Добірка наукової літератури з теми "Arnold Schoenberg Institute. Archives"

This essay tackles some aspects related to the attitude of the Romanian officials after George Enescu left his country definitively (in 1946). For example, recent research through the archives of the former secret police shows that Enescu was under the close supervision of Securitate during his last years in Paris. Enescu did not generate a compositional school during his lifetime, like for instance Arnold Schoenberg did. His contemporaries admired him, but each followed their own path and had to adapt differently to an inter-war, then to a post-war, Communist Romania. I will therefore sketch the approach of younger composers in relation to Enescu (after 1955): some of them attempted to complete unfinished manuscripts; others were influenced by ideas of Enescu's music. The posthumous reception of Enescu means also an intense debate in the Romanian milieu about his “national” and “universal” output.

В статье рассматривается фольклористическая деятельность Никоса Скалкотаса — одного из самых известных греческих композиторов ХХ века, получившего музыкальное образование в Афинах, а затем в Берлине (у А. Шёнберга). После прихода к власти национал-социалистов Скалкотас покинул Германию и вернулся на родину, где создал одно из самых значимых своих сочинений — сюиту «36 греческих танцев» (36 Ελληνικών Χορών) для большого оркестра (1933–1936). В нем композитор использовал типичные ладовые и ритмические особенности народной музыки, процитировал традиционные танцевальные мелодии из различных регионов Греции, а также создал собственные темы в национальном духе. Созданию грандиозного сочинения предшествовала длительная и кропотливая работа музыканта по транскрибированию звукозаписей музыкального фольклора, сделанных в 1930 году французской собирательницей греческого происхождения Мельпо Мерлье (1889–1979). Источниковедческой базой исследования являются неопубликованные расшифровки Скалкотаса в двух собраниях г. Афины (Греция): в Архиве музыкального фольклора Мельпо Мерлье (M.F.A.) и в Архиве Никоса Скалкотаса Музыкальной библиотеки Греции «Лилиан Вудури» (NSA MLGLV). Установлено, что композитор работал с фонографическими материалами Мельпо Мерлье в 1934–1935 годах: отслушивал, осуществлял отбор и делал расшифровки наиболее интересных образцов. На примере двух номеров сюиты «36 греческих танцев» раскрываются приемы и способы работы композитора с танцевальными мелодиями. The article examines folkloristic activities of Nikos Skalkottas, one of the most famous Greek composers of the twentieth century, who received his musical education in Athens, and then in Berlin (studying with Arnold Schoenberg). After the National Socialists came to power, Skalkottas left Germany and returned to his homeland, where he created one of his most significant works — the suite “36 Greek Dances” (36 Ελληνικών Χορών) for large orchestra (1933–1936). In this work, the composer used typical modal and rhythmic features of folk music, quoted traditional dance melodies from various regions of Greece, and created his own themes in the national spirit. This epic creation was preceded by a long and painstaking work of the musician on transcribing musical folklore, recorded in 1930 by the French collector of Greek origin Melpo Merlier (1889–1979). This research is based on unpublished transcripts by Skalkottas located in two places in Athens: the Melpo Merlier Musical Folklore Archives (M.F.A.) and the Nikos Skalkottas Archive in the “Lilian Voudouri” Music Library of Greece (NSA MLGLV). It is established that the composer worked with the phonographic materials of Melpo Merlier in the period 1934–35, selecting and transcribing the most interesting samples. Until today, six handwritten transcriptions of Greek folklore have been identified, most them being attributed to original sound recordings. Comparative analysis shows thoroughness of Skalkottas’s approach to fixation of the traditional melody, attention to the details of pitch and rhythmic structure, accuracy of reflection of the ornaments, articulation, phrasing and dynamics. The analysis of two dances of the “36 Greek Dances” suite reveals the techniques and methods of the composer’s work with dance folklore.

The article presents results of studying photographic heritage of the Kazan pharmacist Arnold Brening (1879–37). Its first part examines his biography drawing on documents from the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan and on private archive of his granddaughter Tatyana Brening. Close attention is paid to the professional development of A. Brening, from his apprenticeship at the Brening Heirs Pharmacy to obtaining a pharmacist's degree at the Imperial Kazan University, from tenant to owner of the pharmacy at the corner of Bolshaya Prolomnaya (Bauman street, since 1930) and Universitetskaya. In the same part, the history of formation and development of his photographic practices is revealed. Brening’s passion for photography began during his military service in Harbin in 1904–06. Having returned to Kazan, he continued taking photographs. He subscribed to photographic literature, experimented with retouching and technologies, bought new equipment. Brening regularly cultivated his skills during his walks with camera, “photographic excursions.” He took pictures of architecture, street scenes, town events. After his marriage, his photographic repertoire expanded to portraits of his wife. Brening not only showed his photographic results to a close circle of friends, he sent them to photographic journals and exhibitions in Moscow. After the Russian Revolution, his family lived in Siberia about three years. Upon his return, Brening continued to work in the field of pharmaceuticals and to take photographs of the city and its suburban area. In the 1930s, he worked at Osoaviakhim and later at the Institute of Chemical Technology. In 1937 he was arrested and shot. Among incriminating evidence was his photograph taken in 1917. The second part of the article presents the history of Brening’s photographic heritage. It establishes current location of its disparate parts: at the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Zelenodolsk Museum of Historical and Cultural Heritage, personal archives of citizens; and briefly demonstrates some items. Until late 1980s, Brening’s photographs remained forgotten. They were preserved thanks to the efforts of his wife, children, and granddaughter, and actualized in active work of local historians, journalists, museum specialists in the 1990s–2000s. This article is one of the first steps in scientific understanding of Brening’s photographic heritage.

Composers’ personal libraries began to be the objects of research relatively recently, only about a hundred years ago. Meanwhile, it presents a valuable source for research of composers’ artistic biographies, which bears the imprint of the personalities both of the owner of the book collection and of his or her entire generation. The library makes it possible to evaluate the tastes and the predilections of the composer in question, helps reconstruct his or her artistic ideas, at times contains various types of marginalia, which in modern source studies have acquired the status of texts. The fate of Arnold Schönberg’s library and that of his student Alban Berg unfolded differently from each other. Schönberg was not a bibliophile, his personal library served him as a working tool and reflected his multifaceted interests in various fields of knowledge. Despite his numerous relocations, his library retained its integrity. Schönberg himself compiled a partial inventory of it, arranging the books in accordance with his hierarchy of values. The systematic study of his book collection began at the Arnold Schönberg Institute in Los Angeles and was continued at the Arnold Schönberg Center after his archive was moved to Vienna. Of particular value in the Schönberg library are his polemical marginalia, in which he conducts imaginary discussions with contemporaries: Hans Pfitzner, Ferruccio Busoni, Heinrich Schenker and others. They complement the corpus of Schönberg’s published and unpublished music theory texts. Berg’s library is up to the present day located in the composer’s Vienna apartment. Researchers received access to his books at a relatively late date, after the death of Berg’s widow Helena in 1976. The systematization and cataloging of the Berg Library has not been finished up to the present time. Berg came from an antiquarian family, he inherited his bibliophilia from his father. Already from a young age, he perceived his personal library a means of cognition of himself and the world, as evidenced by the large-scale collection of quotations Von der Selbsterkenntnis [About Self-Cognition] compiled by him. Berg, like Schönberg, had a habit of polemizing with opponents in the form of marginalia (such is his polemics with Wilhelm Krug in his book Neue Musik). Of great interest to researchers are Berg’s work copies of Georg Büchner’s dramatic play Wozzeck by, as well as Frank Wedekind’s dilogy of plays Erdgesit [The Spirit of the Earth] and Die Büchse der Pandora [Pandora’s box] which were used by Berg during his work on the librettos for each of his two operas. They make it possible to reconstruct the composer’s creative process and contain valuable instructions regarding the dramaturgy and compositional form, the protagonists’ characteristic features, as well as the formal structures of separate sections of the operas. The ongoing process of digitization of Schönberg’s and Berg’s archives makes it possible for us to hope that researchers on all the continents will be granted access to personal libraries of these two composers, as well as those of other composers.

On 18 October 1923 Roberto Gerhard wrote a long letter to Arnold Schoenberg asking to be accepted as his pupil. Two weeks later he received a positive answer and left for Vienna at once. There he met Schoenberg and began a master-pupil relationship that would gradually turn into deep friendship, as attested by fifty-three extant letters written between 1923 and Schoenberg’s death in 1951. Existing in archives in several countries and, for the most part, as yet unpublished, these letters provide a wealth of information about Gerhard’s personal life and professional career, with interesting insights into Gerhard’s compositional process.