A Life for the Tsar
A Life for the Tsar, is a "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. During the Soviet era the opera was known under the name Ivan Susanin; the original Russian libretto, based on historical events, was written by Nestor Kukolnik, Egor Fyodorovich Rozen, Vladimir Sollogub and Vasily Zhukovsky. It premiered on 27 November 1836 OS at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg; the historical basis of the plot involves Ivan Susanin, a patriotic hero of the early 17th century who gave his life in the expulsion of the invading Polish army for the newly elected Tsar Mikhail, the first of the Romanov dynasty, elected in 1613. The plot of A Life for the Tsar had been used earlier in 1815, when Catterino Cavos, an Italian-Russian composer, had written a two-act singspiel with the same subject and title; the original title of the opera was to be Ivan Susanin, after the hero, but when Nicholas I attended a rehearsal, Glinka changed the title to A Life for the Tsar as an ingratiating gesture.
This title was retained in the Russian Empire. In 1924, under the new Soviet regime, it appeared under the title Hammer and Sickle, but that production was not successful and was shelved. On 26 February 1939 it reappeared under the title Glinka had chosen, Ivan Susanin. Glinka and the writers with whom he was associated chose, in Susanin, a hero of Russian nationalism well suited to the mood of the time; the opera was hailed as a great success, became the obligatory season-opener in the Imperial Russian opera theaters. A Life for the Tsar occupies an important position in Russian musical theater as the first native opera to win a permanent place in the repertoire, it was one of the first Russian operas to be known outside Russia. The opera was given its premiere performance on 27 November 1836 in Saint Petersburg conducted by Catterino Cavos with set designs by Andrei Roller, it was followed several years with its premiere in Moscow on 7 September 1842 in a new production with sets by Serkov and Shenyan.
Glinka's play was featured throughout the Romanov tercentenary celebrations. It was performed in a gala performance at Marinsky Theatre, Performances of A Life for the Tsar was staged throughout Imperial Russia by schools and amateur companies. Pamphlets and the penny press printed the story of Susanin "ad nauseam", one newspaper told how Susanin had showed each and every soldier how to fulfill his oath to the sovereign; the image of the seventeenth century peasant features prominently at the bottom of the Romanov Monument in Kostroma, where a female personification of Russia gave blessings to a kneeled Susanin. In Kostroma, Tsar Nicholas II was presented with a group of peasants from Potemkin who claimed to be descendants of Susanin. 1857, piano-vocal score, as A Life for the Tsar, Stellovsky, St. Petersburg 1881, full score, as A Life for the Tsar, Stellovsky, St. Petersburg 1907, new edition by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, Leipzig 1942, as Ivan Susanin, Muzgiz 1949, as Ivan Susanin, Muzgiz 1953, as Ivan Susanin, Muzgiz In keeping with Glinka's European training, much of A Life for the Tsar was structured according to conventional Italian and French models of the period.
Several passages in the opera are based on Russian folk songs or folk melodic idioms that become a full part of the musical texture. Most this opera laid the foundation for the series of Russian nationalistic historical operas continued by works such as Serov's Rogneda, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Rimsky-Korsakov's Maid of Pskov, Tchaikovsky's The Oprichnik or Mazeppa, Borodin's Prince Igor; as popular as the opera was, its monarchist libretto was an embarrassment to the Soviet state. After some unsuccessful attempts were made to remedy this situation, in 1939 the poet S. M. Gorodetsky rewrote the text to remove references to the Tsar and otherwise make the libretto politically palatable. Time: The autumn of 1612 and the winter of 1613; the village of Domnino Antonida is eager to marry Sobinin, but her father Susanin refuses permission until a Russian has been duly chosen to take the Tsar's throne. When Sobinin informs him that the Grand Council in Moscow has chosen a Tsar, everyone celebrates.
Poland In a sumptuous hall, the nobility are celebrating the Polish dominance over the Russians with singing and dancing. A messenger comes in, with the news that Mikhail Romanov has been selected as the Tsar of Russia and is now in hiding; the Poles vow to overthrow him. Susanin's cabin his adopted son Vanya pledge to defend the new Tsar. Susanin blesses Sobinin and Antonida on their upcoming wedding when a detachment of Polish soldiers bursts in, demanding to know the Tsar's whereabouts. Instead Susanin sends Vanya to warn the Tsar while he, leads the soldiers off the trail, into the woods. Antonida is devastated. Sobinin gathers some men to go on a rescue mission. A dense forest Sobinin reassures his men of the rightness of their mission. Night falls. In a part of the forest near a monastery, Vanya knocks at the gates and alerts the inhabitants to spirit the Tsar away. Susanin has led the suspicious Polish troops into an snow-covered area of the forest; the Poles sleep. A blizzard sets in, when day breaks, the Poles awake.
When they realize that Susanin has deceived them, they kill him. Red Square, Moscow. Across the stage walks a crowd of people, celebrating the triumph of the new Tsar. Alone in their own solemn procession, Antonida and Vanya mourn Susanin. A detachment of Russian troops comes upon them and, after discovering their connection with Susanin, comforts them
Moscow
Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits, 17 million within the urban area and 20 million within the metropolitan area. Moscow is one of Russia's federal cities. Moscow is the major political, economic and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city on the European continent. By broader definitions, Moscow is among the world's largest cities, being the 14th largest metro area, the 18th largest agglomeration, the 14th largest urban area, the 11th largest by population within city limits worldwide. According to Forbes 2013, Moscow has been ranked as the ninth most expensive city in the world by Mercer and has one of the world's largest urban economies, being ranked as an alpha global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, is one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world according to the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index. Moscow is the coldest megacity on Earth.
It is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe. By its territorial expansion on July 1, 2012 southwest into the Moscow Oblast, the area of the capital more than doubled, going from 1,091 to 2,511 square kilometers, resulting in Moscow becoming the largest city on the European continent by area. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, making it Europe's most populated inland city; the city is well known for its architecture its historic buildings such as Saint Basil's Cathedral with its colorful architectural style. With over 40 percent of its territory covered by greenery, it is one of the greenest capitals and major cities in Europe and the world, having the largest forest in an urban area within its borders—more than any other major city—even before its expansion in 2012; the city has served as the capital of a progression of states, from the medieval Grand Duchy of Moscow and the subsequent Tsardom of Russia to the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union and the contemporary Russian Federation.
Moscow is a seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, a medieval city-fortress, today the residence for work of the President of Russia. The Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament sit in the city. Moscow is considered the center of Russian culture, having served as the home of Russian artists and sports figures and because of the presence of museums and political institutions and theatres; the city is served by a transit network, which includes four international airports, nine railway terminals, numerous trams, a monorail system and one of the deepest underground rapid transit systems in the world, the Moscow Metro, the fourth-largest in the world and largest outside Asia in terms of passenger numbers, the busiest in Europe. It is recognized as one of the city's landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. Moscow has acquired a number of epithets, most referring to its size and preeminent status within the nation: The Third Rome, the Whitestone One, the First Throne, the Forty Soroks.
Moscow is one of the twelve Hero Cities. The demonym for a Moscow resident is "москвич" for male or "москвичка" for female, rendered in English as Muscovite; the name "Moscow" is abbreviated "MSK". The name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river. Finno-Ugric Merya and Muroma people, who were among the several Early Eastern Slavic tribes which inhabited the area, called the river Mustajoki, it has been suggested. The most linguistically well grounded and accepted is from the Proto-Balto-Slavic root *mŭzg-/muzg- from the Proto-Indo-European *meu- "wet", so the name Moskva might signify a river at a wetland or a marsh, its cognates include Russian: музга, muzga "pool, puddle", Lithuanian: mazgoti and Latvian: mazgāt "to wash", Sanskrit: májjati "to drown", Latin: mergō "to dip, immerse". In many Slavic countries Moskov is a surname, most common in Bulgaria, Russia and North Macedonia. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa.
The original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. As with other nouns of that declension, it had been undergoing a morphological transformation at the early stage of the development of the language, as a result the first written mentions in the 12th century were Московь, Moskovĭ, Москви, Moskvi, Москвe/Москвѣ, Moskve/Moskvě. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, a result of morphological generalisation with the numerous Slavic ā-stem nouns. However, the form Moskovĭ has left some traces in many other languages, such as English: Moscow, German: Moskau, French: Moscou, Georgian: მოსკოვი, Latvian: Maskava, Ottoman Turkish: Moskov, Tatar: Мәскәү, Mäskäw, Kazakh: Мәскеу, Mäskew, Chuvash: Мускав, etc. In a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed it became a collo
Torban
The torban is a Ukrainian musical instrument that combines the features of the Baroque Lute with those of the psaltery. The Тorban differs from the more common European Bass lute known as the Theorbo in that it had additional short treble strings strung along the treble side of the soundboard, it appeared ca. 1700 influenced by the central European Theorbo and the Angelique which Cossack mercenaries would have encountered in the Thirty Years' War, although the likelier possibility is that certain Tuliglowski, a paulite monk, was its inventor. The Torban was manufactured and used in Ukraine, but occasionally encountered in neighbouring Poland and Russia. There are about 40 torbans in museums around the world, with the largest group of 14 instruments in St. Petersburg; the term "torban" was misapplied in the vernacular in western Ukraine to any instrument of the Baroque Lute type until the early 20th century. The surviving printed musical literature for torban is limited, notwithstanding the widespread use of the instrument in Eastern Europe.
It was an integral part of the urban oral culture in Ukraine, both in Russian and Polish controlled parts of the country. To date the only notated examples of torban music recorded are a group of songs from the repertoire of Franz Widort; the multi-strung, expensive in manufacture, stringing and technically difficult fretted torban was considered an instrument of Ukrainian gentry, although most of its practitioners were Ukrainians and Jews of low birth, with a few aristocratic exceptions. A few virtuoso players are known by their reputation, such as Andrey Sychra, the Widort family from Austria but active in Ukraine since the late 18th century; the Widort family produced three generations of torban players: Gregor Widort, his son Cajetan, grandson Franz. Such aristocratic associations sealed the instrument's fate in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution: it was deemed insufficiently proletarian and was discouraged. A predecessor of the torban called, it differed from the torban by the absence of a second peg box at the end of the neck and the lack of bass strings, was related in its organology to central European mandora and other instruments descending from the pandura.
In the 20th century, some banduras were manufactured to imitate the look of the torban, which has contributed to its misidentification. Ukrainian folk music Cherkasky, L. - Ukrainski narodni muzychni instrumenty // Tekhnika, Ukraine, 2003 - 262 pages. ISBN 966-575-111-5
Masterpiece
Masterpiece, magnum opus or chef-d’œuvre in modern use is a creation, given much critical praise one, considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, profundity, or workmanship. A "masterpiece" was a work of a high standard produced to obtain membership of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts; the form masterstik is recorded in English or Scots in a set of Aberdeen guild regulations dated to 1579, whereas "masterpiece" is first found in 1605 outside a guild context, in a Ben Jonson play. "Masterprize" was another early variant in English. In English, the term became used in a variety of contexts for an exceptionally good piece of creative work, was "in early use applied to man as the'masterpiece' of God or Nature"; the term masterpiece referred to a piece of work produced by an apprentice or journeyman aspiring to become a master craftsman in the old European guild system. His fitness to qualify for guild membership was judged by the masterpiece, if he was successful, the piece was retained by the guild.
Great care was therefore taken to produce a fine piece in whatever the craft was, whether confectionery, goldsmithing, leatherworking, or many other trades. In London, in the 17th century, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, for instance, required an apprentice to produce a masterpiece under their supervision at a "workhouse" in Goldsmiths' Hall; the workhouse had been set up as part of a tightening of standards after the company became concerned that the level of skill of goldsmithing was being diluted. The wardens of the company had complained in 1607 that the "true practise of the Art & Mystery of Goldsmithry is not only grown into great decays but dispersed into many parts, so as now few workmen are able to finish & perfect a piece of plate singularly with all the garnishings & parts thereof without the help of many & several hands...". The same goldsmithing organization still requires the production of a masterpiece but it is no longer produced under supervision. In Nuremberg, between 1531 and 1572, apprentices who wished to become master goldsmith were required to produce columbine cups, dice for a steel seal, gold rings set with precious stones before they could be admitted to the goldsmiths' guild.
If they failed to be admitted they could continue to work for other goldsmiths but not as a master themselves. In some guilds, apprentices were not allowed to marry. In its original meaning the term was restricted to tangible objects, but in some cases, where guilds covered the creators of intangible products, the same system was used; the best-known example today is Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, where much of the plot is concerned with the hero's composition and performance of a "masterpiece" song, to allow him to become a meistersinger in the Nuremberg guild. This follows the surviving rulebook of the guild; the practice of producing a masterpiece has continued in some modern academies of art, where the general term for such works is now reception piece. The Royal Academy in London uses the term "diploma work" and it has acquired a fine collection of diploma works received as a condition of membership. In modern use, a masterpiece is a creation in any area of the arts, given much critical praise one, considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, profundity, or workmanship.
For example, the novel David Copperfield is considered by many as a masterpiece written by author Charles Dickens. Artistic merit Classic Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000 Virtual Collection of Masterpieces Western canon Masterpieces at the Louvre
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although music research is more scientific in focus. A scholar who participates in musical research is a musicologist. Historical musicology and systematic musicology are equal in size. Ethnomusicology is the study of music in its cultural context. Systematic musicology includes music acoustics, the science and technology of acoustical musical instruments, the musical implications of physiology, sociology and computing. Cognitive musicology is the set of phenomena surrounding the computational modeling of music; when musicologists carry out research using computers, their research falls under the field of computational musicology. In some countries, music education is a prominent sub-field of musicology, while in others it is regarded as a distinct academic field, or one more affiliated with teacher education, educational research, related fields. Like music education, music therapy is a specialized form of applied musicology, sometimes considered more affiliated with health fields, other times regarded as part of musicology proper.
The parent disciplines of musicology include: General history Cultural studies Philosophy Ethnology and cultural anthropology Archeology and prehistory Psychology and sociology Physiology and neuroscience Acoustics and psychoacoustics Computer/information sciences and mathematicsMusicology has two central oriented sub-disciplines with no parent discipline: performance practice and research, the theory and composition of music. The disciplinary neighbors of musicology address other forms of art, performance and communication, including the history and theory of the visual and plastic arts and of architecture. Musical knowledge is applied in medicine and music therapy—which are parent disciplines of applied musicology. Music history or historical musicology is concerned with the composition, performance and criticism of music over time. Historical studies of music are for example concerned with a composer's life and works, the developments of styles and genres, e.g. baroque concertos, the social function of music for a particular group of people, e.g. court music, or modes of performance at a particular place and time, e.g. Johann Sebastian Bach's choir in Leipzig.
Like the comparable field of art history, different branches and schools of historical musicology emphasize different types of musical works and approaches to music. There are national differences in various definitions of historical musicology. In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history of any type or genre of music, e.g. the history of Indian music or the history of rock. In practice, these research topics are more considered within ethnomusicology and "historical musicology" is assumed to imply Western Art music of the European tradition; the methods of historical musicology include source studies, philology, style criticism, musical analysis, iconography. The application of musical analysis to further these goals is a part of music history, though pure analysis or the development of new tools of music analysis is more to be seen in the field of music theory. Music historians create a number of written products, ranging from journal articles describing their current research, new editions of musical works, biographies of composers and other musicians, book-length studies or university textbook chapters or entire textbooks.
Music historians may examine issues in a close focus, as in the case of scholars who examine the relationship between words and music for a given composer's art songs. On the other hand, some scholars take a broader view, assess the place of a given type of music, such as the symphony in society using techniques drawn from other fields, such as economics, sociology, or philosophy. New musicology is a term applied since the late 1980s to a wide body of work emphasizing cultural study and criticism of music; such work may be based on feminist, gender studies, queer theory, or postcolonial theory, or the work of Theodor W. Adorno. Although New Musicology emerged from within historical musicology, the emphasis on cultural study within the Western art music tradition places New Musicology at the junction between historical and sociological research in music. New musicology was a reaction against traditional historical musicology, which according to Susan McClary, "fastidiously declares issues of musical signification off-limits to those engaged in legitimate scholarship."
Charles Rosen, retorts that McClary, "sets up, like so many of the'new musicologists', a straw man to knock down, the dogma that music has no meaning, no political or social significance." Today, many musicologists no longer distinguish between musicology and new musicology, since many of the scholarly concerns once associated with new musicology have now become mainstream, they feel the term "new" no longer applies. Ethnomusicology comparative musicology, is the study of music in its cultural context, it is considered the anthropology or ethnography of music. Jeff Todd T
Viennese waltz
Viennese waltz is a genre of ballroom dance. At least four different meanings are recognized. In the first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in ballroom dancing, danced to the music of Viennese waltz. What is now called the Viennese waltz is the original form of the waltz, it was the first ballroom dance performed in "waltz" position. The dance, popularly known as the waltz is the English or slow waltz, danced at 90 beats per minute with 3 beats to the bar, while the Viennese waltz is danced at about 180 beats per minute. To this day however, in Germany, Austria and France, the words Walzer and valse still implicitly refer to the original dance and not the slow waltz; the Viennese waltz is a rotary dance where the dancers are turning either toward the leader's right or toward the leader's left, interspersed with non-rotating change steps to switch between the direction of rotation. As the waltz evolved, some of the versions that were done at about the original fast tempo came to be called "Viennese waltz" to distinguish them from the slower waltzes.
In the modern ballroom dance, two versions of Viennese waltz are recognized: International Style and American Style. Today the Viennese waltz is a ballroom and partner dance, part of the International Standard division of contemporary ballroom dance; the Viennese waltz, so called to distinguish it from the waltz and the French waltz, is the oldest of the current ballroom dances. It emerged in the second half of the 18th century from the German dance and the Ländler in Austria and was both popular and subject to criticism. At that time, the waltz, as described in a magazine from 1799, was performed by dancers who held on to their long gowns to prevent them from dragging or being stepped on; the dancers would lift their dresses and hold them high like cloaks, this would bring both their bodies under one cover. This action required the dancers' bodies to be close together, this closeness attracted moral disparagement. In 1797, Wolf published a pamphlet against the dance entitled "Proof that Waltzing is the Main Source of Weakness of the Body and Mind of our Generation".
But when faced with all this negativity, it became popular in Vienna. Large dance halls like the Zum Sperl in 1807 and the Apollo in 1808 were opened to provide space for thousands of dancers; the dance reached and spread to England sometime before 1812. It became a huge hit, it gained ground through the Congress of Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century and by the famous compositions by Josef Lanner, Johann Strauss I and his son, Johann Strauss II. The waltz was different from its form today. In the first place, the couples did not dance in the closed position as today; the illustrations and descriptions make it clear that the couples danced with arm positions similar to that of the precursor dances, the Ländler and the Allemande. The hold was at times side by side. Arms were intertwined and circling movements were made under raised arms. No couple in Wilson's plate are shown in close embrace, but some are in closed hold facing each other. Another significant difference from the present technique was that the feet were turned out and the rise of foot during the dance was much more pronounced.
This can be seen quite in the figure, such a style imposes its limitations on how the dance can be performed. To understand why Quirey says "The advent of the Waltz in polite society was quite the greatest change in dance form and dancing manners that has happened in our history" we need to realize that all European social dances before the waltz were communal sequence dances – communal, because all the dancers on the floor took part in a preset pattern (often chosen by a master of ceremony. Dancers separately, as couples, faced outwards to the spectators as much as they faced inwards, thus all present took part as onlookers. This was the way with all previous popular dances. With the waltz, couples were turned towards each other. Lord Byron wrote a furious letter, which precedes his poem "The Waltz", in which he decries the anti-social nature of the dance, with the couple "like two cockchafers spitted on the same bodkin." The Viennese waltz is a rotary dance where the dancers are turning either in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction interspersed with non-rotating change steps to switch between the direction of rotation.
A true Viennese waltz consists only of turns and change steps. Other moves such as the fleckerls, American-style figures and side sway or underarm turns are modern inventions; the competitive styles of Viennese waltz has a reduced number of steps, depending on the style and competition level or medal exam level. International-style Viennese waltz is danced in closed position; the syllabus is limited to natural and reverse turns and open changes, contra check, left whisk, canter-time pivot turns. In World Dance Council competition, canter pivots are excluded. American-style Viennese waltz has much more freedom, both in dance syllabus. Austrian folk dancing
