Musical culture of Ancient Russia. Music of ancient Russia

Healing - a sad soul - a musical sound and beauty.
Alfred de Musset.

Tasks:

• Show the role of ancient Russian chants associated with the change of seasons, invocations, rituals, life of the Russians.
• Show the impact of Christianity on development old Russian music.
• Recall the performances of a modern folklore group from the village of Verbezhichi ( Kaluga region), which often takes part in the celebration of the City Day.
• Show the development of church music.
• Show the influence of cult music on the development of professional domestic musical culture.

• Develop interest in ancient Russian chants.
• Help students understand folklore songs.
• To develop interest in concerts of local performers of Russian folk songs.
• To develop a sense of patriotism and pride in the talent of the Russian people and national musical culture.

• Cultivate the ability to listen to Russian folk songs.
• To instill a desire to study the development of Russian folk art.
• Pay attention to the morality inherent in the Russian folk song.
• Song as a historical document.

During the classes:

Listen to the recorded performance of folk songs from study guide"Ethnology" so that students can independently evaluate and understand these chants.

Russian music has its origins in the distant past. In pagan beliefs Eastern Slavs for a long time there were traces of the worship of "mother earth" and fire, as well as totemistic ideas, indicating the importance of hunting in the life of some Slavs. All these beliefs determined the nature of the ancient Slavic pagan rituals, that is, an organized, ordered system of magical actions, the purpose of which was to influence the surrounding nature and make it serve man.

Some monuments speak about the role of music and choreography in the pagan rituals of the Eastern Slavs. visual arts. In one of the 6th-century hoards discovered in Kiev, several cast silver images of a dancer were found, the dancing pose of which resembled a Russian squat. Let's look at this image. In modern folk dances do we see such poses in dancers? Consider the frescoes of Kyiv Sofia. Who do we see in these frescoes?

And now let's remember what musical instruments were used by ancient Russian musicians? Students call the harp, flute, rattles and other instruments. The image of which hero in Russian epics is associated with the harp? Remember which of the composers wrote an opera about him?

Since ancient times, the harp was widespread among the Eastern Slavs - the most popular musical instrument in ancient Russia. (It is enough to recall the epic about the Russian gusli Sadko and his image created by the Russian composer of the 19th century N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov in the opera of the same name. (Listen to Sadko’s song “Play, my guselki” from the opera of the same name).

Byzantine historians mention three Slavic musicians captured at the end of the 6th century. captured on the way to Khazaria, where they went as ambassadors of their prince or military leader. The captured Slavs allegedly reported that they did not own weapons, but only knew how to play their instruments. The author of this message calls the instruments in their hands "kithara", by resemblance to the musical instrument of the ancient Greeks known to him. The prisoners were saved.

This message of historians is interesting in that it testifies to the honorable, privileged position of the ancient Slavic musicians. In these three musicians, we can see the distant predecessors of the "prophetic" singer Boyan, who is mentioned both in The Tale of Igor's Campaign and in more later works literature (“Ruslan and Lyudmila” by A.S. Pushkin).

And now let me listen to the kontakion dedicated to Alexander Nevsky? Does this chant sound like the songs we just listened to? What has changed in ancient Russian music? What caused such a change?

With the adoption of Christianity, Byzantine church singing also came to Russia. The church service was attended by Greek and South Slavic singers, who were ordered by the Russian princes. By the end of the XI - the beginning of the XII centuries. include the first handwritten singing books. Most famous work hymn character is kontakion, dedicated to memory princes Boris and Gleb.

Church singing of ancient Russia, as in the entire Eastern Christian church, was monophonic. The melody was recorded above a line of text using a special system of conventional signs. These signs indicated only the direction of the melody, and not the exact pitch.

I show hook recordings of the melody and the so-called "slides". From Slavic word“banner” (“sign”), this system received the definition of znamenny writing. By the name of one of its main signs - "hook" - it is also called hook letter. These definitions are transferred to the very style of ancient Russian church singing, called Znamenny or Kryukov.

We listen to an example of the Znamenny singing of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. Let the students be imbued with the charm of voice leading, calmness, measured melody. Why is there no loud music during worship, why in Orthodox Church no instrumental accompaniment?

Widely developed in Kievan Rus and different kinds secular music. About the music-making at the court of the Kyiv princes can also be judged on the basis of frescoes Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. One of them depicts a musician with a bowed string instrument of the medieval fidel type (the forerunner of the viola) in his hands, the other shows a group of wind and plucked instruments along with dancers and acrobats. Here we see an organ and a musician sitting in front of it.

But there were also professional musicians in Kyiv. They were called buffoons, they combined the features of a joker-joker, dramatic "actor", musician, singer, storyteller, dancer, magician, acrobat. The musical instruments of the buffoons were diverse: psaltery, trumpets, sniffles, reed pipes, tsevnitsa (Pan's flute), etc.

Simultaneously with the weakening of the political power of Kyiv, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality rises, in which church singing art has reached a high level of development. The chronicle has preserved for us the name of the singer and chanter (composer of hymns) Luke, whose numerous disciples were known under the name "Lucy's child".

The Novgorod school of church singing is not inferior in importance to the Novgorod schools of icon painting, architecture, and artistic ornamentation. Already in the 12th century, among the well-known masters of church singing in Russia, the name of the domestik (leader of church singing) of the Novgorod Anthony Monastery Kirik, who was not only a connoisseur of singing art, but also a person widely educated at that time, was mentioned. A typical Russian phenomenon was the art of bell ringing, which reached a high development on Novgorod soil.

We are listening to a report prepared by a student about bell ringing in Russia and their significance in the life of the people.

Moscow, which became a stronghold of political unity and fortress of the Russian state, appeared in the XV - XVI centuries. and the center of gravity of the best cultural forces of the country. At this time, the forms of Znamenny singing were finally taking shape, the range of its melodies was enriched, and the first attempts were made to theoretically comprehend its patterns. Persons of the clergy were charged with the duty to teach the youth, along with general literacy, also church singing.

It was during this period of time that a group of singers was created, called the "sovereign singing clerks" and they consisted of the person of the king. It was a kind of "singing academy" of church singing.

(Students are invited to listen to several examples of both unknown authors and such as Fedor Krestyanin, as well as examples of Bulgarian, Greek, Znamenny chants. What did you pay attention to when listening to these musical examples? Yes, no musical instruments.)

Under pressure from the church authorities, the government issued a decree prohibiting the participation of buffoons in folk games and amusements, in wedding and other family celebrations. Their art was considered secular and "impious". And musical instruments and other instruments of buffoon art were mercilessly destroyed.

Folk song was the most important area of ​​the musical art of ancient Russia. The testimonies that have come down to us speak of the exceptional breadth of its distribution and the love it enjoyed in all segments of the population, from a simple peasant-smerd to a princely squad. Why folk song used in the old days big love or as they would say now, popularity? What did the folk song tell about, what moments of the life of the ancient Rosich did it accompany?

Ritual folklore associated with the annual cycle of holidays of the agricultural calendar belongs to the oldest layers of folk musical and poetic creativity: the Kolyada holiday, Shrovetide rites, symbolizing the farewell to winter, Rusalya week, dedicated to the memory of deceased relatives, laments and lamentations. The main genre of the Russian folk epic are antiquities or epics. If stick exact definition, then we should not talk about saying, but about singing epics. They were sung in a sing-song voice in the spirit of a metrically free melodic fast patter.

The stern power, the feeling of "dense" primitive strength impresses the melody of the epic and "About Volga and Mikul", recorded by the composer M.P. Mussorgsky from the famous storyteller T.G. Ryabinin, one of a whole dynasty of talented masters of the epic tale. The pinnacle of Russian song folklore is the lyrical song. It reflects a wide and varied range of phenomena. folk life associated with family life and with social relationships.

We listen to the recording of the song “Mother, mother, what is dusty in the field”, this ritual wedding song sounds performed by Lyudmila Zykina. The melodies of lyrical songs are distinguished by their great length, breadth of breathing and a variety of expressive colors. These songs are mostly polyphonic, improvisation plays a significant role in them.

Her tunes are not preserved in an unchanged, stable form, like the melodies of ritual songs, they are constantly changing, acquiring new features. Each singer introduces an element of a lively, creative attitude into the performance of lyrical songs. Many Russian poets sang in their poems a Russian song, so soulful, wide, like the Russian expanses, and sometimes fast and incendiary, such that the legs themselves rush into the dance.

(At the lesson, you can arrange the reading of poems about Russian music and listen to Russian folk songs. Or you can distribute the texts of the songs to students so that everyone can analyze their content, but be sure to listen to the songs themselves. To do this, you can use the recordings of ritual songs from the program "Ethnology" .)

Generalization:

• What was the importance of songs and dances among the ancient Slavs? What were they connected with?
• What role, apart from music, did the musicians play?
• What did ancient Russian music gain with the adoption of Christianity?
• What were the professional singers called and what was the attitude towards them?
• Why is the use of musical instruments forbidden in Orthodoxy?
• After what events did polyphonic church singing appear in Russia?
• Who are the "sovereign singers"?
• Did church Russian music influence the further development of Russian professional musical art?

musical culture Ancient Russia, starting from the Kievan period and throughout the Middle Ages, had a dual character.

buffoons

Two cultures coexisted at the same time different origin: folk and church. Mastering the Christian culture that came from Byzantium, Russian singers inevitably had to use the old reserves of pagan song. Despite the fact that they were in a state of antagonism due to the struggle of two incompatible ideologies - pagan and Christian - they had a lot in common. Their joint existence made them related and mutually enriched.

But the life of folk and church music had a different character. The assimilation of church music was bookish, it required special schools, while folk songs were not recorded until the 18th century. Ancient musical hook manuscripts, preserved from the turn of the 11th-13th centuries, vividly testify to the first stage of Russian professional music, and although they cannot be accurately deciphered, they largely reflect the ancient singing culture.

Monuments of literature and art - chronicles, frescoes, icons - tell about the music of Ancient Russia (IX-XII centuries). In the life of the Novgorod Bishop Nifont (XIII century), in the teachings of the monk George (XIII century) and a number of other documents, there is information that musicians performed on the streets and squares of cities. Music was an obligatory part of the ritual holidays - Shrovetide (seeing off winter and welcoming spring), Ivan Kupala (summer solstice), etc. They usually took place with a large gathering of people and included games, dances, wrestling, equestrian competitions, performances of buffoons. Buffoons played the harp, trumpets, snots, tambourines, horns.

The music played during solemn ceremonies at the court of princes. So, the change of dishes at feasts was accompanied by instrumental music or an epic. On a medieval miniature representing the scene of the conclusion of peace between the princes Yaropolk and Vsevolod, next to them is a musician playing the trumpet. In the war, with the help of pipes, horns, horns, drums, tambourines, they gave signals and created noise that was supposed to frighten the enemy

The most common instrument was the harp. Byzantine historian of the 7th century. Theophylact writes about the love of the northern Slavs (Venedi) for music, mentioning the cithars invented by them, that is, the harp. The harp as an indispensable accessory of buffoons is mentioned in old Russian songs and epics of the Vladimir cycle. It is no coincidence that Bayan, the epic narrator-gusliar, is sung in the Tale of Igor's Campaign (XII century). However, the attitude towards the harp was ambivalent. They were respected for their resemblance to the musical instrument of the biblical psalmist King David. But the same harp in the hands of amusing buffoons was condemned by the church. Buffoons and their household items, including musical instruments, disappeared in the 17th century.

Buffoons are Russian medieval actors, at the same time singers, dancers, trainers, witty musicians, performers of skits, acrobats and authors of most of the verbal, musical and dramatic works they performed.
The repertoire of buffoons consisted of comic songs, plays, social satires ("glum"), performed in masks and "buffoon dress" to the accompaniment of a beep, gusel, pity, domra, bagpipes, tambourine. Each character was assigned a certain character and mask, which did not change for years. Buffoons performed on the streets and squares, constantly communicated with the audience, involved them in their performance.

Performances of buffoons united different types of arts - both dramatic and circus. It is known that back in 1571 they recruited "merry people" for state fun, and at the beginning of the 17th century. the troupe was at the Amusement Chamber, built in Moscow by Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. At the same time, at the beginning of the 17th century, princes Ivan Shuisky, Dmitry Pozharsky, and others had buffoon troupes. Prince Pozharsky's buffoons often went around the villages "for their trade." As medieval jugglers were divided into feudal jugglers and folk jugglers, Russian buffoons were also differentiated. But the circle of "court" buffoons in Russia remained limited, in the end their functions were reduced to the role of household jesters.
buffoon

Around the middle of the XVII century. wandering gangs are gradually leaving the stage, and sedentary buffoons are more or less retraining as musicians and stage figures in a Western European way. From now on, the buffoon becomes an obsolete figure, although certain types of it creative activity continued to live among the people for a very long time. So, the buffoon-singer, the performer of folk poetry, gives way to representatives of the emerging from the end of the 16th century. poetry; living memory about him was preserved among the people - in the person of the storytellers of epics in the North, in the form of a singer or bandura player in the South. A buffoon-gudets (gooseman, domrachi, bagpiper, surnachi), a dance player turned into an instrumental musician. Among the people, his successors are folk musicians, without whom not a single folk festival can do.

In 1648 and 1657 Archbishop Nikon obtained decrees banning buffoonery.

One of the brightest pages of Russian spiritual and artistic culture is ancient Russian church music. The monumentality and grandeur of ancient Russian music are completely connected with modest means of expression - unison singing, laconic, strict colors of sound. P. A. Florensky in his “Discourse on Divine Services” speaks of a special property of the ancient Russian monody: “Ancient unison or octave singing ... it’s amazing how the touch of Eternity awakens. Eternity is perceived in a certain poverty of earthly treasures, and when there is a wealth of sounds, voices, vestments, etc., etc., the earthly comes, and Eternity leaves the soul somewhere, to the poor in spirit and poor riches.

Ancient Russia perceived Byzantine musical culture and new musical aesthetics, along with baptism, as a direct source from which a new stream of music developed, opposing itself to the original folk genres. Church music appeared in Russia after its conversion to Christianity (988). Along with baptism, the country also received musical culture from Byzantium. Among the most important provisions of the theory and aesthetics of Byzantine and ancient Russian musical art is the idea of ​​its God-givenness, inspiration.

The creators of ancient Russian music avoided external effects, embellishments, so as not to disturb the depth of feelings and thoughts. The most important feature of medieval Russian art was its synthetic character. The same images, ideally embodied by different means in different types art, but the true core of the synthesis of ancient Russian church art was the word. The word, its meaning formed the basis of chants, melodies contributed to their perception, clarification of the text, weaned it, sometimes illustrated it. Contemplation of icons, listening to chants close to them in content created such a unity that evoked lofty thoughts and feelings. The icon and the chant that sounded in front of it, the prayer constituted the pulse of the spiritual culture of Ancient Russia, therefore icon-painting and hymnographic creativity has always been at a high level.

The synthesis of arts, which composers of the 20th century aspired to in their work. in particular, A. Scriabin, in essence, was embodied in medieval art. Ancient Russian worship had the character of a mystery, during which a person could receive spiritual purification, free himself from the worries and fuss that burdened him, and morally rise.

A number of information about music has come down to us from the 16th century. In particular, chants, the author of which was Ivan the Terrible, have been preserved. According to the data contained in the sources, one can judge his musical talent.

The literary stamp of that time was the following expression: the tsar went to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery "to listen to prayer singing." The fact that this expression is not accidental is convinced by some "variation" in the mention of Ivan IV's interest in the musical side of the service: "And the tsar and Grand Duke I listened to that modem singing, until what time the baptism was performed. This behavior of his is all the more curious because it was observed during the baptism of his newly betrothed wife Mary. Or another place from the source: “The sovereign was alone with his spiritual fathers Andrey the archpriests, and starting to arm himself, he put yumshan on himself, and he hears many calls and says to his neighbors: “The bells are heard, as if the bells of Simon’s monastery” *. Considering that each monastery had its own bell ringing, then we should recognize the presence of a good musical memory at Ivan IV.

Together with Christianity, the Russians borrowed from Byzantium a very ramified and sophisticated system of temple singing - osmoglas and the system of its recording - banners, hooks. Since the oldest forms of this notation are not exactly deciphered, the question remains open: did Russia adopt church singing from Byzantium directly or through the South Slavic countries, but it is obvious that by the XV-XVI centuries. Russian Znamenny chant was a completely original artistic phenomenon. Received from Byzantium and stable principles remained the strictly vocal nature of church creativity - the Orthodox canon excludes the use of any kind of instruments; the closest connection between word and sound; smooth melodic movement; string structure of the whole (i.e. musical form acted as a derivative of speech, poetic). In general, these principles are to a large extent valid for the ancient epic folklore genres (calendar ritual - pagan song had its own laws).

In the XVI century. in Moscow, exemplary choirs were founded - sovereign and patriarchal choristers clerks. At the same time, variants of the main znamenny chant appeared, travel and demestvenny chant, each with its own recording system, as well as individual versions of individual chants that belonged to a given master, locality, monastery, etc. In the 16th century. there is also a completely original Russian church polyphony. Somewhat later, in the XVII century. Kievan, Greek, Bulgarian chant became widespread, partly associated with the singing of the southern and southwestern Orthodox churches, but acquiring independent forms in Russia.

The first Russian teachers were Greek and Bulgarian singers.

16th century was the time of the spread of many new local chants. There were chants of Kyiv, Vladimir, Yaroslavl (by the names of cities), bast baskets, Christians (by the names of singers, their authors). Works of church singing art (troparia, canons, etc.) remained, as a rule, like icon painting, anonymous. But nevertheless, the names of outstanding masters of the 16th-17th centuries are known from written sources; among them - Vasily Shaidur, Novgorodians (according to other sources - Karelians) brothers Vasily (monastic Varlaam) and Savva Rogovs; Ivan (monastic Isaiah) Lukoshko and Stefan Golysh from the Urals; Ivan the Nose and Fedor Peasant (i.e. Christian), who worked at the court of Ivan the Terrible.

Another name belonging to a number of very significant in the history of Russian singing art: Archpriest, and later Metropolitan Andrei. Mentions of him in the annals depict him as a musically literate person.

In general, the XVI century. was to a certain extent a turning point for the history of ancient Russian music, and by no means only in the performing art of singing. It was from that time that one can speak of the emergence in Russia of "theoretical musicology", the first results of which were numerous singing alphabets. And the 17th century is a period of a kind of flourishing of domestic musicology. Suffice it to name here the names of such authors as Nikolai Diletsky, Alexander Mezenets, Tikhon Makarievsky. And the next era in the history of Russian music - the era of partes singing - is already associated with purely professional musical-theoretical monuments of Russian culture.

From the middle of the XVII century. a turning point is coming in Russian church singing art: it is approved new style choral polyphony - partes, distributed in Moscow by singers of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish origin and based on the norms of Western European harmonic writing. At the same time, the five-line notation begins to prevail, although the hook script has been preserved for quite a long time (the Old Believers use it to this day). The spiritual psalm (kant) becomes very popular, then secular choral chants appear - historical, military, love, comic.

There is no uniform periodization of the history of Russian music. Usually, three periods are distinguished for the Middle Ages: before the Mongol-Tatar invasion (XI-XIII centuries), the Moscow period (XIV - early XVII centuries), the era of the turning point (from the accession of the Romanov dynasty in 1613 to the reign of Peter I, early 18th in.).

Next 18th century. often divided into two periods - post-Petrine, marked by the strongest foreign influence, and Catherine (the last third of the century), when signs of a national musical school begin to appear.
the first quarter XIX in. usually considered as an era of early romanticism, often this time is also called the "pre-Glinka" or "pre-classical" era. With the appearance of operas by M. I. Glinka (late 1830s - 1840s), the heyday of Russian music begins, reaching its peak in the 1860s-1880s. Since the mid 1890s. and until 1917 (it would be more correct to move the second date a little further, to the middle or even the second half of the 1920s) gradually unfolds new stage, marked first by development - against the background classical traditions- the "modern" style, and then other new directions, which can be generalized by the terms "futurism", "constructivism", etc. In the history of Russian music of the Soviet period, the pre-war and post-war periods are distinguished, and in the second of them they designate the beginning of 1960 as a milestone -s. Since the late 1980s a new one starts modern period Russian musical art.

Here's what I can add. At one time, while still a student, she wrote an essay on the topic of the history of Russians folk instruments, in particular domra ... Here's what I learned: the article states that Archbishop Nikon in the middle of the 17th century obtained a decree banning buffoonery. And it was not just a ban. Skomorokhov was executed. All instruments, all kinds of recordings of music were taken away from people, thrown into large carts, taken to the river and burned. Keeping the instrument at home was like signing your own death warrant. Folk music was considered "demonic", and the people performing it - "obsessed with demonism" By order of the church, the great cultural heritage Slavs and Old Russians and replaced by Western church music. What has come down to us since that time is still a hundred liters of water in the ocean ...

It is customary to call the era of ancient Russian musical art a historically very long period of time, covering more than eight centuries, from the moment the Russian state appeared (9th century) to the reforms of Peter the Great (end of the 17th century). It is divided into several stages that coincide with the general historical classification: a) Kievan Rus, b) Novgorod and other cities in the fight against the Mongol-Tatar invasion, c) centralization feudal principalities around Moscow. Each of the stages has its own pronounced features of musical culture. However, they are united by fundamentally common features.

Fyodor Peasant. "Stichers". Type of old manuscript. Below: its decoding by M. V. Brazhnikov.

"Buffoons". Russian lubok.

From the "Primer" by K. Istomin. 1694

Opera by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov "Sadko" was written on the plot of the ancient Russian epic. Scenes from the opera staged by the Bolshoi Theater. Moscow.

The development of Russian musical art until the 17th century. took place in two opposing areas - folk and church music. To the number ancient species folk art ritual and labor songs belonged (see Folklore). Almost all the events of a person's life - birth, children's games, weddings, seeing off winter, spring sowing, harvesting, etc. - were accompanied by singing and dancing. A layer stood out in the people's environment professional musicians- buffoons who went from one village to another, sang, played musical instruments, staged performances. Sometimes they were employed in the service of some prince, sometimes they also became merchants in their travels. So, for example, among the first belonged the Kyiv storyteller Boyan, sung in the poem by A. S. Pushkin "Ruslan and Lyudmila" and the opera of the same name by M. I. Glinka. The figure of this legendary narrator also appears before us in the introductory lines of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign - a remarkable monument of ancient Russian Literature XII in.:

It used to happen with Boyan the Prophetic, If he began to sing about someone, Thought, like a gray wolf in the steppe, ran, Rising to the clouds like an eagle ... But not ten falcons took off, But Boyan laid his fingers on the strings, And the living strings rumbled Glory to those, who did not seek praise. (Translated by N. I. Rylenkov.)

Of the buffoon merchants, the Novgorod gusler Sadko stood out, who served as the prototype for the protagonist of the opera, N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. Already today, archaeologists during excavations in Novgorod have found many musical instruments that once belonged to buffoons. Among them there are wind instruments - a whistle, a sniffle, a duda, a trumpet, a horn, as well as one of the predecessors of the folk violin - a whistle.

Old Russian church music existed in the form of choral singing without instrumental accompaniment (see Choral music). Musical instruments were banned in the Orthodox Church. The only exception was the art of playing the bells, which was developed in various forms of simple ringing, chimes, chimes, etc. The bells of the middle and big size often received their own names: of these, Tsar Bell (Moscow Kremlin), Sysoy, Swan, Baran (Rostov Kremlin) are especially famous.

Church singing served as a model of the highest professionalism, embodied in various forms in a practical and theoretical system, which was called the “osmosis system”, i.e., alternating groups of tunes over periods of eight weeks. Ancient Russian chants - stichera, troparia, kontakia - by inspiration, professionalism of performance and strength artistic expression are not inferior to the ensembles of ancient Russian architecture, the frescoes of Theophan the Greek and Andrei Rublev.

Russian folk music, both choral and instrumental, was not recorded in those days, it was passed down by tradition from generation to generation. Russian cult singing was recorded special characters, called banners, of which the most common were hooks. Therefore, ancient musical manuscripts are called Znamenny or Kryukov. Deciphering them is one of the most difficult and fascinating tasks. modern science. Hook manuscripts of the 11th-16th centuries. most of them have not yet been deciphered. At the beginning of the XVII century. cinnabar marks were put into practice - special badges made with red paint; they make it possible to relatively accurately translate the tunes of this era into the modern system of musical notation.

High level reached the musical, especially choral, culture of our country in the 17th century. Along with the development of traditional types of musical art at that time in Russia, the process of replacing old forms and genres with new ones was rapidly proceeding. Until now, obligatory monophony gives way to polyphonic compositions. Musical notation supplants hook notation and the style of “partes singing” emerged, as singing according to the notes of cants and choral concerts was then called. The latter represented an important transitional stage from church to professional secular music.

The content of the cants was the most diverse: reflections on life and death, pictures of nature, praise of outstanding historical figures, expression of various human feelings - love, sorrow, triumph, etc. They were sung by a small vocal ensemble in three voices, and in the regions near Moscow, usually without instrumental accompaniment, and in Ukraine and Belarus such singing was often accompanied by playing the bandura, hurdy-gurdy, violin and other instruments.

The most complex form of Russian musical art XVII in. considered a "spiritual concerto for the choir". The word "concert" means, as you know, "competition", or - in the language of that era - "struggle". Who competed in singing, what groups of people creatively opposed? Sometimes from total number The ensemble of soloists stood out from the choristers, who sang alternately with a large choir. In other cases, one choral part, as it were, entered into an argument with some other - altos with trebles, tenors with basses, or high children's voices with low male voices (there were a lot of opposition options). But most often, the composers of that time composed concertos in which several choirs competed with each other.

When performing concerts, choristers usually lined up in a funeral in some room (palace hall, temple) or in the open air; one choir a short distance from the other. The choral sound covered listeners from all sides, creating an impressive stereophonic effect, then it was called antiphonal singing (literally "counter-sound"). Composers of the 2nd half of the 17th century N. P. Diletsky, V. P. Titov and others wrote their own music for the composition of 3 four-part choirs. There are also works for a larger number of voices, up to 24, that is, for 6 four-part choirs.

XVI-XVII centuries - the period of the birth of Russian musical theater. Of its many origins, the two most closely associated with domestic traditions professional and choral singing is a ritual of "cave performance" and a crib puppet theater.

The “Stove Action” was a staging of an ancient tale about three youths who did not want to bow to the golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar and were thrown into a burning furnace (furnace) on his orders. As positive characters youths participated in the action, as negative - the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldeans. In addition, the performance was accompanied choral singing various stichera, troparia, kontakia and "dewy verses" (a poetic text that tells about the dew that miraculously extinguished the stove). In the "cave performance" episodes of rough comedy, almost farcical in nature (dialogues of the Chaldeans) alternated with poetically sublime ones (singing of the youths), as well as with scenes that were solved symbolically.

Nativity scenes enjoyed great love among the people. musical performances. The nativity scene - a puppet box with a two-tiered stage - was carried around the houses, where the same unchanging performance about the cruel King Herod and his death was played to the singing of the cants.

In the last third of the XVII century. in Russia, a real musical theater is already appearing - with an auditorium, a stage, scenery, numerous actors, and sometimes with an orchestra. Such theaters existed in Moscow, Kyiv, Novgorod, Astrakhan, Tobolsk, Irkutsk and other large cities; they were called school, because in most cases they were organized at educational institutions. Texts for plays were often written by famous playwrights, including Simeon Polotsky, Dmitry Rostovsky. Musical arrangement was based on all the then genres. In this sense, performances school theaters were the result of the development ancient Russian art and at the same time a link with Russian art of the XVIII century.

Nowadays, interest in ancient Russian music is steadily growing, not only among musicologists, but also in the most wide circles listeners. Many of the old works are published (in particular, in the series “Monuments of Russian Musical Art”), recorded, heard on the radio and at concerts performed by choirs. The premiere of the revived musical play by Dmitry Rostovsky "Christmas Drama" took place at the Moscow Chamber Musical Theatre. Scientists and craftsmen artistic word the work on the reconstruction of the musical-singing performance of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" is being successfully carried out. The best examples of ancient Russian music rightfully become the property of modern musical culture.

buffoons (skomrahi, taunts, goosemen, gamers, dancers, cheerful people) - wandering actors in Ancient Russia, who acted as singers, wits, musicians, performers of scenes, animal trainers, acrobats. According to the dictionary of V. Dahl, a buffoon is “a musician, a piper, a snorter, a horn player, a piper, a harper; earning this, and dancing, songs, jokes, tricks; joker, whacker, gaer, jester; bear cub; comedian, actor, etc.

Buffoons were carriers of synthetic forms of folk art, combining singing, playing musical instruments, dancing, bear fun, puppet shows, performances in masks, magic tricks. Buffoons were constant participants in folk festivals, games, festivities, various ceremonies: wedding, maternity, baptism, funeral. “The buffoons combined in their art the skill of performance with a topical repertoire, which included comic songs, dramatic scenes - games, social satire - slander performed in masks and a “buffoon dress” to the accompaniment of domra, sniffles, bagpipes, surnas, tambourines. The buffoons directly communicated with the audience, with the street crowd, involved in the game.

Known since the 11th century. They gained particular popularity in the 15th-17th centuries. They were persecuted by ecclesiastical and civil authorities.

F. N. Riess. Buffoons in the village. 1857

Etymology

There is no exact explanation of the etymology of the word "buffoon". Exist various versions origin of this word:

• "Skomorokh" - re-registration of the Greek. skōmmarchos "master of a joke", reconstructed from the addition of skōmma "joke, mockery" and archos "chief, leader".
• From Arab. mascara - "joke, jester."

According to N. Ya. Marr, "buffoon", according to the historical grammar of the Russian language - plural the word "skomorosi" (skomrasi), which goes back to the Proto-Slavic forms. In turn, the Proto-Slavic word has an Indo-European root common to all European languages ​​- “scomors-os”, which was originally called a wandering musician, dancer, comedian. From here come the names of folk comic characters: the Italian "scaramuccia" (Italian scaramuccia) and the French "scaramouche" (French scaramouche).

A. P. Vasnetsov. Buffoons. 1904.

Rise, rise and fall

Buffoons arose no later than the middle of the 11th century, we can judge this from the frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, 1037. Buffoonery flourished in the 15th-17th centuries. In the 18th century, buffoons began to gradually disappear under pressure from the tsar and the church, leaving some traditions of their art as a legacy to booths and districts.

Buffoons - wandering musicians

Buffoons performed on the streets and squares, constantly communicated with the audience, involved them in their performance.

In the XVI-XVII centuries, buffoons began to unite in "troops". The church and the state accused them of committing robberies: “buffoons, “combining in many bands up to 60, up to 70 and up to 100 people,” in the villages of the peasants, “they eat and drink heavily and rob their stomachs from the cages and smash people along the roads.” At the same time, in the oral poetry of the Russian people there is no image of a buffoon-robber robbing the common people.

Buffoons in Moscow

In the work of Adam Olearius, secretary of the Holstein embassy, ​​who visited Muscovy three times in the 30s of the 17th century, we find evidence of a wave of general searches in the houses of Muscovites in order to identify "demonic horn vessels" - musical instruments of buffoons - and their destruction.

At home, especially during their feasts, Russians love music. But since they began to abuse it, singing to music in taverns, taverns and everywhere on the streets all sorts of shameful songs, the current patriarch two years ago at first strictly forbade the existence of such tavern musicians and their instruments, which would come across on the streets, ordered to immediately break and destroy, and then generally banned all kinds of instrumental music for Russians, ordering musical instruments to be taken away from houses everywhere, which were taken out ... on five wagons across the Moscow River and burned there.

— Detailed description travels of the Holstein embassy to Muscovy ... - M., 1870 - p. 344.

In 1648 and 1657, Archbishop Nikon achieved royal decrees on the complete prohibition of buffoonery, which spoke of beating buffoons and their listeners with batogs, and destroying buffoon equipment. After that, the “professional” buffoons disappeared, but the traditions of buffoonery were preserved in the traditional culture of the Eastern Slavs, influenced the composition of epic plots (Sadko, Dobrynya, dressed as a buffoon at his wife’s wedding, etc.), customs of disguise, folk theater("Tsar Maximilian"), wedding and calendar folklore.

Over time, buffoons turned into bear cubs, puppeteers, fair merrymakers and showmen.

Musicians and buffoons. Draw from the fresco of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. 1037

Repertoire and creativity

The repertoire of buffoons consisted of comic songs, plays, social satires ("glum"), performed in masks and "buffoon dress" to the accompaniment of a beep, gusel, pity, domra, bagpipes, tambourine. Each character was assigned a certain character and mask, which did not change for years.

In their work there was a significant proportion of satire, humor, buffoonery. Buffoons are credited with participating in the composition of the epic "Vavilo and Buffoons", ballads of a satirical and comic nature (for example, "Guest Terentishche"), fairy tales, proverbs. The art of buffoons was associated with ancient paganism, free from church influence, imbued with a "worldly" spirit, cheerful and mischievous, with elements of "obscenity".

During the performance, the buffoon communicated directly with the public and often represented merchants, governors, and representatives of the church as satirical characters.

In addition to public holidays, weddings and homelands, buffoons, as connoisseurs of traditions, were also invited to funerals.

There is no doubt that here the buffoons, despite their comical nature, dared to come to the sad zhalniks from the old memory of some once understandable rite of commemoration with dances and games. There is no doubt that the people allowed them to visit the graves and did not consider it indecent to be carried away by their songs and games, according to the same old memory.

- Belyaev I. About buffoons // Vremennik of the Society of History and Russian Antiquities - M., 1854 Book. twenty

Adam Olearius. Puppeteer. 1643

Church attitude

Most of the church, and then, under the influence of the church and state testimonies, are imbued with the spirit of intolerance for folk amusements with songs, dances, jokes, the soul of which was often buffoons. Such holidays were called "stingy", "demonic", "blameless". The teachings were repeated from century to century, borrowed from Byzantium, distributed there from the first centuries of Christianity, censure and prohibition of music, singing, dancing, dressing up in comic, satyr or tragic faces, horse dancing and other folk entertainments, in Byzantium closely associated with pagan traditions, With pagan cults. Byzantine views were transferred to Russian circumstances, only some expressions of Byzantine originals were sometimes altered, omitted or replenished, according to the conditions of Russian life.

Cyril, Metropolitan of Kyiv (1243-50) - among the ordeals he calls "dancing in feasts ... and satanic fables whimperingly." In the Word of the Christ-lover (according to a manuscript of the 15th century), demonic games are called at feasts (and weddings), but these games are: dancing, buzzing, songs, snuffles, tambourines. According to the “Charter for the Great Lent” (from the Dubno collection of rules and teachings of the 16th century), “sin is a feast to create with dancing and laughter on fasting days.” The Domostroy (XVI century) speaks of a meal accompanied by the sounds of music, dancing and mockery: as the smoke will drive away the bees, so the angels of God will depart from that meal and stinking demons will appear.

In the royal charter of 1648, it is ordered that buffoons with domras, and with harps, and with bagpipes, and with all sorts of games, “do not call to your house.” “You will learn ... the worldly people of those buffoons (with harps, domras, surns and bagpipes) and bear leaders with bears to let them into their homes” (read in “Memory of Metropolitan Jonah”, 1657).

Dancer and buffoon Lubok

Proverbs and sayings

• Everyone will dance, but not like a buffoon.
• Don't teach me how to dance, I'm a buffoon myself.
• Every buffoon has his horns.
• Skomorokhov's wife is always cheerful.
• A buffoon will tune his voice on the whistle, but he will not suit his life.
• And the buffoon sometimes cries.
• Buffoon ass is not a friend.
• God gave the priest, damn buffoon.

Valery Gavrilin. Oratorio "Buffoons" (fragments)

Poems by Vadim Korostylev and folk.
Perform Eduard Khil and symphony orchestras under the direction of A. Badkhen and S. Gorkovenko.

Gavrilin: In "Skomorokhi" there are samples that come directly from folk peasant creativity. For me, the people themselves were represented as a huge, cheerful buffoon, who laughed through his tears. Visible laughter through invisible tears. And then all the people who one way or another showed the world some kind of discovery of the truth turn into buffoons. These are portraits of composers Modest Mussorgsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, my teacher and friend Georgy Sviridov.”

"Music of the 20th century" - Nocturne No. 1, op.5. Romance. (1955). The Beatles. Pop music. Album Wish you were here. (1975). Bulat Okudzhava. "Forgive the infantry." Dodecaphonic Music New viennese school. Rhapsody in blues for piano and orchestra. 1924. Rock opera "Jesus Christ the Superstar"(fragment). Bartok paid much attention to the development folk traditions in music.

"Impressionism in Music" - Festivities. Song about pictures Music by Grigory Gladkov Words by Alexander Kushner. Claude Debussy. French Impressionist painters. A mute is a device used to change the timbre of a musical instrument. Maurice Ravel. Impressionism. Habanera. Draw an illustration for piece of music("Celebrations", "Habanera" - to choose from).

"Music of Ancient Russia" - Music of Ancient Russia. A large number of songs were performed: lyrical, laudatory, comic, lamentations, lamentations. Russian music was originally associated with the culture and life of the ancient Slavs. On Yegoriev's Day, cows were driven out into the field and a song spell-amulet was sung. Make a project. In the days of May, trees and flowers were honored.

"A mighty bunch of composers" - Alexander Porfiryevich Boorodin. Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov. where they performed with their works. propagandized Russian art abroad, created the Russian Musical Society - the prototype of the modern philharmonic. Mily Alekseevich Balakirev, Caesar Antonovich Cui, Commonwealth of Composers of the 60s of the 19th century.

"Musical culture" - "Daphne". Purpose and tasks of the work. Italian composer Jacopo Peri. Temple art. I. Gluck. Ancient images in musical culture. Sidorov Denis - vocals (diploma winner) Grigorieva Anna - visual activity(3rd place). The images reflect the following themes. Conclusion: ancient musical art was of a spectacular and entertaining nature.

"Great works of music" - Osip Mandelstam. The birth of music. Appassionata. Vasily Fedorov. Music. The art of poetry. Yakov Khaletsky. Piano. Chamber music. Johann Sebastian Bach. Nicholas Brown. Mozart. Yuri Levitansky. Concert in d-moll. Chopin. Harmony. Mikhail Plyatskovsky. The transformative power of music. Viktor Bokov. Vladimir Lazarev.

In total there are 24 presentations in the topic