I.
Russian Women Composers of the Eighteenth Century
Not many Western musicologists realize that at the end of the 18th century
there were several female aristocrats in Russia who composed music and
published it under their own names. (The latter point is of particular
interest since at that time Russian male aristocrats often concealed
their identity when they were publishing songs and instrumental compositions.)
Talisman’s concert creates a unique opportunity for the listeners
to experience the full range of repertoire created by these talented
women composers: Princess Kourakina’s songs with guitar and/or
harpsichord accompaniment, songs by Countess Golovina and Princess Dolgoruky
from A. Millet’s 1796 guitar journal.
The most active women composers of the time were Princess Natalia Kourakina
(1755-1831) and Countess Golovina in St. Petersburg, as well as Princess
Dolgoruky in Moscow. Their surviving works (all from the mid-1790s)
are songs for high voice with guitar, harp, or harpsichord accompaniment.
Usually written to French or Italian lyrics, these songs are charming,
elegant, and melodious. Talisman’s members will also read excerpts
from the memoirs of composers Countess Golovina and Princess Dashkova,
which will help the listeners appreciate the cultural context of these
pieces and the important role music played for the nobility in particular.
Previous venues: Yale, Boston College, Colby College, Iowa University,
Wellesley College, Brown University and others. Boston Early Music Festival
2001, and the Richter Museum in Moscow, Russia.
Hear and see the recording
of this project, which won the Noah Greenberg Award 2001.
II. Early Music
of Russian Gypsies
Joint Project with the Romen Gypsy Theater, Moscow, Russia
Anne Harley, voice Etienne Abelin, baroque violin Oleg Timofeyev, Sasha
Kolpakov, Vadim Kolpakov, guitars
Starting from the early 1790s, the Gypsy singers, guitarists, and choruses
were becoming increasingly popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg. At
that time they performed almost exclusively Russian folk songs and romances,
but in their own distinctive way: their exuberant ornamentation and
passionate improvisation eventually lead to a completely new musical
idiom, known as the romalesca. TALISMANís Russian-Gypsy program recreates
a concert of the famous Gypsy singer Stepanida Soldatova (1787- 1822).
Soldatova, or ëthe famous Steshkaí as she became known, was the first
major Gypsy primadonna in Russia. Dubbed ëthe Russian Catalanií by her
contemporaries, she trained in the Italian bel canto tradition and it
is said that the famous Italian diva Catalani was moved to tears when
she heard Steshkaís interpretation of Russian songs. Several samples
of Steshkaís vocal improvisations on Russian folksongs survive in written
form, and thanks to our musicological investigations, we are fortunate
to have a list of her repertoire. Armed with these archival materials,
TALISMAN (Anne Harley, Oleg Timofeyev, and Etienne Abelin) joins forces
with the celebrated Gypsy guitarists Alexander Kolpakov and his young
nephew Vadim Kolpakov. Both virtuosos in the rare idiom of the Russian
seven-string guitar playing, the Gypsy musicians provide an improvised
accompaniment full of vitality and unique ethnic character, to which
the skillful improviser Anne Harley performs her vocal ornamented versions
of Russian songs from Steshkaís own repertoire. TALISMAN has also adopted
several genuine Gypsy songs from the Kolpakovs to make a program perfectly
balanced between the oral and written traditions.
Previous venues:Gorky Museum, Moscow, Russia.
III.
A Treasury of Russian Romansy
Ms. Harley and Mr. Timofeyev decided to structure this project
around an 1833 manuscript compiled by Andrei Sychra (1773-1850), the
founder of the Russian seven-string guitar tradition. In this newly-found
source, Sychra collected some 42 most popular songs and romansy of his
time and arranged them with guitar accompaniment. Several of these vocal
masterpieces are known to any Russian (“Solovei,” “Sredi
doliny rovnyia”), but some others were unjustly forgotten for more
than a century. Many are settings of poems by Pushkin and Zhukovsky,
both of whom are bright literary stars from Russia’s golden age
of poetry and literature.
Every piece is expertly adapted for voice and guitar by the most prolific
guitarist of the time, creating a pleasant listening for any audience.
In addition to the vocal items on the program, Timofeyev supplies some
of the most delightful guitar solos by Sychra himself and his students.
For this concert, Timofeyev uses the unique early-19th-century Russian
guitar from his collection.
IV.
The Golden Age of the Russian Guitar
Oleg Timofeyev,Russian Seven-String Guitar
Not many people in the West are aware of the great wealth and magnitude
of the Russian guitar tradition in the early 19th century. This tradition
was associated with the ‘Russian guitar’, a seven-string instrument
in a unique “chordal” tuning, DGBdgbd’. Among the noted
early19th-century composers for this instrument are Andrei Sychra, Mikhail
Vysotsky, Semion Aksionov, Vasily Sarenko, Nikolai Alexandrov, and many
others. These composers left a substantial number of high-quality guitar
compositions distinguished by a unique Russian “flavor”: these
works incorporate original Russian folk songs and dance tunes and sound
refreshingly different from and yet uncannily similar to their Western-European
counterparts.
Guitarist Oleg Timofeyev is the only performer/scholar in the West to
bring carefully selected programs of this music into modern concert
halls. He performs on rare Russian guitars from his own collection that
range from ca. 1800 to ca. 1870. Since 1994, Timofeyev has presented
his unique hour-long program that elegantly balances educational aspects
of the music with superb and truly “Russian” entertainment.
As the author of the first Ph.D. dissertation on the subject (Duke,
1999), Timofeyev complements his virtuosic performances of the repertoire
with selected readings from the diaries and memoires of the time that
refer to the Russian guitar.
Previous venues: Duke, USC, Northwestern, Princeton, Wellesley,
Indiana University and others. Bloomington Early Music Festival 1999
in Bloomington, IN and Boheme Music 2001 in Moscow, Russia).
V. Guitar in
the Gulag:
Music for the Russian Seven-String Guitar by Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev
(1888-1963)
Oleg Timofeyev, Russian seven-string guitar
What happened to the once flourishing Russian guitar tradition after
the October Revolution of 1917? The Bolsheviks insisted on associating
the Russian seven-string guitar and its music either with the idle classes
of the bourgeois past or with their blood enemies, the White Army officers.
After Andreas Segovia’s 1929 visit to Russia, the Western (or “Spanish”)
guitar replaced the Russian guitar in the concert halls. The unique
Russian guitar tradition associated with the seven-string instrument
was abandoned and virtually forgotten.
There was one stunning exception, though: a promising composer and orchestral
conductor named Matvei Pavlov (pseudonym “Azancheev,” 1888-1963).
Fully conscious of his destiny to oppose the foreign six-string tradition
and to defend and support the Russian national guitar, this outstanding
musician began to write extremely provocative compositions for the instrument
from the mid-1920s. In 1941 the composer became a victim of Stalinist
repression and until 1951 was kept in one of the small working camps
in the south of Russia. The most inspiring fact about his tragic life
story is that even in the grim context of the gulag he did not abandon
his composing. The composer smuggled his music out into the “free
world” in his letters to friends. One of these mailings contained
an absolute masterpiece—his sonata in four movements entitled “The
Great Patriotic War.” Provided with descriptive subtitles for the
movements (such as “Triumphant March in the Red Square,” “First
Post-War Stalinist Five-Year Plan,” etc.), this work was clearly
the composer’s attempt to appear a good citizen and ask for pardon.
Nevertheless, several musical peculiarities (including the composer’s
use of popular Soviet tunes and even the Morse code!) disclose Pavlov-Azancheev’s
real political leanings, which are as far from Socialist Realism as
one can imagine.
