Traditionally, on Saturdays, we publish answers to the quiz for you in the Q&A format. Our questions range from simple to complex. The quiz is very interesting and quite popular, but we just help you test your knowledge and make sure that you have chosen the correct answer out of the four proposed. And we have another question in the quiz - What was different about the first symphony ensemble created in Moscow in 1922?
- musicians played standing up
- played without notes
- there was no conductor
- the musicians were self-taught
The correct answer is C. There was no conductor
Persimfans (First Symphony Ensemble) - an orchestra without a conductor - was organized in Moscow in 1922 and became one of the most remarkable phenomena cultural life V Soviet Russia. The ensemble gave more than seventy concerts during the season; without performing a single time outside of Moscow, Persimfans gained world fame as one of the best symphony ensembles of that time. In his likeness, orchestras without a conductor were organized not only in the USSR, but also abroad - in the USA and Germany.
In 2008, Persimfans was revived on the initiative of Petr Aidu after several decades of forced hiatus. Under the auspices of Persimfans, cultural studies are carried out, exhibitions are organized and theatrical performances. Persimfans today is a universal combination of arts.
Persimfans - the first symphony ensemble of the Moscow City Council - a symphony orchestra without a conductor. Honored Collective of the Republic (1927).
Organized in 1922 on the initiative of Professor L. M. Zeitlin of the Moscow Conservatory. Persimfans - the first in history musical art symphony orchestra without a conductor. The composition of Persimfans included the best artistic forces of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, the progressive part of the professorship and students of the orchestral faculty of the Moscow Conservatory. The work of Persimfans was headed by the Artistic Council, which was elected from among its members.
The basis of the orchestra's activities was the renewal of the methods of symphonic performance, based on creative activity ensemble members. The use of chamber-ensemble methods was also an innovation. rehearsal work(first by groups, and then by the whole orchestra). In the free creative discussions of the Persimfans participants, common aesthetic attitudes were developed, questions were raised musical interpretation, the development of the technique of playing instruments and ensemble performance. This had a great influence on the development of the leading Moscow schools of playing string and wind instruments, contributed to raising the level of orchestral playing.
Weekly subscription concerts of Persimfans (since 1925) with a variety of programs (in them great place assigned to novelties contemporary music), in which the soloists were the largest foreign and Soviet artists(J. Szigeti, K. Zecchi, V. S. Horowitz, S. S. Prokofiev, A. B. Goldenweiser, K. N. Igumnov, G. G. Neuhaus, M. V. Yudina, V. V. Sofronitsky , M. B. Polyakin, A. V. Nezhdanova, N. A. Obukhova, V. V. Barsova, etc.), became essential component musical and cultural life of Moscow. Persimfans performed in the largest concert halls, also gave concerts in workers' clubs and houses of culture, at plants and factories, and went on tour to other cities of the Soviet Union.
Following the example of Persimfans, orchestras without a conductor were organized in Leningrad, Kyiv, Kharkov, Voronezh, Tbilisi; similar orchestras arose in some foreign countries(Germany, USA).
Persimfans played a prominent role in the communion broad circles listeners to the treasures of world musical culture. Nevertheless, the idea of an orchestra without a conductor did not justify itself. In 1932 Persimfans ceased to exist. Other orchestras without a conductor, created according to his model, also turned out to be short-lived.
In 1926-29 the magazine Persimfans was published in Moscow.
Literature: Zucker A., Five years of Persimfans, M., 1927.
I. M. Yampolsky
The photo shows a fragment of the rehearsal of the cantata "Salvation" by Daniil Kharms In orange - Grigory Krotenko, squatting - Pyotr Aidu
This is definitely curious detail by itself, quite brightly looking from the outside and somewhat paradoxically demonstrating the fact that an orchestra without a conductor is the same show object as an orchestra with a conductor. Just with a different sign at the key.
All right, an orchestra without a conductor... You might think that the orchestra members so often look in the direction of the conductor's podium. Based on this fact a large number of orchestral tales and anecdotes dedicated to the fact that the musicians do not even know who conducted the concert, because they never raised their eyes in the direction of the maestro. As you know, in every joke there is a share ...
But! Behind such a phenomenon as Persimfans, a whole trail of meanings stretches.
Firstly, the era of Persimfans is the time of revolutionary experiments in the art of Soviet Russia. In some strange, incomprehensible way for me, there were parallel red terror, famine, total general poverty (although in a somewhat softened version after the end of civil war) - and the flourishing of experiments in architecture, painting, literature, music, cinema. All this stopped almost instantly, immediately after the party took control of art into its own hands, and Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Mosolov suddenly remained forever in history, limited to the beginning of the thirties.
Secondly (and all other meanings will be a continuation of the first), behind the creation of Persimfans were musicians of such a level that almost every one of them left his mark on the Russian musical culture– in musicology, performance and pedagogy. It is enough to look at the composition of the orchestra on the program of the Persimfans concert.
Composition of Persimfans 1922-1932
Thirdly, the ideology of Persimfans itself was a continuation revolutionary idea equality in its idealistic version, from which the "fourthly" directly followed - the equal responsibility of all performers for the result. This is stated very precisely in the Fundamentals published by Persimfans in 1926. It's not a sin to quote separate fragments(I apologize in advance to some current acting conductors with a concomitant request not to take it personally):
“The history of music has known cases when the orchestra played without using the conductor’s instructions during the performance – whether because the conductor was not able to give precise instructions to the orchestra (as was the case with Beethoven, who was already deaf), or because the orchestra performed without conductor, the program learned with this conductor in honor of the conductor, wishing to testify to the strength of his influence.
“Recognizing that the decisive moment is a thorough preliminary study of the work, Persimfans denies the infallibility and indivisibility of the conductor’s power, denies the need for it at the moment of performance, when the work has already been learned and prepared for performance.”
“Persimfans for the first time expanded the scope of this issue, putting it on a fundamental basis and arguing that the complete depersonalization of the orchestra players, which has become quite common, leading to the fact that each of them is interested only in his part and does not know (and has no desire to know) the work as a whole - extremely harmful to artistic sense a phenomenon that should no longer occur."
On this, perhaps, I will suspend my historical digression and turn to the events taking place in our day, that is, nine decades later.
At the head of the idea of recreating Persimfans, at least not on a permanent basis, but as a one-time art project, are two wonderful musicians - Piotr Aidu and Grigory Krotenko. They already had a similar experience, Persimfans of the 21st century has been gathering since 2008.
The program of the concert, which took place on April 9 in the Great Hall of the Conservatory, included works that reflect that era, works that are authentic to the spirit and meaning of Persimfance: Violin Concerto, symphonic poem S. Lyapunov "Hashish" (1913), a work, in essence, is a copy of "Scheherazade", orchestral suite "Dneprostroy No. 2" (1932) by Julius Meitus, Ukrainian classic, "born in poor Jewish family", as it is customary to write in the most different biographies, who wrote the first classical Turkmen opera and cantata Daniil Kharms "Salvation" (1934) - dramatic work without sheet music for a capella choir miraculous rescue in the waves of two young maidens. Performed by the orchestra with undisguised delight. Kharms, of course, did not mean this, despite the fact that he was musically educated, but in terms of compositional technique, this work refers us to the dominal, musical pre-literate times, when the rhythm of the work was determined by the text, and the pitch was not specifically specified at all. Which does not exclude elements of the canon and polyphonic imitation in Kharms' cantata.
So, about the main thing, that is, the subjective.
The colleague who invited me to participate in this action (whose name I will not disclose for his safety), formulated the essence of the phenomenon in the following words: “There will be guys from the best orchestras. They are fleeing here from slavery."
Yes, I saw musicians worthy of those names that were in the orchestra of that historical Persimfance. And don't let the word "guys" in this context confuse you - these are really soloists of the country's leading orchestras and teachers with all possible honorary titles. Well, their faces have become a little thicker, but somehow nothing has changed. And besides them, the orchestra has a large number of young maidens and youths of conservative and post-conservatory age, who, hopefully, have a great musical future.
The orchestra gathered for a rehearsal in a huge hall, which Almazny Mir OJSC provided to Petr Aid (thank you very much). Half of the hall is a rehearsal space, and the other half, behind the fence with a painted Santa Claus, is a nature reserve musical instruments collected and brought here from the most different places and in any condition, under the name "Shelter of pianos". Okay, that's worth it. a separate story and display, because this is not a museum, but a huge art object of great emotional power.
Naturally, everyone is interested in how the orchestra functions without a conductor. Me, too, after all, a new experience.
If we try to formulate in general view, then the same laws apply here as in the chamber ensemble, the difference is only in the number of participants: if four people participate in the quartet, then here - ninety. That's all.
Everything else is just a solution to communication and acoustic issues. For the seating of the orchestra, the developments of Persimfans were taken as a basis: the groups of instruments that interact most closely in the score are within sight and audibility of each other. So, oboes and clarinets sitting in a row are face to face with bassoons and flutes, opposite each other. Nearby, perpendicularly, sits a group of horns - they, as a rule, have more in common in the orchestra with wooden ones than with the rest of the brass ones, which are located behind the strings, located in a large crescent. On the other hand, the double basses stand so that everyone can see them, since in the orchestra they essentially play the role of a rhythm section (I do not deny their other advantages), and almost meter high jumps at the rehearsals of the accompanist of the double bass group Grigory Krotenko significantly facilitate the rhythmic coordination of the orchestra.
The works, by the way, are not easy, this is not I. Strauss' Radetzky March, where the conductor can calmly leave the orchestra and coquettishly engage in clapping with the audience. These are very dense layered scores with changes in tempo and character.
The sense of responsibility awakened in me by this project struck me to the depths of my soul, because all life-historical experience warns against this. As a rule, excessive penetration into the material is not beneficial. In the same case, when I came to the first rehearsal, "Hashish" by S. Lyapunov, I knew almost by heart, I went through it with the party sent to me by e-mail, made a lot of pencil notes, before the start of the rehearsal we met with a group of oboes, agreed on the details, built complex chords - and only after that the general orchestral work began. And everyone did it. Naturally, there were problems, that's why it was a rehearsal, but already at the first rehearsal, all the musicians knew with whom they were playing at what moment, whom to visually orientate where, whom to listen to where. The program is actually made from four rehearsals, despite the fact that someone comes later, someone is forced to leave early, since everyone has work, and although rehearsals are formally scheduled at a time when most musicians are free, that is, in the middle of the day, Still, it takes a lot of time just to get there.
And another very important point- a combination of extreme goodwill and a rational approach to problems. It is clear that otherwise it is impossible, and yet it is perceived as a miracle. And one of the questions that you ask yourself is: how did you manage to maintain these relationships in the historical Persimfance during the ten years of its existence, given that such bright, extraordinary personalities with difficult, and sometimes completely authoritarian characters gathered there?
The concert, of course, promises to be a holiday. But no less holiday is what is happening these days at the rehearsals for this concert: free music playing by free people.
Vladimir Zisman
All rights reserved. Copying prohibited
In Moscow in the hall. Tchaikovsky passed another project dedicated to the 100th anniversary October revolution, and the title of his concerts was the review of the leader of the world proletariat Vladimir Ilyich Lenin about the Beethoven Sonata "Appassionata" he listened to - "inhuman music".
Persimfans (First Symphony Ensemble), an orchestra without a conductor, was organized in Moscow in 1922 and became one of the most remarkable events in the cultural life of Soviet Russia. The team gave up to seventy concerts per season. Having never performed outside of Moscow, Persimfans gained worldwide fame as one of the best symphonic ensembles of that time. In his likeness, orchestras without a conductor were organized not only in the USSR, but also abroad - in the USA and Germany. Some time later, there were decades of forced interruption in the activities of Persimfans.
Its revival began in 2008 at the initiative of Petr Aidu, pianist and composer, teacher at the Faculty of Historical and Contemporary Performance of the Moscow Conservatory. His interests are wide - from baroque to contemporary music. He was also interested in Persimfans. In one of the interviews, Aidu spoke about glorious history orchestra without a conductor and that he was deliberately excluded from history Soviet music like many cultural and scientific phenomena V Stalin era. "I was then looking for new form playing music and found that we need to continue it,” recalls Aidu. "Persimfans must exist as Grand Theatre, conservatory. This is our Moscow one, it was located on the territory of the Moscow Conservatory, and its base was the Great Hall.”
Demonstration of the achievements of Persimfans recent years was his joint project with the Düsseldorf Tonhalle. The United Symphony Ensemble of two sister cities - Moscow and Düsseldorf gave three concerts. On October 7 and 8, Moscow musicians teamed up with artists symphony orchestra Düsseldorf, and on December 14 the third concert was held in the Hall. P. Tchaikovsky. In Moscow, Dusseldorfers joined our musicians. The only concert in the capital was organized by the Apriori Arts agency in partnership with the Helikon Artists agency and the directorate of Tonhalle Dusseldorf with the active support of the Goethe Institute in Moscow, the German Foreign Ministry and the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Rarely included in the concert program performed works written in the 20s of the twentieth century. in post-revolutionary Germany and the USSR, as well as classical music: works by Beethoven and Mozart. We started with Mozart. The chamber ensemble of Persimfans performed the Overture to the opera The Magic Flute. At this time, frames from the life of Soviet people which were in no way compatible with Mozart's music. Why were they needed? But one could not look at them, but only listen to the beautiful music of the Austrian genius. The orchestra played wonderfully. This was followed by Alexander Mosolov's Quartet No. 1 and the rather interesting symphonic rhapsody October by Joseph Schillinger, skillfully filled with the motives of revolutionary songs.
The second branch also began with the classics. Beethoven's Egmont Overture was played. It was Egmont that became the main center of the concert. Bright dramatic tension and perfect sound engineering immediately captured the audience, bursting into thunderous applause. The Overture was followed by Edmund Meisel's music for Sergei Eisenstein's film The Battleship Potemkin. This is where the footage of the film was more than appropriate. The film organically merged with the music, and looked and listened perfectly. Then there were two melody recitations by Julius Meitus "Blows of the Communard" and "On the Death of Ilyich." His evening is over symphonic suite"On the Dneprostroy" - a cheerful, enthusiastic picture of the working days of Soviet workers.
Concert program " Inhuman Music» resurgent Persimfans seemed ambiguous. One got the impression that so far only musicians are interested in its existence, and not listeners at all. It was too long ago. Today, both in Russia and in the world, the conductor's orchestra reigns. The audience goes to the conductors. On past concert gathered far from a full Hall of them. Tchaikovsky, and after the break, its ranks thinned out significantly, although a number of numbers, as I already wrote, were received enthusiastically. There are several lines in the program of the evening that “under the auspices of Persimfans, cultural studies are being carried out, exhibitions and theater performances are being organized. Persimfans today is a universal combination of arts. Fine, but this is only on the sidelines of the musicians. As for the broad masses, who in the twenties of the last century enjoyed the concerts of Persimfans, today they are far from his art, and they hardly need it. But for students of musical institutions, this is interesting and obviously necessary. We wish them success in this direction. Maybe we'll get something interesting.
For the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, the Moscow Persimfans Orchestra and the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra have prepared concert program, following the principles of the historical Persimfance, a group of musicians founded in 1922 without a conductor. The concert of the ensembles of the sister cities of Moscow and Düsseldorf will take place on December 14, 2017 in Concert Hall them. P. I. Tchaikovsky of the Moscow Philharmonic.
After two concerts, which two ensembles played with great success in October at the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, a return visit is planned: more than 60 musicians from Moscow and 20 from Düsseldorf will present in the Moscow Concert Hall. P.I. Tchaikovsky program created in accordance with the principles of the historical Persimfans. It included works played by the former Persimfans - which had a noticeable impact on the Russian avant-garde during the revolution. Thus, through the joint performance of works that have grown out of the common European musical tradition, in anniversary year The October Revolution will recreate a long forgotten aspect of the European avant-garde. At the same time, you will feel a fresh creativity denies the hierarchy in music, it will be tested for relevance to today's context.
In 2008, the Moscow musician Pyotr Aidu, the grandson of one of the musicians who stood at the origins of the historical Persimfans, gave the ensemble a second birth - absolutely in the spirit of its predecessor. Musicians current membership understand their activities as the revival of the utopias of the European avant-garde destroyed by the dictatorships of the 20th century. In an incredibly intense rehearsal process without the participation of a conductor, interpretations of works are born that would be impossible within the framework of the daily activities of an ordinary symphony orchestra. The accompanying huge responsibility of each individual musician and the need for constant communication between musicians lead to unique results that throw a musical bridge to the art of theater and performance.
The Ensemble defines itself primarily as an art group that, along with concerts, carries out interactive sound installations and projects in the field of theater and multimedia. Persimfans' projects - the interactive sound installation "Reconstruction of Noise" (2012) and the theatrical and multimedia stage project "Reconstruction of Utopia" - had big success with the public and critics in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Perm, Berlin and other cities. These projects have received many awards, in particular, the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize in 2014.
Experimental sound art can be heard and seen at the concert on December 14th. Musicians from Germany and Russia - on the principle of Persimfans, playing without a conductor - have developed for this joint project interesting concert program.
One of the most interesting and innovative projects of the heyday Soviet culture was Persimfans - the First Symphony Ensemble. It was founded in Moscow in 1922 and, in consonance with the ideals of the Russian revolution, performed music, abandoning the authoritative figure of the conductor, who was interpreted as a symbol of absolute power. During the performance, the musicians of the orchestra, whose repertoire included both classical and contemporary works, sat in a circle to maintain eye contact with each other - required condition for a well-coordinated game without a conductor. During its heyday, the ensemble gave more than 70 concerts a season, and although all of them took place in Moscow, Persimfans gained worldwide fame and was considered the best orchestra of its time. Orchestras without a conductor, following his model, began to appear not only in the USSR, but also abroad, including in Germany. In 1932, the idealistic project fell victim to Stalin's cultural repressions.
And today, the revived orchestra without a conductor has been and remains one of the most interesting musical groups ours. And his programs are bright and "revolutionary".
Photo by Ira POLAR
