Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Captulo I
Marco terico
Nacionalismo ruso corresponde a una poca en la que se promovi la cultura y
tradiciones populares de los orgenes del pas, en base al inters de crculos de
educacin de la alta sociedad, musicalmente, es la incorporacin de materiales
o temas reconocibles de un territorio o una nacin, como la msica folklrica,
considerando tanto su ritmo, meloda o armona como su uso conceptual,
esttica e ideolgica.
Crculo de Balakirev, tambin conocido como los cinco, corresponde a un grupo
de compositores rusos reunidos en San Petersburgo entre 1856-1870, cuyo
objetivo era producir msica especficamente de su pas, en lugar de imitar las
enseanzas de los conservatorios de Europa.
Sus integrantes fueron Mili Balkirev, Csar Cui, Modest Mssorgsky, Nikali
Rimski-Krsakov y Aleksandr Borodn
A diferencia de Tchaikovsky
Los cuadros
Distintas orquestaciones
Citas bibliogrficas
The Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells, Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle, The
Catacombs, The Hut on Fowls Legs, and The Great Gate of Kiev, y el dibujo de
la catedral de Prigueux, Francia, podra ser la imagen inspiradora del viejo
castillo, sin embargo no existen pruebas concluyentes Ibid., 37.
By carrying the folk song elements into their art music, the Russian composers
developed a unique idiom which contained the following: the cell development
technique (a short motif or phrase repeated exactly or slightly varied),
pronounced interest in orchestral colour, variety of dynamics, use of (inverted)
pedal points, drone basses, dominant hovering, use of exotic harmony
(chromatic or modal), pentatonic or modal tunes and their associated
harmonies, and additive structures resulting from the cell development on a big
scale, small melodic compass, recurring intervallic shapes . . . By the second
half of the nineteenth century, original Russian tunes could almost be mistaken
for folk songs as the folk idiom had been assimilated so successfully. 27
27 M. Tevfic Dorak, Russian Nationalism in Music [article on-line]; available
from http://www.dorak.info/music/national.html
The modal sounds of Russian church music and folk-songs were echoed in
much of the art music in Russia in the nineteenth century (as in the music of
Stravinsky, Glazunov and Rachmaninoff). Composers were already using folk-
songs to write variations on them or as a basis for their compositions. In the
hands of Glinka and Borodin, most of them became world-known. Despite a
comparatively small output, Glinka formed the basis for a Russian nationalist
school which resulted in the Russian Five (Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky
and Rimsky-Korsakoff). The Russian Five used the folk material extensively in
their music. Balakirev's symphonic poem Tamara, Borodin's Polovtzian Dances
from Prince Igor, and Rimsky-Korsakoff's Scheherazade are examples of Russian
orientalism.
In 1868 he began
composing his opera The Marriage. He planned to set to music Gogols novel,
which
was written in prose rather than poetry
For instance, there are several common traits between the Pictures and
Schumanns Carnaval (Opus 9, created in 1834-1835).5353 Riesmann,
Moussorgsky, 290.
My music must reproduce the peoples language even in the most insignificant
nuances. Thus, the sounds of the words, which represent an exterior
manifestation of the thoughts and emotions, must, without any exaggeration or
violence, become genuine and authentic but highly artistic. 5555 A. N. Rimsky-
Korsakov, M. P. Musorgsky. Letters and Documents, 142; quoted in Seroff,
Modeste Moussorgsky, 9
First, the Soviet musicologist Bobrovsky 63 noticed that the first half of the
cycle
is a kind of mirror image of the second half, in which the Pictures are paired
by their
programmatic content: fantastic characters, mysterious pieces, fantastic
creatures, and
scenes from French everyday life 63 Vladimir Bobrovsky, Structural Analysis
of Musorgskys Pictures from an Exhibition, From Lulli to our Days (Moscow:
Muzyka Press, 1967), 151
Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells is the only piece
that stands alone; it resides at the center of the cycle and represents a lyrical
nucleus for
Pictures at an Exhibition. Bobrovsky, however, does not place The Great Gate
of Kiev in
his configuration. It might be, however, paired with the opening Promenade
under the
category of Russian nationalistic pieces. This pair would frame the entire suite
in the
closing Picture (The Great Gate of Kiev) the intonations of Promenade are heard
again. 6767 Bobrovsky, Structural Analysis of Musorgskys Pictures at an
Exhibition, 148.
Fourth, these contrasts carry over into the character of the Pictures. As in the
Promenades, the odd-numbered Pictures are to be played at fast tempos and
the evennumbered ones are slower (see chart 4). 70
During Moussorgskys life this original cycle of piano pieces, rich in thought and
music, was completely ignored. It was first printed six years after his death; it
was hardly ever heard in concert halls, and it was impossible for amateurs to
play at home, owing to its great technical and musical difficulty.7272
Riesemann, Moussorgsky, 293.
REALISMO Y NATURALISMO EN MUSICA
The composer created a precedent for the free treatment of dissonances, use
of a pentatonic scale in serious classical music, and specific
polyharmony that did not fit into a traditional tonal system
Music and painting developed a truly synergetic relationship at the turn of the
nineteenth century. Musicians, such as Saint-Sans, Debussy and Ravel, and
painters
Monet, Gauguin and Van Gogh, enriched and remodeled their art through
mutual
exchange, culminating in the twentieth century evolution of abstract art, and
creation of
musical works directly inspired by paintings or visual elements.1 1 Marsha L.
Morton and Peter L. Schmunk, From the Other Side: An Introduction, in The
Arts Entwined: Music and Painting in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Marsha L.
Morton (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000), 1.
One of the innovative figures in the worlds music scene of the nineteenth
century, whose unique musical language reflected features of both
Romanticism and
Impressionism, was Russian composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
, creating little scenes out of them,
which, in turn, may carry messages about Russian culture and society.77 Russ,
preface to Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition, x.
mussorgsky vida y obra:
14, David Brown, Mussorgsky: His Life and Works (Oxford, New York: Oxford
University Press,
2002).
15 Oskar Von Riesemann, Mussorgsky, trans. Paul England (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc.,
1929).
16 Caryl Emerson, The Life of Mussorgsky (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999)
ekhrasis