Abstract: The research subject is scientific and educational work of the Jewish folk music society established in St.Petersburg in 1908. Using the example of this Society, the author considers the realized ideas of public music education which became popular in Russia in the early 20th century. Special attention is given to the historic role of the folklore component in the music education of urban dwellers. In this context, the author considers the activities of the Society connected with ethnographic research of the pieces of Jewish folk music, their processing and usage in educational work. The author’s special contribution is the consideration of organization of the educational process in the Society. The author studies the activities of one-year music courses training Jewish folk music performers, and the well-known pedagogues: I.S. Tomars, I.Yu. Akhron, M.E. Bukinik. Besides, the information about music albums, issued by the Society, and Jewish folk music concerts, organized by it, which contained not only music performances, but also music lectures, is of great scientific and historical value.    

Keywords: history of music education, jewish school of composers, national school of composers, national education, jewish folklore, music education, jewish folklore society, folklore component, music course, history of St. Petersburg

Abstract: The subject of this research is the symphonic creativity of the outstanding late twentieth-century Russian composer Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko (1939–2010). The author studies his works from the 1960s, which were inspired by classical and modern Russian poetry, while focusing on issues such as the interrelation between music and poetry in Tishchenko’s orchestral compositions and the significant influence of literary concepts in the development of his symphonic style. Special attention is given to four of the composer’s outstanding works: The Twelve, a ballet based on Alexander Blok’s poem (1963), Symphony No.2 Marina to Marina Tsvetaeva’s lyrics (1964), Requiem to the poem by Anna Akhmatova, and a piece of dramatic music, The Death of Pushkin (1967). The author arrives at the conclusion that most of Tishchenko’s symphonic creativity was based on his love of literature, words, and the artistic image begotten by literature and poetry. The author’s unique contribution to the research of this topic is a detailed study of Tishchenko's significant symphonic works based on poetry in the 1960s. The scientific novelty of this research is that Tishchenko's literature-centric works are, for the first time, being considered in the context of the development of his symphonic creativity. The article uncovers a strong correlation between the author’s style, the composer’s language, and the non-music influences on his creative process.  

Keywords: dramaturgy, renewal, symphony, poetry, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tzvetaeva, Boris Tishchenko, word and music, Alexander Pushkin, vocal art

Abstract: The author studies A.Arensky’s violin concerto which is a chamber lyrical model of one-part structure. The purpose of the article is to search for the performance features of the violin section which are necessary for a successful interpretation of the composition. The object of the research is the violin concerto genre. The subject of the research is the performance peculiarities of the solo section of A.Arensky’s violin concerto. The author uses theoretical and empirical research methods including analysis, generalization, and systematization of scientific sources, as well as a comprehensive performance analysis of Arensky’s violin concerto. The author analyzes the functions of the soloist in various themes and episodes of the composition, formulates the methodic guidelines for the bow change and allocation and its movement speed, defines the technical and intonation difficulties of the violin section. Special attention is given to dash performance. The author is the first to find out that the performance values of the solo section are one of the keys to the successful performance. They create the melodic, smooth and plastic sound achieved by means of appropriate allocation of the bow, its smooth change, a good command of legato, and the creation of wide breath phrases. The performer has to take into account the performing ideals of the epoch when the composition was created, which to a large extent consist in pedagogical guidelines of L. Auer about the appropriate pressure of the forearm and the shoulder on the bow. Based on the performance analysis of the violin section, the author finds out that to create an artistic image of the composition, the performer needs to find an individual color palette of the violin section based on the performance ideals of the creation time of the composition.   

Keywords: lyrical image, sound production, violin part, continuity, one-part structure, concert, Arensky, Auer, interpretation, performing techniques

Abstract: The research subject is the modern chamber-instrumental music of the late 20th - the early 21st century in the context of the newest performance and expression means and techniques of playing the saxophone as a unique wind instrument which is difficult to interpret. A wide musical expression range of modern music involving saxophone gives an opportunity to practically evaluate the depth of philosophical and figurative concepts embodied by modern composers. In this context, the author considers the peculiarities of the recommended techniques of playing the saxophone which have been detected and studied in the creative work of Yu.L. Povolotsky. The expressive timbre and sound palette attracts a modern composer with the purpose of both to experiment and to attempt to collect the wide range of artistic and philosophical generalizations of the epoch. This mutually determined process  -  a timbre-sound experiment, on the on hand, and a continuous expansion of the performance and expression means of a saxophone within the chamber-instrumental culture, determined by it, on the other - instigated the author to conduct a scientific analysis of the chamber-instrumental works of modern composers. Besides, of a scientific and historical value is the information about the creative process of Yu.L. Povolotsky: the involvement of out-of-the-box solutions, composition structures, and the newest ways and techniques of playing the saxophone.   

Keywords: modern composers, Povolotsky, performing-expressive tools, playing techniques, chamber instrumental music, interpretation, saxophone, musical discourse, brass, timbre-sound model

Abstract: The 20th century marked a new age in the development of European civilization, which projected images begotten by the technological transformation of reality into an artistic space. The rapid growth of technologies and the industrialization of all spheres of life were reflected in artists' works in urbanized images of reality. One of these images was the machine as the embodiment of speed and technical progress. Being a central motif in Italian Futurism (the most dynamic branch of modernism), the image of the car penetrated all artistic spheres of the Italian art of the 1910s to the 1930s, most notably: literature (embodied, first of all, in the Futurists’ manifestos devoted to the Machine), music (the noise music by Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo), and art (machine painting). The interest in the avant-garde visual art of the 1920s to the 1930s, including Italian Futurism, has grown recently. Many scientific articles and monographs by foreign authors focus on the technical aspects of this ambiguous flamboyant direction: the images of electricity, urban architecture, machines, and mechanisms. But the Russian scientific literature lacks in-depth studies of these aspects of Futurism. This article aims to become the first step in studying the “machine” aspect of Futurism, i.e., its historical background, development, and the influence of the image that formed the basis for the main idea of the creator of the direction more than a century ago. The authors consider the use of the image of the machine in various artistic fields—literature, music, and art—and provide a comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon.  

Keywords: Manifesto of Mechanical Art, constructivism, Prampolini, Paladini, Pannagi, Russolo, Marinetti, futurism, machine painting, Fratella

Abstract: The research subject is the national parameters of the chronotope of the Kalmyk ethno-music worldview. In the mindset of the Mongolian language peoples, time and space are inseparable, interconnected, and interpenetrating. The chronotope composes a unique system of axes which is later complemented with other components of the national worldview. This explains the topicality of the research subject. The purpose of the research is to detect the music peculiarities of the national chronotope. The research is based on the previously studied manifestations of the national chronotope as a whole (the philological and linguistic aspect of the Kalmyk chronotope is studied by Ts. Ayushova, E. Golubeva, E. Omakayeva, V. Salykova, and others); the author systematizes them and establishes the most significant features. In the understanding and feeling of a nomad, a steppe-dweller, a Kalmyk, space is an unlimited, vast and extended category, which is measured not only horizontally, but also vertically. In the study of the music space patterns, the most significant are the properties of sound, its spatial and acoustic characteristics. The dominant idea in the interpretation of time within a Kalmyk worldview is repeatability, which manifests itself in a twelve-digit period of the national calendar and other things. The temporal properties of the national chronotope are concentrated in a binary opposition of two genres of singing: Ut dun (long song) and Akhr dun (short song). The music culture of the Kalmyks is one of the ways of semiotization of the space and time of the steppe world.   

Keywords: Ahr dun, Ut dun, sound, Kalmyk music, space and time, chronotope, ethnomusicological picture of the world, locativity, temporality, cyclicity, and linearity

Abstract: This article examines the orthodox singing of the Kryashens (baptized Tatars), a sub-ethnic Tatar community who follow Eastern Christianity. The Kryashens are the bearers of a unique orthodox singing tradition that combines church chants and prayer texts in the Tatar language. The research subject is the historical background of the church singing of baptized Tatars who inhabited the Laish and Mamadysh districts of the Kazan Province. The chronological framework covers the period in which the tradition was developed—the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries—a period of the Russian Orthodox Church’s active missionary efforts in the region. The author uses historical, culturological, and source study methods to identify the ways in which the singing tradition was formed. This includes the introduction of a new system of religious and educational practices for “outsiders” in the region and the start of church services being held in the Tatar language. The research contains information about the work done by schools and parishes for baptized Tatars in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The author evaluates the modern state of the Kryashens’ Orthodox singing tradition in the region under consideration and identifies the factors that led to its development, which had been established by missionaries in the pre-revolutionary period. The author concludes that music played an important role in the progress of Christian education for the baptized Tatars and recognizes the significant contribution of the pre-revolutionary missionaries in the development of the spiritual and singing practices of this ethnic group, which has become an integral component of its music culture today. This article marks the first time this Orthodox singing tradition, specific to this ethnic region, is explored in Russian musicology. 

Keywords: Kazan Province, church chants, Orthodox singing, Christianization, missionary work, baptized Tatars, Kryashens, Tatars-Kryashens, Laishevsky district, Mamadyshsky district