had to listen to his works, by accident or for diplomatic reasons, he suffered physically - they were so alien to him.

Scriabin spoke of Rachmaninov's music in the following way: "It's all the same whining, dull lyrics, "chaikovshchina". There is no impulse, no power, no light - music for suicides. Scriabin could not stand Tchaikovsky's music - Rachmaninoff grew out of it. Their musical lineage was also excellent: Rachmaninov was formed mainly from Tchaikovsky and partly from Schumann, Scriabin from Chopin and Liszt.

Rachmaninov was generally silent, he did not talk about his music at all, he showed modesty, which somehow did not at all fit with his world name.

Never showed unfinished works. He never talked about his creative process. He either did not reveal his inner world to anyone, or to some very close people. Rachmaninov felt some strange uncertainty, almost timidity, incomprehensible in such a great musician, who, moreover, was brilliantly famous during his lifetime. In this he resembled Tchaikovsky, also a great modest man.

Scriabin, on the contrary, was always so sure of his undeniable genius that no hints or conversations were supposed to be about this in his presence. It was considered an axiom. From the time he wrote his Third Symphony (1904) - "The Divine Poem" - he quite sincerely considered himself already the greatest composer of all past, present and all future. After all, according to his philosophy, he should have been the last of the composers, because his last (unrealized) work “Mystery” was supposed to cause a world cataclysm and the whole universe was supposed to burn in the fire of transfiguration.

Scriabin was the only symbolist musician. Rachmaninoff was not touched by any symbolism - he was only a musician. He is one of the galaxy of Russian composers, together with Tchaikovsky, one of the "most humane" composers, a musician of his inner world.

Scriabin evolved a lot during his career. His first works have almost nothing in common with the last. Other colors, other techniques. Rachmaninoff remained even all the time - he did not evolve and did not change his style, only his skill grew stronger. His last compositions, written outside of Russia, appear somewhat more dry and formal.

Now Rachmaninov's work seems to have been relegated to the nineteenth century, but Scriabin's music is now also gradually fading into the past: his innovations have long ceased to be an incomprehensible new word in music.

In music, not only ideas and tastes changed, the language changed, intonations changed, because the character, structure and pace of life of the ideologically guiding environment changed. Music, as a sensitive barometer of intonational changes, could not remain insensitive criticism of everything that was happening. Russian music of the late 19th - early 20th century grew up amid the struggle between the culture of the bourgeois city and the maturing Russian capitalism.

Rachmaninov's creative activity, which received worldwide recognition, was most fully and deeply appreciated in the Soviet Union. Only under new social conditions, when truly mass propaganda of classical art became possible, did the music of the great composer for the first time become accessible to the general public. After the revolution, a fierce ideological struggle took place around Rachmaninoff. It was conducted for many years and was a reflection of the struggle between two trends in Soviet musical art - realism and modernism.

This brightest Russian artist absorbed and reflected with extraordinary force of sincerity and emotional tension the anxiety and emerging feelings of opposition of his people on the eve of the imminent social battles, and to a large extent this is why his name, the name of a bold innovator, fits so organically into the artistic culture of our days.

The transitional nature of Scriabin's works - the conflict in it of the opposing tendencies of various worldviews - sometimes acquires an explosive character to the same extent as the time itself that gave birth to it; a time in which the phenomenon of withering away and decline invisibly coexist with the phenomena of the emerging new.

Creativity Scriabin not only reflected the restless, full of premonitions and anxious expectation of the present, but also anticipated the images of the future. It reflected not only the heroic and tragic struggle for this future, but also the romantic dream of its triumph.

Scriabin and Rachmaninov are two opposite natures. All their lives they had very little in common with each other, rarely met and never became friends. Scriabin was the only symbolist musician. Rachmaninoff was not touched by any symbolism - he was only a musician.

Rachmaninoff had a special interest in the work of his comrade and rival, but Rachmaninoff did not accept Scriabin's mystical delusions, and Scriabin did not have the slightest interest in Rachmaninoff's compositions. When Scriabin had to listen to his works, he suffered physically - they were so alien to him.

CONCLUSIONS

The musical culture of the "Silver Age" took shape in the general artistic context of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, which was formed under the influence of a number of factors. The decisive role in its appearance was played by the events that determined the social and political life in Russia of this period, the achievements of Western European and domestic culture.

In the course of the work, the social prerequisites for the formation of the culture of the "Silver Age" were revealed. These include:

) the crisis of political power in the country, which caused negative sentiments in various social strata;

) strengthening of political activity and development of revolutionary movements and mindsets;

) the growth of social significance and activity of new strata of society;

) progress in the field of natural sciences and technocratic changes in society;

) surge of philosophical thought and philosophical pluralism;

) activation of cultural life and its diversity.

The artistic culture of this period is heterogeneous. Various creative currents coexist and intersect in it - impressionism, neo-romanticism, decadence, symbolism, acmeism, cubism, futurism, etc.

Two composers are singled out, whose work determined the unique originality of the "Silver Age". The ideological content of the musical culture of this period was a reflection of the complex worldview, the complexity in the political sphere, the First World War and the revolutions that were widespread among artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with the eternal problems of good and evil, life and death, love and hate, the topic becomes relevant, united under the name of Russian cosmism, with its aspiration to the heights of creative reflection, to transcendental worlds (A.N. Skryabin), religious and mystical motives (S. V. Rachmaninov). In the works of composers of this period, folklore and modernity (S.V. Rachmaninov), lyricism and heroic pathos, realism and fabulousness (A.N. Skryabin) “meet”.

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