Seminar workshop "Folklore and the composer"

On Monday, April 4 at 16.00 in the White Hall of Russian Institute for Art History will host a workshop seminar “Folklore and the composer” (from the series “Folklore, anthropology, ethnography”).

Studying and performing the Mussorgsky music heritage, it may found the obvious tragedy cutting his ouevre. What is the cause of this kind of perception?

Among a hallmarks of Mussorgsky’ style, which define the organizing principle of his musical thinking we can found for example as follows: plastic timbral form of the traditional lamentos crying, his sincere, originally “cutting ear” affectation, sharpness, extreme nudity of experiences, structural identities such as “dissociative” form, separation of subsequent intonation from previous musical constructions just do not fit in the specified scope of the rhythmic formulas or closed unchanged syntactic structures. Descending intonations – second, thirds and wider – sprawling in its extreme emotivness, unbearable music experiencing until nones and octaves are tipycal for laments of Mussorgsky homeland tradition. They are readable by ear and quite comparable with both local and wider – the Slavic forms of laments due to its natural expressiveness of intonation, its expression, based on the effects of different kinds of rhythms, bioinfluence, natural psychosomatic reactions.

Galina Tavlay, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientis, Folklore department, RIAH will present the keynote address: “Mussorgsky and traditional laments forms of the Slavs”.

All are invited to attend.