Prokofiev, Pictures at an Exhibition (original) (raw)
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SpringerPlus, 2014
This article is written for the benefit of piano teachers and students but can be of benefit to any music teacher or student. It is a case study using Prokofiev’s lesser-known pedagogical work for the piano, which serves as an example of information gathering to apply toward a more effective method of instruction, which requires the teacher and student to exhaustively examine both composer and music in order to exact a more artistic, accurate performance. Much of the interpretation is based on Prokofiev’s own thoughts as expressed in his personal memoirs and from his most distinguished music critics, many of whom were his peers during his lifetime, while some is taken from common sources, which are readily available to teacher and student. It is my belief that it is possible to divine extraordinary interpretations, information and outcomes from common sources. As the student and teacher gather information, it can be used to determine what should be included in a performance, based not only on the composer’s explicit directions, but also on implicit information that could lead to an inspired, original interpretation. It is written with the belief that music is more than the dots and lines on the page and that teaching and learning must be approached with that in mind. It is hoped that once teacher and student have completed this case study, the method will transfer to all future musical endeavors.
Alexander Polovtsov Portrait of a Russian Connoisseur.docx
Alexander Alexandrovich Polovtsov was born into the Russian nobility in 1867, the member of a prominent family that later became very wealthy after Alexander Sr's marriage to Nadezhda Mikhailovna Iunina, adopted daughter of the banker and industrialist, Alexander Stieglitz. Nadezhda was the natural daughter of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, brother to Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I. Stieglitz named Nadezhda's son Alexander (the subject of this paper) as his heir, and the family used the boy's inheritance to found the Stieglitz Museum, which was dedicated to promoting, teaching and collecting the decorative arts and crafts as well as to fine art. Alexander Jr. was raised as a collector and connoisseur, both for the museum and for his family. He also held a number of government posts right up until the last days of the revolution. These took him far afield to Siberia, Turkestan and Georgia. He also served as Consul General in Bombay. During the first year of the Bolshevik takeover he worked with a number of concerned associates to help preserve Russia's treasures from pillage and destruction. This group, along with Anatoly Lunacharsky, Lenin's Commissar of Culture, was able to preserve many palaces of the former aristocracy as museums for the people. Polovtsov himself, focused his efforts on Pavlovsk, the palace so beloved by his natural great-grandmother, Maria Feodorovna, who dedicated a lifetime to its design and furnishings. In November 1918, Polovtsov and his wife emigrated to Paris. He continued to work to promote Russian Art as a dealer, collector, expert and connoisseur. In this capacity he was a principal promoter of two of the first significant exhibitions (each offering close to 1,000 pieces) of Russian art--in Brussels in 1928 and in London in 1935. Polovstov wrote several books as well as articles for prominent publications like The Burlington Magazine. His papers are held in Yale's Sterling Library Archives.
Russian Arts Exhibition Review March 2016
Both Britain and Russia have rich literary traditions, and this collaborative project ensures meaningful dialogues and greater access to works in the cultural sphere of each country. As the project coincides with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death many events in Russia will celebrate the playwright's influence on global and Russian culture.
Prokofiev, Holst and Tchaikovsky
Prokofiev Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet, Holst Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus from The Planets, Tchaikovsky Marche Slave. Carolyn Watson, Conductor, Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra, May 28, 2015 .
Josip Slavenski's Moving Pictures - Music for Chamber Orchestra
2018
Abstract: The question of the relationship between music and painting in the field of fine arts is a familiar one, especially if we are examining that relation in a specific era, such as during the first half of the twentieth century. In that manner, the main topic of this paper will be a comparison of the composition by Josip Slavenski called Muzika za kamerni orkestar (Music for Chamber Orchestra, here chosen as a case-study), completed in 1938, and the early avant-garde works by Natalia Goncharova. In addition to that, the question of the integration of folklore elements into a modernist work of art will be examined.Summary: This paper deals with the notion of modernist innovation via the use of folklore in the paintings of Natalia Goncharova and music of Josip Slavenski. By a brief analysis of their works (several Neoprimitivistic, Cubofuturistic and Rayonist paintings by Goncharova, and Music 38 by Slavenski), I tried to demonstrate the ways of creating modernist art by seeking...
Prokofiev's early solo piano music
2013
This thesis concerns issues of context, influence, form and performance in Serge Prokofiev's early solo piano music and addresses the role of tradition and innovation in the composer's work. Chapter One focuses on the evolution of Prokofiev's style, looking at his search for originality, the discovery of his mature style, and his subsequent aspirations towards simplicity. Chapter Two evaluates the principal influences on Prokofiev and his piano music, including Stravinsky, Debussy and especially Beethoven. Chapter Three assesses Prokofiev's formal processes in his early piano sonatas, discovering how his works were both rooted in and deviated from sonata form tradition. Chapter Four looks at Prokofiev's education and career as a pianist, as well as his interpretations of his own compositions, in order to form a view on how to approach the performance of his works. The chapter finishes with a discussion of recordings of the Visions fugitives, tracing the progressi...
Wassily Kandinsky at the Exhibition "Meisterwerke muhammedanischer Kunst" in Munich, 1910
Manazir Journal, 2022
In 1910, Wassily Kandinsky attended the Munich exhibition Meisterwerke muhammedanischer Kunst and subsequently wrote a review of it for the Russian literary journal Apollon. His review, which almost exclusively discussed the Persian paintings on display, provides insights into Kandinsky’s way of seeing and understanding these objects at a significant moment in his artistic development. The most compelling aspect of his review is his repeated articulation of the sense of revelation that he experienced in front of these works. Conveying a sense of revelation through his own paintings was Kandinsky’s primary goal in this period, and was a concept he struggled to formulate in his art. I argue that Kandinsky developed one of his primary artistic strategies in response to a specific practice that he had first encountered at the Meisterwerke exhibition: the Persian artist’s practice of painting hidden forms within a composition. This article looks closely at a work from the exhibition, Sle...