Culture

Research, discussion, understanding

On 20 January, the music laboratory starts work in a new format "Hall on Stage" in the JINR Cultural Centre "Mir". It will open with a series of lectures "The real Mussorgsky. Discovering Meanings" dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the composition "Pictures at an Exhibition".

A music laboratory is an unusual form of interaction between a lecturer and audience-listeners. It will consist of listening to music, talking about musical compositions, discussing and jointly exploring the topic. We imagine that it will become a fascinating destination both for connoisseurs of the musical work of composers from different eras and for those who are just learning about the world of classical music.

The first lecture will be called "Manuscript. Ravel's big mistake." The lecturer is historian, teacher Ilona Volkova that convinces, at these meetings, the participants of the music laboratory will be offered sensational material, extraordinary and unusual information. On the eve of the event, we talked to I.Volkova.

Ilona Volkova

- Ilona, let's start from the beginning - how did you take up this topic and begin to study such interesting material?

- I met Pictures, like many others, at a music school. Like all my peers, I listened to the teacher's explanation, listened to the music and stories about it. But the music worried me a little. And even then, somewhere in the subconscious, an understanding was developed that not everything is so simple in this work by Modest Mussorgsky, just to illustrate the drawings of his friend Victor Hartmann with musical sketches. I just couldn't agree with the fact that after the triumph of "Boris Godunov," while working on the opera "Khovanshchina," Modest Petrovich composed a work that was simple in content, where chickens come to life from Hartmann's pictures dance, gossips gossip in the market, oxen pull a heavy cart... And many years later, I returned to my thoughts, learnt about the interpretations of musicians and musicologists of the past, as well as about modern compositions on this musical work that we still do not understand.

- And where is the most fascinating material about Pictures today?

- Popularizer of classical music Mikhail Kazinik, professor of the Moscow Conservatory Ivan Sokolov, pianist, conductor Mikhail Arkadyev offer their interpretations of how to get to the true intention. There are also those who today refer to the work of the Soviet pianist Maria Yudina. Analyzing their thoughts, reading their works, I saw that the individual puzzles of this or that researcher did not fit into one common canvas, into a single bright idea with a meaning understandable to the widest audience. In the end, no one convinced me. I want to say thank you to the Internet. I was able to read many research papers of different levels, articles and reflections of many people, listen to performances by pianists, orchestras from all over the world and so on. And then to set off on my own...

- Please, tell us about the form of "work" of the music laboratory. How do you see it?

- These will not be lectures in the traditional sense, we will be researchers. Listeners will reflect with me, offer versions and come to the knowledge and understanding that I have come to. We will listen to the best performances of specific musical material, analyze it and make discoveries!

- It's like music lessons with reflections and conversations on the topic. Your lecture series consists of four meetings. What will you talk about?

- At the first meeting, we will talk about why the universally recognized work of Maurice Ravel, his famous orchestration of the Pictures has been leading us away from the true meanings of the work for 100 years. I believe that he made one of the big mistakes that modern musicians repeat when they perform Pictures all over the world in his orchestration. Thus, they do not allow the listener in the concert hall to come closer to understanding the real Mussorgsky. We will also talk about why we find ourselves listening to the play-picture "Limoges Market" in the French city of Limoges on the so-called market. And we'll return the play to its real name "Limoges. Market", looking at the composer's manuscript (autograph). And then, we will talk about that well-known text that musicologists have designated as "absurdity." A unique case when the composer leaves a literary text next to a musical one. And what a surprise it was when I realized that Mussorgsky had left us a riddle! For some reason, no one has thought about this yet, but Modest Petrovich loved both practical jokes and riddles... Remember, Mussorgsky writes in French: "Mr. Pimpan de Panta Pantaleon has just found his cow Runaway, etc."

- Were you able to "decipher" his riddle?

- Yes. And it will help us to get closer to understanding the content of the entire work. After we guess the "strange text" that has been waiting for this discovery for 150 years, we will go to the Promenade together with the author of the Pictures and refute the traditional statements about the created musical self-portrait of the composer, included in all textbooks from music school to conservatory. Here, opponents can remind me that Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov, to whom the Pictures are dedicated, said so. Let's talk about Stasov's role in the fate of the work and understand why he said so. And finally, we will all see the "Bogatyr Gate" together.

- We'll see exactly?

- Yes, because the music of the Pictures is more than cinematic. I am now only talking in broad strokes about what awaits the participants of the music laboratory.

- Ilona, from January to April, you will reveal to the public the grandiose innovative plan of the great Russian composer. What is your ideal audience?

- I'm really looking forward to musicians, music teachers, they will be more than interested in this material and I'm also really looking forward to listeners, fans of classical music, everyone that loves mysteries and wants to witness sensational musical discoveries. Mussorgsky's music will truly come to life during our lectures and the true meanings will be revealed to us. I remembered the words of the remarkable philologist and cultural scientist Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev: "Mussorgsky is the greatest and far from being discovered yet a thinker, in particular of historical thought." And those that take part in our meetings will understand how right Dmitry Sergeevich was!

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On 20 January, at 6:00 PM, the music laboratory of the JINR Cultural Centre "Mir" invites everyone interested in learning the amazing content of M.P.Mussorgsky's famous work "Pictures at an Exhibition" that still sounds from all stages of the world.

Eleonora YAMALEEVA,
Member of the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation