Abdokov Yuri

Herman Galynin: “a candle burning at both ends.” Chamber, orchestral and ensemble music for strings

Abstract

This article deals with key events in the life and work of the outstanding Russian composer of the 20th century, Herman Galynin (1922‒1966), whose artistic heritage is one of the obvious lacunae in modern Russian art history. Due to the initiatives of the international creative workshop Terra Musica over the past two years, all of the composer's chamber-orchestral and string-ensemble opera without exception were performed and recorded for the fi rst time for the British company Toccata Classics. The preparation of these recordings required a thorough intertextual analysis of the most striking scores, strangely excluded from the concert repertoire and academic publicity. The article clarifi es and systematises information about the diffi cult and tragic fate of the artist. For the fi rst time, it studies the entire corpus of H. Galynin's chamber-orchestral and ensemble compositions for various string ensembles. These are two string quartets, a suite for string orchestra, aria and scherzo for violin and string orchestra. Most of these works have never been dealt with in the context of a phenomenological analysis that addresses a wide range of issues of professional and aesthetic, historiographical, and metaphysical nature. The methodology applied is based on lexical attribution of the author's style, poetics, and of the composer's ethos. For the fi rst time, the questions of stylistically adequate interpretation of all the considered scores have been raised. One of the important components of the analysis is a connection of the studied works with the fundamental problems of theory and practice of modern instrumental (orchestral) writing. The article argues for the need to revise a number of published “editions” that appeared during the preparation and implementation of the fi rst world (digital) recordings of all string scores by Herman Galynin.

Keywords

Herman Galynin, string orchestra, score, quartet, style, poetics, interpretation, ethos

References

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Information about the author

Abdokov Yuri

Academic Degree: Candidate of Sciences* in Art Criticism;
Academic Rank: Professor;
Place of work: Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory; 13/6 Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street Moscow, 125009, Russian Federation;
Post: professor;
ORCID: 0000-0001-9033-3279;
Email: abdokovgeorg@mail.ru.

*According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011, the degree of Candidate of Sciences (Cand.Sc.) belongs to ISCED level 8 — "doctoral or equivalent", together with PhD, DPhil, D.Lit, D.Sc, LL.D, Doctorate or similar.