Guitar performance in Russia has its own unique history. However, in this work we will consider only those pages that are directly related to the practice of playing the seven-string guitar and affect the features underlying the formation of the Russian guitar style.
The Russian guitar school was founded at a time when in Western Europe the classical guitar had already declared itself as an independent solo concert instrument. She was especially popular in Italy. Spain. A number of performers and composers appeared. created a new, classic repertoire. The most famous of them are D. Aguado. M. Giuliani. F. Carulli, M. Carcassi. Later, such remarkable musicians as Franz Schubert, Niccolò Paganini, Carl Weber and others turned to PR and wrote for it.

The main difference between the Russian guitar and the classical one popular in Europe was the number of strings (seven, not six) and the principle of their tuning. It is the question of tuning that has always been the cornerstone in the age-old dispute about the advantage of a six- or seven-string guitar. Understanding the particular importance of this issue, we consider it necessary to return to the topic of the origin of the seven-string guitar and its appearance in Russia.
By the end of the XVIII century. in Europe there were several types of guitars of various designs, sizes, with different numbers of strings and many ways to tune them (suffice it to mention that the number of strings varied from five to twelve) -. A large group of guitars were united according to the principle of tuning the strings by fourths with one major third in the middle (for convenience, we will call this tuning a fourth). These instruments were widely used in Italy. Spain. France.
In Great Britain, Germany, Portugal and Central Europe, there was a group of instruments with the so-called terts system, in which thirds were preferred when tuning voice strings (for example, two large terts were separated by a fourth).
Both of these groups of instruments were united by the fact that music written for one scale could be played using a small arrangement on an instrument of another scale.
Of interest to us is a guitar with four double strings, which came from England to Europe, and from Europe to Russia (St. Petersburg). The structure of this guitar had two types: fourth and third. The latter differed from the seven-string Russian guitar in size (it was much smaller), but practically anticipated the principles of its tuning according to the extended major triad (g, e, c, G, F, C, G). This fact is very important for us.

The lack of historical evidence about the transformation of the guitar body, its size and the overall scale of the strings allows us only to assume options for their development. Most likely, the dimensions of the guitar neck were determined by the convenience of playing, and the tension of the strings, their tuning, corresponded to the tessitura of the singing voice. Perhaps the improvements led to an increase in the body, the replacement of metal scabs with strands, and therefore to a decrease in the tessitura of the sound, a “sliding” of the overall system down.
There is no reliable information confirming that it was this guitar that served as the prototype of the Russian "seven-string", but their relationship is obvious. The history of guitar performance in Russia is associated with the appearance during the reign of Catherine the Great (1780-90s) of foreign guitarists who played third and third guitars. Among them are Giuseppe Sarti, Jean-Baptiste Guenglez. There are publications of collections of pieces for 5-6-string guitar, guitar magazines.
Ignaz von Geld (Ignatius von Geld) publishes for the first time a manual called "An easy method for learning to play the seven-string guitar without a teacher." Unfortunately, not a single copy of this first Russian school of playing the guitar, as well as information about the teaching methods of its author, the type of guitar, and the way it is tuned have not been preserved. There are only contemporary testimonies. That Geld was a great English guitar player.
But the true founder of the Russian guitar school was I who settled in Moscow. At the end of the 18th century. an educated musician, a magnificent harpist Andrey Osipovich Sikhra. It was he who introduced into practical music-making a seven-string guitar with a system of d, h, g, D, H, G, D, which later became known as the Russian.

We cannot know how familiar A. Sichra was with European experiments in creating guitars with different numbers of strings and ways of tuning them, whether he used their results in his work on the “improvement” (but in his own words) of the classical six-string guitar. This is not so significant.
What is important is that A. Sihra. being an ardent admirer of guitar performance, a brilliant teacher and a competent popularizer of his ideas, he left a bright mark in the history of the development of Russian instrumental performance. Using the best achievements of the classical Spanish guitar school, he developed a methodology for teaching the seven-string guitar, setting it out later in a book published in 1832 and 1840. "School". Using classical forms and genres. Sychra created a new repertoire specifically for the Russian guitar and brought up a brilliant constellation of students.

Thanks to the activities of A. O. Sikhra and his associates, the seven-string guitar gained extraordinary popularity among representatives of different classes: the Russian intelligentsia and representatives of the middle classes were fond of it, professional musicians and lovers of everyday music turned to it: contemporaries began to associate it with the very essence of Russian urban folk music. A description of the enchanting sound of the seven-string guitar can be found in Pushkin's heartfelt lines. Lermontov, Turgenev. Chekhov, Tolstoy and many other poets and writers. The guitar began to be perceived as a natural part of Russian musical culture.
Recall that the guitar of A. Sikhra appeared in Russia in conditions when the seven-string guitar was almost never seen anywhere, it was impossible to buy it either in shops or from artisanal craftsmen. Now one can only wonder how quickly (in 2-3 decades) these masters, among whom were the largest violinists, were able to establish the production of the Russian guitar. This is Ivan Batov, Ivan Arhuzen. Ivan Krasnoshchekov. The guitars of the Viennese master I. Scherzer were considered one of the best. According to contemporaries, the guitars of F. Savitsky, E. Eroshkin, F. Paserbsky were distinguished by their unique individuality. But now we will not dwell on this, because it deserves a separate discussion.

The national flavor of the seven-string guitar was also given by the arrangements written for it on the themes of Russian folk songs. “The influence of folk music on the art of music will, of course, begin as part of the traditions of many nations. In Russia, however, folk music has become the subject of the most frenzied enthusiasm of the people for their own music, perhaps one of the most remarkable movements of the Russian soul.
To be fair, it should be noted. that the works of A. Sikhra on Russian themes were written in the style of classical variations and did not have such an original, purely Russian flavor that distinguishes the arrangements of other Russian guitarists. In particular, a huge contribution to the formation of the Russian guitar school as an original national phenomenon was made by Mikhail Timofeevich Vysotsky, the creator of numerous compositions on the themes of Russian folk songs. M. Vysotsky grew up in the village of Ochakovo (12 km from Moscow) on the estate of the poet M. Kheraskov, rector of Moscow University, in an atmosphere of love and respect for Russian folk traditions. The boy could listen to wonderful folk singers, take part in folk rituals. Being the son of a serf. Misha could get an education only by attending meetings of the creative intelligentsia and the Kheraskovs' house, listening to poems, debates, and impromptu performances by educated guests.

Among them was the main teacher of M. Vysotsky - Semyon Nikolaevich Aksenov. He noticed the boy's giftedness and began to give him lessons in playing the Russian guitar. And although these classes were not systematic, the boy made significant progress. It was thanks to the efforts of S. Aksenov that M. Vysotsky received his freedom in 1813 and moved to Moscow for further education. Later, the well-known musician, composer A. Dubuk provided Vysotsky with significant assistance in mastering musical and theoretical disciplines.

M. Vysotsky became a wonderful guitarist - improviser, composer. Soon the fame of an unsurpassed virtuoso guitarist came to him. According to contemporaries, Vysotsky's playing impressed not only with his extraordinary technique, but with his inspiration, the richness of his musical imagination. He seemed to merge with the guitar: it was a living expression of his spiritual mood, his thoughts.
This is how his student and colleague guitarist I. E. Lyakhov assessed Vysotsky's playing: - His playing was incomprehensible, indescribable and left such an impression that no notes and words can convey. Here plaintively, tenderly, melancholy sounded before you the song of the spinner; a small fermato - and everything seemed to speak to her in response: they say, sighing, basses, they are answered by weeping voices of trebles, and this whole chorus is covered with rich reconciling chords; but then the sounds, like tired thoughts, turn into even triodies, the theme almost disappears, as if the singer was thinking about something else; but no, he again returns to the theme, to his thought, and it sounds solemn and even, turning into a prayerful adagio. You Hear a Russian dog, elevated to the sacred (Sudet. Everything is so beautiful and natural, so deeply sincere and musical, as you rarely see in other compositions for Russian songs. Here you will not remember anything like it: everything here is new and original. In front of us is an inspired Russian musician, in front of you is Vysotsky.

A distinctive feature of Vysotsky's work was the reliance on the mighty layers of Russian folk song and partly instrumental creativity. This is what determined the development of the Russian guitar school, its Moscow branch. M. Vysotsky, perhaps, was less concerned with systematizing recommendations for learning to play the seven-string guitar, although he gave a large number of lessons. But in his work, the Russian seven-string guitar became a truly national instrument, having its own special repertoire, special technical techniques and stylistic differences, performing style, patterns of development within musical forms (we mean the connection between the poetic content of a song and the process of variant development in musical composition). In this regard, M. Vysotsky is for us. probably the most important figure in Russian guitar playing. His work laid the foundation for an original style of playing, as well as the principle of obtaining a melodic sound and the techniques accompanying it. But this will be discussed later.

Thus, the emergence of an original guitar school in Russia is associated with the names of A. Sikhra and M. Vysotsky, as well as their best students.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the widespread use of the guitar in Russia in a short historical period of time cannot be an accident. Rather, it is a good proof of the viability of the instrument. There are enough reasons to be proud of the achievements of the Russian guitar school. However, it can be stated with bitterness that we do not know the whole truth about our instrument and the legacy created for it. It is important to know and understand this today, when almost everything that Russia was proud of in the past has been destroyed to the ground, and nothing has been created to replace it. Maybe it's time to turn your face to the Russian guitar heritage?! It consists of works, methods and repertoire of the most educated people of their time. Here are some names: M. Stakhovich - nobleman, historian, writer; A. Golikov - nobleman, collegiate registrar; V. Sarenko - Doctor of Medical Sciences; F. Zimmerman - nobleman, landowner; I. Makarov - a landowner, a major bibliographer; V. Morkov - a nobleman, a real state councilor: V. Rusanov - a nobleman, conductor, an outstanding editor.

Ministry of Culture of the Saratov Region

GOU SPO "Volsk Musical College

them. V.V. Kovaleva (technical school) "

Lecture course

Discipline:

"The history of performance on Russian folk instruments"

Performed

specialization teacher

"Instruments of the Folk Orchestra"

Klochko G.V.

Theme I. The origin and development of Russian instrumental music………………………………...3

1. The origin of Russian instrumental music………...3

2. The role of buffoon musicians in the history of Russian musical culture………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Theme II. Russian folk instruments in the national musical culture of the 11th - 19th centuries………………………………………………………………………10

Gusli in the XI - XIX centuries…………………………………10

Six-string guitar in Russia…………………........15

Seven-string guitar in the XVIII - XIX centuries……………20

The formation of performance on the Russian domra ........ 25

Balalaika in the XVIII - XIX centuries………………………..29

TopicIII. The evolution of the Russian accordion in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries…………………………34

The appearance of the first Russian harmonicas…………………34

The emergence of concert performance on the harmonica in Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century……39

TopicIV. Creation of an academic direction in the balalaika-domra and harmonica-bayan art (mid-1880s - 1917)……………………………….45

V.V.Andreev and his like-minded people in Russian musical culture of the last third of the 19th century…..45

Chromatization of balalaika and accordion…………………..49

The appearance of the bayan in Russia and the development of concert bayan performance…………………..

The art of playing the balalaika at the beginning of the twentieth century ...

The development of guitar art in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century…………………………………….

TopicV. Formation of an orchestral domra-balalaika and harmonica-bayan performance

Creation of the first orchestras of chromatic harmonics……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The emergence of V.V.Andreev’s balalaika orchestra……………………………………………7

Features of the formation of the repertoire of the orchestra of Russian folk instruments………………….15

TopicVI. Performance on Russian folk instruments in 1917 - 1941

The role of competitions and olympiads of the second half

1920s - early 30s in the development of performance…………………………………….18

2. The origin of professional education on folk instruments……………………………22

3. The formation of professional ensemble and orchestral art……………………………….26

Development of solo professional art..34

I.Ya.Panitsky………………………………………….39

TopicVII. Performing art on Russian folk instruments during the Great Patriotic War (1941 - 1945)

Amateur and professional performing arts………………………...45

Works of the war years for Russian folk instruments………………………………………..50

TopicVIII. Performing on Russian folk instruments in the first post-war decade (1945 - 1955)

Development of professional performance….53

Works for stringed plucked instruments. The development of the original button accordion repertoire……………………………………………………………………………………70

TopicIX. The heyday of performing on Russian folk instruments (late 1950s - 1990s)

The development of professional performing arts……………………………………………….75

Compositions for bayan and solo plucked folk instruments………………………………85

Theme I. The origin and development of Russian instrumental music

The origin of Russian instrumental music

From time immemorial, the Russian people have sought to express their thoughts, aspirations, emotional experiences with the help of instrumental music. Unknown talented craftsmen created and improved a wide variety of musical instruments.

The origin of Russian music dates back to ancient times. It arose in the depths of the primitive communal system of the Slavic tribes inhabiting a vast territory.

The center of one of the tribal unions was the Ros tribe, who lived on the Ros River (a tributary of the Dnieper, below Kyiv). Later, the name of this tribe spread to all the Eastern Slavs, who were called Russ, and the territory on which they lived - the Russian land, Rus.

According to historians, the Slavs were a tall, strong and beautiful people: "they were good people and not at all vicious," they loved singing very much, for which they were nicknamed "song-lovers."

By the 8th century, the Eastern Slavs were undergoing a process of decomposition of the primitive communal system, the rudiments of state power were maturing. By this time include the appearance of sculpture, music, dancing.

The ancient Eastern Slavs had various types of art that were associated with ritual forms of pagan religious beliefs. The performance of rituals was accompanied by singing, playing musical instruments, dancing with elements of theatrical action.

At the first stage of its origin, music was still very primitive. The singing was monophonic, and the melodies were built on 3-4 sounds. In many songs there were no semitone combinations. However, their metro-rhythmic structure was quite diverse: there was a close relationship between the melody and the words.

The ancient Slavs knew various types of musical instruments, for example, the so-called membrane percussion instruments, where the sound source is a membrane that vibrates as a result of a blow to it. Among the instruments of this type, tambourines and drums are the most famous. Percussion instruments also include a metal organ. As suggested, it was a set of metal plates or hemispheres. Of the wind folk instruments, there were a longitudinal flute, a Pan flute, and clay whistles.

The longitudinal flute looked like a tube, usually with six playing holes, giving a diatonic scale. Pan's flute was a set of short tubes of various lengths, where the upper ends of the trunks were open and the lower ends were closed with a wad. The sound was extracted by cutting the air against the edge of the upper end of the tube. Pan's flute was the prototype of modern cugicles. Clay whistles or ocarinas are hollow ceramic figurines, usually made in the form of a bird or an animal, and having 2-3 playing holes. The harp was also known to the Slavs. Information about this instrument has come down to us from the 6th century.

If songs were transmitted orally from generation to generation and thus preserved in the people's auditory memory for centuries, and some of them have survived to this day from time immemorial, then instrumental music could be preserved only in musical notation. The latter was the property of the monasteries where church singing was cultivated. It entered the musical practice of Russia (and even then in a very imperfect form) only in the 17th century. Instrumental music was considered secular, and therefore sinful, "demonic". In addition, the life of the instruments themselves was short-lived: made of fragile material, wood. They were most of all exposed to the influence of time, and nothing could stop the process of their disappearance, not to mention the fact that the Slavic lands were constantly subjected to invasions of wild tribes, so that they had to cultivate the land with weapons behind them.

The song and instrumental art of the ancient Slavs was born and developed in close relationship. An analysis of the structure of songs and musical instruments gives grounds to assert that the song practice of the people ensured the birth of musical instruments, and musical instruments, in turn, consolidated the experience of song art, i.e. the creation of many songs took place under the influence of an established instrumental system, just as the scales of many musical instruments were often born on the basis of specific and most typical folk song melodies, as a material embodiment of the results of creative practice. And if you know the structure of the instruments, how to produce sound on them, the nature of the sound, then you can already model the nature of the music of that time.

The significance of the pre-Kiev period in the history of Russian instrumental culture is exceptionally great. It was during this period that the foundations of the national original Russian professional music were laid.

1. The role of buffoon musicians in the history of Russian musical culture

In the 9th century, a large and strong early feudal state, Rus, was formed on the territory of present-day Ukraine. Kyiv became its capital. According to the main city, this state began to be called Kievan Rus. Kyiv becomes the economic and cultural center of all Eastern Slavic lands. The culture of Kievan Rus reached a high level of development. Architecture, painting, music are developing rapidly and intensively.

Numerous historical evidence points to the great role of music in the public and state life of Kievan Rus. She was an invariable accessory of princely and retinue life, accompanying both cheerful, reckless feasts, and solemn official ceremonies. The wall painting of the Kyiv St. Sophia Cathedral reflects similar pictures of court music-making.

Historical documents indicate the existence in Ancient Russia of two categories of singer-musicians, who differ from each other both in the nature of their art and in their social status.

To one of them belonged buffoons, eternally persecuted and persecuted by the church, deprived of the protection of laws, mostly homeless and without any property, but always welcome guests, loved by all walks of life. The other category included princely singers who occupied a high position in society and were recognized by both secular and spiritual authorities. Literary sources provide an extensive list of amusements forbidden by the church, among which there are buffoons, "buzzers", "swirls", "gamblers", "disgraceful actions" on the streets of cities, "tambourines splashing", "flute sound", "dancing and all sorts of games ".

Along with wandering groups of buffoons who moved from one settlement to another, inviting viewers to their performances dedicated to Christmas time, Shrovetide, Easter, or for a fee "contracted" to participate in weddings or other family holidays, there were those who lived settled . They owned their own farm, and engaged in buffoonery for additional earnings, and in other cases, perhaps out of pure amateurism.

But, despite the well-known stratification among the buffoonery, it was one social type of a medieval artist and musician, in his position in society and in the nature of his art, sharply different from high-ranking princely singers and poets, who glorified the feats of arms of the prince and his squad.

The musical instruments of Ancient Russia differed not only in structure, but also in the role they played in everyday life and social life. Each tool had its own purpose and was used in certain cases in accordance with established customs and traditions. Some enjoyed respect and honor in all walks of life, others were severely condemned and persecuted. For example, the trumpet was usually assigned a special place as a privileged noble instrument that instilled courage and fearlessness in the soul of a warrior, calling him to feats of arms. In one of the ancient Slavic church teachings, the pipe is opposed to the snot and the harp, which "gather shameless demons."

The Kyiv buffoons for the first time have a beep - a stringed instrument that has become no less popular than the harp. The oldest image of this instrument that has come down to us dates back to the 15th century. The body of the horn was pear-shaped, the soundboard was flat, the stand for the strings was even, without bending. Three strings were at the same level and therefore the bow, which had an onion shape, was in contact with all three of them. A melody was played on the first, thin string, the second and third strings sounded without changing the pitch (they were built in fifths, like a modern violin). The continuous sound (humming) of the screws in the lower voices has become one of the most characteristic stylistic features for folk music, called the burdon, the burdoning fifth. During the game, the instrument was leaned on the knee of the left leg or clamped between the knees.

During archaeological excavations in Novgorod in 1951 - 1962. for the first time, authentic samples of ancient beeps related to. As it was established by scientists, by the XII century.

Of the wind instruments in Kievan Rus, several types of flute-type instruments were used: a sniffle - a whistling flute (during archaeological excavations in Novgorod, samples of snuffles dating back to the 11th century were found), a pipe - a paired whistle flute, Pan's multi-barreled flute (kugikly), as well as various shepherd's and military (military) horns and trumpets, the mention of which can be found in the ancient chronicles of the beginning of the 7th century. The shepherd's horn, like the pipe, was made of wood. Both pipes and horns were used both in everyday life and in military affairs. Archaeological excavations have not yet found a single copy of these tools.

There is reason to believe that the buffoons of Kievan Rus played the bagpipes. True, the first mention of them dates back to the era of Ivan the Terrible (mid-16th century), but literary sources cannot serve as a designation of the time when this or that instrument appeared, since they appeared, as a rule, much later. Many researchers believe that the bagpipe is one of the oldest instruments.

The Russian bagpipe (duda or goat) is a reed wind instrument with an air reservoir (fur) made of leather or bull bladder. 4 - 5 tubes were inserted into the hole of the fur. One of them served to force air into the fur, the rest were used as play ones. When playing, the performer pressed the fur with the elbow of his left hand to the body, squeezed out the air from it, which, getting into the playing pipes, vibrated thin reed plates attached inside the trunks, called “beeps” or “tongues”. With the fingers of the hands, the player closed the holes located on the trunk of the melodic pipe, thereby changing the pitch of the sound. The other two pipes sounded all the time at the same pitch, and as they adjusted to a fifth, a fifth bourdon was formed. Some bagpipes had two melodic pipes that sounded simultaneously, in a two-voice combination. During the game, the musician constantly blew air into the fur, so that the bagpipes could sound without interruption. This is where the well-known expression “pull the bagpipe”, “pipe” came from.

Of the percussion instruments, tambourines (the common name for various drums) were used, among which were instruments with trinkets, like cymbals on a modern tambourine. Ensemble playing was already practiced in the 11th century. So, for example, in the chambers of Prince Svyatoslav Yaroslavovich, a large instrumental ensemble regularly played. His repertoire was built on the material of folk songs.

In the XIII century, when almost the entire Russian land was under the Mongol-Tatar yoke, Novgorod became the custodian and continuer of ancient Russian cultural traditions.

The art of the Novgorod buffoons was at a very high level. In folk epics, Novgorod buffoons were characterized as talented singers and instrumental musicians, who possessed high performing skills, a wide and varied repertoire. There is reason to believe that most of the songs performed by the buffoons, and the scenes played by them, arose impromptu and were in close connection with the circumstances under which the buffoons gave their performances.

Carriers of progressive ideas - buffoons - were often instigators and participants in popular unrest. The representatives of the church authorities were the first to speak out against the buffoons. The priests saw in their activities the revival of paganism, distracting the people from the church with "demonic games." The persecution of buffoons was launched by the tsars Mikhail Fedorovich and, in particular, Alexei Mikhailovich. So, in 1648, the royal charter commanded "to burn all the buzzing vessels, punish those who disobey with a whip and batogs, and exile them to remote places for repeated disobedience." According to an eyewitness, a convoy with musical instruments was burned in a swamp across the Moscow River.

As a result of the persecution, there were fewer and fewer craftsmen who made musical instruments for buffoons, art gradually lost its mass character, degenerated. Nevertheless, even in the XVIII-XIX centuries, buffoons could be found in folk booths, at fairs in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod.

Buffoonery in Russia entered the history of Russian culture as a phenomenon of great social and artistic significance. It had a great influence on the formation of all genres of musical art and literature.

Related to the II millennium BC. They depict instruments with a small body made of tortoise shell or gourd.

In ancient Egypt, guitar-like instruments were so closely associated with the life of the people that they became a symbol of goodness, and their outlines entered the hieroglyphic signs, denoting "good".

There is an assumption that the guitar appeared in the Middle East and from there spread throughout Asia and Europe.

Russia was introduced to the six-string guitar by Italians who served at the court of monarchs and court nobility. History has preserved the names of two Italians - Giuseppe Sarti and Carlo Canobbio. The Italian composer Giuseppe Sarti, according to Countess V.N. Golovina, willingly played the guitar. Carlo Canobbio taught the three daughters of Paul I to play the guitar, receiving a very solid reward for these lessons - 1 thousand rubles a year.

There were still few fans of the guitar then. The Italian virtuoso musician Pasquale Gagliani, who performed in the salons of the court nobility, managed to somewhat expand the circle of instrument lovers. After several years of his activity in Rossi, Galliani released a collection of etudes and exercises - something like a guitar textbook.

The Italians tried to process folk songs for the guitar, but they did not succeed well: the six-string guitar was not fully adapted to the structure of Russian folk music. That is why, at about the same time, the Russian seven-string guitar appeared.

In 1821 Marcus Aurelius Zani de Ferranti (1800-1878) came to Russia. Niccolo Paganini, who heard many guitar virtuosos, assessed Zani de Ferranti's playing as follows: "I testify that Zani de Ferranti is one of the greatest guitarists I have ever heard and who gave me inexpressible pleasure with his wonderful, delightful playing." It is to this guitarist that Russia owes the fact that the six-string guitar has become widely known here. The musician gave concerts a lot, and he had to play in large halls. He was also a ball composer - he composed nocturnes, fantasies, dance music. Tsani de Ferranti gave guitar lessons to those who wished, but only the initial ones, without his task of turning a student into a professional guitarist.

Unlike the seven-string one, its six-string variety developed in Russia in the 17th-19th centuries almost exclusively as a professional academic instrument and was little oriented towards the transmission of urban songs and everyday romance.

At the beginning of the 19th century, schools and manuals for the six-string guitar by I. Geld and I. Berezovsky appeared, in which for the most part reliance was found on the Spanish and Italian classics - guitar works by Mauro Giuliani, Matteo Carcassi, Luigi Legnani, Ferdinando Carulli, Fernando Sora, on transcriptions piano music of outstanding Western European composers. A significant role in the distribution of the six-string guitar in Russia was played by the tours of outstanding foreign guitarists - in 1822 the Italian Mauro Giuliani performed in St. Petersburg, in 1923 in Moscow - the Spaniard Ferdinand Sor.

Western musicians awakened in Russia an interest in the classical guitar. The concert posters began to appear the names of our compatriots. The largest Russian performers, propagandists of the six-string guitar were Nikolai Petrovich Makarov (1810 - 1890) and Mark Danilovich Sokolovsky (1818 - 1883).

N.P. Makarov was born in the Kostroma province, in the family of a landowner. In 1829 he was lucky enough to hear Paganini play, and in 1830 he attended a Chopin concert.

Niccolo Paganini shocked Makarov so much that none of the subsequent musicians could overshadow the impression of his playing.

N.P. Makarov set out to achieve first-class guitar playing. The musician was engaged in 01 - 12 hours daily. In 1841, his first concert took place in Tula. Not finding recognition and even serious attention to himself as a guitarist, he goes on a tour of Europe. In many countries of the world, N.P. Makarov gained fame as an excellent virtuoso guitarist, a brilliant interpreter of the most complex guitar compositions. During his tours, the musician met with prominent foreign guitarists: Tzani de Ferranti, Matteo Carcassi, Napoleon Cost.

To revive the former glory of the guitar, Makarov decides to organize an international competition in Europe. In Brussels, he arranges a competition for guitar composers and masters. Before the competition, the guitarist gives his own concert, where he performs his own compositions and works by other authors. Makarov played a ten-string guitar.

Thanks to this competition, the musician managed to noticeably intensify the work in the field of guitar music by a number of Western European composers and guitar makers, and contribute to the creation of new constructive varieties of the instrument.

Makarov is the author of a number of essays and literary memoirs. He published his own books and his own musical plays such as Carnival of Venice, mazurkas, romances, Concerto for guitar, arrangements of folk songs. However, the music he created was not very expressive and was not widely used. In 1874, his "several rules of higher guitar playing" were published. The brochure contained valuable advice on improving guitar technique: playing trills, harmonics, chromatic scales, using the little finger in the game, etc.

Another Russian guitarist, Mark Danilovich Sokolovsky (1812 - 1883), did not seek to impress the audience with complex technical techniques. Listeners were captivated by his exceptional musicality.

As a child, Sokolovsky played the violin and cello, then began to play the guitar. Having mastered the instrument to a sufficient extent, in 1841 he began an active concert activity. His concerts were held in Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Vilna, Moscow, St. Petersburg. In 1857, the guitarist was given the opportunity to perform in Moscow in the thousand-seat hall of the Noble Assembly. In 1860, he was oud called "the favorite of the Moscow public." From 1864 to 1868 the musician tours the cities of Europe. He gives concerts in London, Paris, Berlin and other cities. Everywhere he is accompanied by a huge success. The triumphant tour of the musician brought him the fame of one of the largest guitarists. It is noteworthy that in many of Sokolovsky's performances, his accompanist was the outstanding Russian pianist N.G. Rubinstein.

Among the qualities that distinguished Sokolovsky's performing style, first of all, it is necessary to single out the subtlety of nuance, the diversity of the timbre palette, the high virtuosity and warmth of the cantilena. These qualities were especially manifested in his interpretation of three concertos by M. Giuliani, as well as in the performance of transcriptions of piano pieces by F. Chopin and his own miniatures, in many respects close to Chopin's style - preludes, polonaises, variations, etc. The last public concert of M. D. Sokolovsky took place in St. Petersburg in 1877, and then the musician settled in Vilnius, where he was engaged in teaching activities.

Concert performances of domestic guitarists N.P. Makarov and M.D. Sokolovsky became an important means of musical education for numerous fans of this instrument in Russia.

1. 
   Seven-string guitar in the 18th-19th centuries

In the second half of the 18th century, an original seven-string guitar appeared in Russia. It was built according to the sounds of the G-major triad doubled to an octave and the lower string spaced a quart. This instrument turned out to be optimally suited to the bass-chord accompaniment of urban pension and romance.

At home, they usually accompanied the guitar by ear - such accompaniment from the simplest harmonic functions was elementary and, with this tuning, was extremely accessible. The authors of songs and romances were most often little-known amateur musicians, but sometimes prominent composers of the 19th century - A. Varlamov, A. Gurilev, A. Alyabyev, A. Dubuk, A. Bulakhov and others.

The seven-string guitar also played an important role in the music of the gypsies. Magnificent guitarists were the leaders of the gypsy choirs - I. Sokolov, I. Vasiliev, M. Shishkin, R. Kalabin.

A special place in the history of the Russian guitar belongs to Ignatius Geld (1766 - 1816), the author of the first "School" for the Russian seven-string guitar. A Czech by nationality, he lived almost his entire creative life in Russia and managed to do a lot to popularize the seven-string guitar as a serious academic instrument.

From the end of the 18th century, the seven-string guitar began to develop as an academic instrument. Major compositions for guitar appear. So, in 1799 the Sonata of I. Kamensky was published, at the beginning of the 19th century - the Sonata for two guitars of V. Lvov. In the first half of the 19th century, guitar literature was produced in such quantity that it outnumbered literature for other musical instruments, even for the pianoforte. Various guitar pieces were published, which were placed in instructional and methodological manuals or came out in separate editions. Such, for example, are numerous miniatures, mainly in dance genres - mazurkas, waltzes, ecossaises, polonaises, serenades, divertissements, created by the famous guitarist-teacher and methodologist Ignatius Geld.

Some well-known Russian composers of the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries were fond of playing the seven-string guitar. Among them are Ivan Evstafievich Khandoshkin (1747 - 1804), who composed a number of variations on the themes of Russian folk songs for the instrument, and Gavriil Andreevich Rachinsky (1777 - 1843), who published ten pieces for the seven-string guitar in 1817. Among them are five polonaises and two cycles of variations on the themes of Russian folk songs. At the same time, works by now forgotten composers - Gornostaev - were published for the instrument. Konovkina, Maslova.

The true flowering of professional performance on the seven-string guitar falls on the years of creative activity of the outstanding teacher-guitarist Andrei Osipovich Sikhra (1773 - 1850). A harpist by training, he devoted his entire life to promoting the guitar. Being engaged exclusively in music, Andrei Osipovich already in his early youth became famous both as a virtuoso performer and as a composer. Sychra composed not only for harp and guitar, but also for piano.

At the end of the 18th century, Sychra moved to Mostka and became an energetic and active promoter of his musical instrument. His guitar immediately finds many admirers among the Moscow public. Here, in Moscow, his “early” Moscow school is being formed: he teaches many students, studies himself, improves his instrument, creates a variety of methodological material, lays the foundation for the repertoire for the seven-string guitar, performs with students in concerts. Many of his students themselves subsequently became outstanding guitarists and composers, continuing the work begun by their great teacher. Followers of A.O. Sichry - S.N. Aksenov, V.I. Morkov, V.S. Sarenko, F.M. Zimmerman - created many plays and arrangements of Russian folk songs.

From 1800 until the end of his life, A.O. Sychra published many pieces for this instrument, these are arrangements of popular arias, dance music, the most complex fantasies of the concert plan. Sychra's work developed in all aspects. He created pieces for guitar solo, for a duet of guitars, for violin and guitar, including fantasies on the themes of famous and fashionable composers, fantasies on the themes of Russian folk songs, original works, including mazurkas, waltzes, ecossaises, quadrilles, exercises. Sykhra performed transcriptions and arrangements of M.I. Glinka, V.A. Mozart, G. Donizetti, K. Weber, D. Rossini, D. Verdi.

A.O. Sichra was the first to establish the seven-string guitar as a solo academic instrument, doing a lot for the aesthetic education of a wide range of amateur guitarists.

In 1802, A.O. Sychry”, which published arrangements of Russian folk songs, transcriptions of musical classics. In subsequent years, until 1838, the musician publishes a number of similar magazines, contributing to a significant increase in the popularity of the instrument.

In addition to a huge number of works for the seven-string guitar, Sychra left the "School", which he wrote at the insistence of his student V.I. Carrot. It was published in 1840.

The main figure of the Sichra school is Semyon Nikolaevich Aksenov (1784 - 1853). At one time, no one surpassed him in mastery of the instrument and composition. In Moscow, the musician was considered the best virtuoso guitarist. Aksenov's playing was remarkable for its extraordinary melodiousness, warmth of tone and, along with this, great virtuosity. Possessing an inquisitive mind, he looked for new techniques on the instrument. So, he developed a system of artificial flageolets. The musician had an amazing gift of onomatopoeia on the instrument. Aksyonov portrayed the singing of birds, the sound of a drum, the chime of bells, the approaching and receding choir, etc. With these sound effects, he led the audience into amazement. Unfortunately, Aksyonov's plays of this kind have not come down to us.

The educational activity of S.N. Aksenova. Beginning in 1810, he published the New Journal for the Seven-String Guitar, Dedicated to Music Lovers, where there were many transcriptions of popular opera arias, variations on the themes of Russian folk songs. Aksyonov also created romances for voice accompanied by a guitar.

Aksyonov brought up the brilliantly gifted guitarist Mikhail Vysotsky, who soon brought fame to the Moscow school of Russian guitarists.

The creative activity of Mikhail Timofeevich Vysotsky (1791 - 1837) played a big role in the development of professional and academic Russian guitar performance.

The musician's playing could be heard not only in secular salons and merchant meetings. The guitarist also played for the general public from his apartment window, especially in recent years, when he was in great need. These concerts contributed to the spread of the seven-string guitar among the middle class and artisans.

The musician had an amazing gift as an improviser. Vysotsky could improvise for hours with an endless wealth of chords and modulations.

The guitarist also composed dance music that was fashionable in his time: mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes, ecossaises. All these pieces are very graceful and musical. Vysotsky performed transcriptions of works by V.A. Mozart, L. Beethoven, D. Field. The musician published his compositions in small editions and without reprinting, and therefore the collections sold out instantly and almost immediately became a bibliographic rarity. Only a few of Vysostky's handwritten compositions have survived, as well as 84 plays published in Gutheil's edition.

The first self-instruction manuals for playing the seven-string guitar in Russia appeared at the end of the 18th century. In St. Petersburg in 1798, I. Geld's "Semantic Guide for the Seven-String Guitar" was published, which was repeatedly reprinted and supplemented with new material. The third edition was expanded with 40 arrangements of Russian and Ukrainian folk songs. In 1808, a "school for the seven-string guitar" by D.F. Kushenov-Dmitrievsky was released in St. Petersburg. This collection has since been reprinted several times. In 1850 A.O. Sikhra’s “Theoretical and Practical School for the Seven-String Guitar” was published in three parts. The first part was called “On the rules of music in general”, the second contained technical exercises, scales and arpeggios, the third part contained musical material, mainly consisting of compositions by the students of Sykhra. Another important instructive and pedagogical manual was “Practical rules consisting in four exercises” by A.O. Sychry. This is a kind of higher school for improving the technical skills of a guitarist.

In 1819, S.N. Aksenov made significant additions to the next reprint of I. Geld's "School". A chapter on natural and artificial harmonics was added, many new pieces, etudes and adaptations of folk songs, including those of his own composition, were introduced. Various manuals for learning the seven-string guitar were released by V.I. Morkov, M.T. Vysotsky and other guitarists of the first half of the 19th century.

In Russia, the seven-string guitar existed in parallel - both as an academic and as a folk instrument. In the first decades of the 19th century, the seven-string guitar, being an expression of the traditional layer of home music-making, was distributed mainly among workers, artisans, apprentices, various types of service people - coachmen, lackeys. The instrument becomes for the general population an instrument of education and familiarization with musical culture.

Since the 1840s, guitar art, like the art of guselny, begins to decline. But if the psaltery began to disappear from everyday music-making, then the guitar, remaining an equally unchanged accompanying instrument in the field of urban song, romance and gypsy singing, gradually lost its social qualities of the people due to a decrease in the professional level of guitarists. In the second half of the century, there were no such bright performers and teachers as A.O. Sychra, S.N. Aksenov and M.T. Vysotsky. Substantial methodological manuals almost ceased to be printed, and the self-instruction manuals that were published were mostly designed for the unpretentious needs of lovers of everyday music-making and contained only samples of popular romances, songs, dances, most often of low artistic quality.

1. 
   The formation of performance on the Russian domra

There is such an assumption that the eastern instrument tanbur, which still exists among the peoples of the Middle East and Transcaucasia, is a distant ancestor of the Russian domra. It was brought to us Russia in the 9th - 10th centuries by merchants who traded with these peoples. Instruments of this type appeared not only in Russia, but also in other neighboring states, which occupied an intermediate geographical position between the Slavic peoples and the peoples of the East. Having undergone significant changes over time, these instruments began to be called differently among different peoples: among Georgians - panaduri and chonguri, Tajiks and Uzbeks - dumbrak, Turkmens - dutar, Kyrgyz - komuz, Azerbaijanis and Armenians - tar and saz, Kazakhs and Kalmyks - dombra, Mongols - dombur, Ukrainians - bandura. All these instruments have retained a lot in common in terms of shape contours, sound production methods, device, etc.

Although the name “domra” itself became famous only in the 16th century, the first information about plucked fingerboard (tanbur-shaped) instruments in Russia has been reaching us since the 10th century. Tanbur among Russian folk instruments is described by the Arab traveler of the tenth century Ibn Dasta, who visited Kyiv between 903 and 912.

The first mention of domra that has come down to us dates back to 1530. The "Teachings of Metropolitan Daniel" speaks of playing the domra, along with playing the harp and smyk (beeps) of church servants. By the beginning of the 17th century, even the gusli, so beloved by the people, “greatly gave way to domrams” in their popularity. In Moscow in the 17th century, there was a “house row” where domras were sold. Consequently, the need for these tools was so great that it was necessary to organize a number of shops for their sale. The information that domras were made in large quantities, and not only in Moscow, can be convincingly confirmed by customs books, in which daily fees were recorded in the local markets of the Russian state.

Domra in Russia fell into the thick of people's life. It has become a public, democratic tool. The lightness and small size of the instrument, its sonority (they always played the domra with a plectrum), rich artistic technical capabilities - all this was to the liking of buffoons, Domra sounded everywhere in those days: in peasant and royal courts, in hours of fun and moments of sadness. “I am glad to skomra about my domra,” says an old Russian proverb.

Buffoons were often instigators and participants in popular unrest. That is why the clergy, and then the rulers of the state, took up arms against their art so much.

For almost 100 years (from 1470 to 1550) it was forbidden to play musical instruments in eight royal decrees. The persecution of buffoons and their music was especially intensified in the 15th-17th centuries - during the periods of organized peasant uprisings against the tsarist government and landlords (peasant wars led by Ivan Bolotnikov and Stepan Razin).

In 1648, a charter was issued by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, in which measures were legalized to excommunicate the people from musical instruments: “And where will domras and surnas, and horns, and harps, and holy honking vessels, and you would order those demonic vessels to be seized and, having cracked those demonic games, he ordered them to be burned.

In the summer and autumn of 1654, at the direction of Patriarch Nikon, a mass seizure of musical instruments was carried out from the "niello". They were being destroyed everywhere. Gusli, horns, domras, pipes, tambourines were brought across the Moscow River and burned.

Due to the royal decrees on the prohibition of playing folk instruments, in the middle of the 17th century, the production of domras by specialist craftsmen ceased. Severe punishment followed for the manufacture and even for the storage of tools. With the eradication of the art of buffoons, the professional performance of domrache musicians also disappears.

However, thanks to the art of buffoons. Domra has gained wide popularity among the people. She penetrated into the most remote and deaf villages.

In the manuscripts of the 16th - 17th centuries there are numerous illustrations with images of folk instruments, in particular, domras and performers on them - domracheev. These illustrations indicate that at that time domra was among the most common musical instruments in Russia.

The ancient Russian domra in the 16th - 17th centuries existed in two versions: it could have a shape extremely close to the modern domra, and the other was a kind of lute - a multi-stringed instrument with a large body, a rather short neck and a head bent back.

Historical documents of that time testify to the joint performance on domra, as well as the coexistence of varieties of domra: small, medium and large domra. They played the domra with a sliver or a feather.

The 16th century is the period of the widest distribution of the old Russian skomorosh domra. Lubok pictures dating back to the beginning of the 18th century often depicted two jesters-buffoons - Foma and Yerema. In the hands of one of them you can see a stringed plucked instrument. It has a small oval body and a narrow neck. Researcher of the Russian popular print, prominent art historian D.A. Rovinsky, as explanations for the drawings, cites a whole verse story about Thomas and Yerema. It says: "Yerema has a harp, and Foma has a domra."

Domra often sounded in the open air and, moreover, sometimes in an ensemble with louder instruments in terms of dynamics.

When comparing all the images of the ancient Russian domra and similar instruments of other peoples, it is important to pay attention to an extremely interesting feature: all instruments are kobza (the instrument was common in Ukraine in the 16th-17th centuries, had a large oval or semicircular body and a fingerboard with 5-6 strings, with a head bent back - that is, a lute type, or an instrument with a small body and 3 - 4 strings), oriental domras and others - are presented exclusively as solo ones. Other instruments are not shown anywhere along with them. Nevertheless, the images of the old Russian domra of the 16th - 17th centuries speak of its use in joint play with other instruments. The ancient domra was an instrument intended primarily for collective music-making and existed in various tessitura varieties. For example, the miniatures that have come down to us depict domras of various sizes. Domra with a small body corresponds to the size of modern small domra. In ancient drawings, there is an image of a domra with an even smaller body: it is possible that this “domrishko” is an instrument with a very high tessitura.

In the second half of the 18th century, domra gradually disappears from people's memory.

1. 
   Balalaika in the 18th – 19th centuries

The balalaika, having taken one of the leading places among the national instruments of Russia at the very beginning of the 18th century, soon turned into a kind of Russian musical symbol, the emblem of Russian folk instrumental art. Meanwhile, in the history of its origin and formation up to our time there are many unexplored questions.

With the disappearance of the very name "domra" in the last third of the 17th century - in 1688 - the first mention of balalaikas appears. The people needed a stringed plucked instrument similar to a domra, easy to manufacture and with a sonorous, rhythmically clear sound. That's right, made in a home-made artisanal way, and fuss a new version of domra - balalaika.

Balalaika appeared in the second half of the 17th century as a folk version of domra. Already in the 18th century, it gained extraordinary popularity, becoming, according to the historian J. Shtelin, "the most common instrument throughout the Russian country." This was facilitated by a number of circumstances - the loss of the leading significance of the previously existing instruments (harp, domra, whistle), the availability and ease of mastering the balalaika, and the simplicity of its manufacture.

Folk balalaikas in various provinces of Russia differed in their form. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, balalaikas with a round (truncated from below) and oval body, which were made from pumpkin, were popular. Along with them, in the 18th century, instruments with a triangular body began to appear more and more often. Their images are given in various popular prints. There were also instruments with a quadrangular and trapezoidal body, with the number of strings from 2 to 5 (copper or intestinal). The material for the manufacture of tools was various types of wood, and in the southern regions pumpkin. Varieties of balalaikas and systems differed. There were three-stringed balalaikas of fourth, fifth, mixed fourth-fifth and third tunings. 4 - 5 movable frets were imposed on the fretboard.

The primitive balalaikas that existed among the people were made handicraft, they had a diatonic scale and very limited capabilities.

The dimensions of the balalaikas were often such that they had to be kept in a sling: width 0 1 foot, the so-called. about 30.5 cm long, 1.5 feet (46 cm) long, and the neck exceeded "at least 4 times the length of the body", i.e. reached 1.5 meters. They played the balalaika by plucking individual strings, by rattling, and also with the help of a plectrum - a typical way of playing in the 18th century.

During the second half of the 18th century, the instrument spread both in the amateur sphere and among professional musicians. Along with the wide existence of the people, the balalaika already in this period met in "eminent" houses and even participated in the musical arrangement of festive court ceremonies. The repertoire of urban balalaika players at that time included not only folk songs and dances, but also works of so-called secular music: arias, minuets, Polish dances, as well as “works from andante, allegro and presto”.

The emergence of professional urban-type balalaika players dates back to this time. The first of these should be called the brilliant violinist Ivan Evstafievich Khandoshkin (1747 - 1804). The possibility of composing pieces for balalaika by this musician is not ruled out. Khandoshkin was an unsurpassed performer of Russian folk songs both on the violin and on the balalaika; behind him for a long time the reputation of the first balalaika virtuoso was preserved. It is known that it was Khandoshkin who brought such high-ranking nobles as Potemkin and Naryshkin into a "musical rage" with his instrument. In the beginning, Khandoshkin played a folk-style balalaika made of a gourd and glued inside with broken crystal, which gave the instrument a special sonority, and later on an instrument made by the wonderful violin maker Ivan Batov. It is quite possible that Batov's balalaika could have been not only with an improved body, but also with mortise frets. In the instrumental work of A.S. Famintsyn "Domra and related musical instruments" published the painting "People's performer with a triangular balalaika of the early 19th century", in which the musician plays an improved balalaika with seven mortise frets.

Among the well-known professional balalaika players, one can name the court violinist of Catherine II, I.F. Yablochkin, a student of Khandoshkin not only in violin, but also in balalaika. Undoubtedly, the outstanding balalaika player who composed pieces for this instrument was the Moscow violinist, composer and conductor Vladimir Ilyich Radivilov (1805 - 1863). Contemporaries testify that Radivilov improved the balalaika, making it four-stringed, and in “playing it he achieved such perfection that he surprised the audience. All overtures were his own composition.

The turn of the 18th - 19th centuries is the heyday of the art of playing the balalaika.

In the documents of this period, information appears confirming the existence of professional performers among the balalaika players, most of whom remained nameless.

We have received information about the outstanding balalaika player M.G. Khrunov, who played the "special design" balalaika. Contemporaries give an excellent assessment of the musician's playing, despite the dismissive attitude towards this simple folk instrument.

Printed publications name the names of several more balalaika players who masterfully owned this instrument. These are P.A. Bayer and A.S. Paskin is a landowner from the Tver province, as well as an outstanding performer, an Oryol landowner with an encrypted last name (P.A. La-ky), who played the “balalaika with inimitable technique, especially flaunting his harmonics. These musicians played instruments made by the best craftsmen.

The balalaikas that existed in the city differed from the common people; the performance itself was different. V.V. Andreev wrote that in the city he met seven-fret instruments, and that A.S. Paskin literally stunned him with his professional game, replete with original techniques and finds.

In the villages at parties, the game of the balalaika player was paid for in a clubbing. In many landowners' estates, a balalaika player was kept, who played for home entertainment.

At the beginning of the 19th century, an essay for balalaika appeared - variations on the theme of the Russian folk song "Elnik, my spruce forest". This work was written by a great lover of the balalaika, the famous opera singer of the Mariinsky Theater N.V. Lavrov (real name Chirkin). The variations were published in French and dedicated to the then-famous composer A.A. Alyabiev. The title page indicates that the work was written for a three-string balalaika. This testifies to the wide popularity of the three-stringed instrument at that time.

Historical documents confirm the fact that the balalaika acted as an ensemble instrument in various combinations with folk musical instruments - in duets with a beep, bagpipes, accordion, horn; in a trio - with a drum and spoons; in small orchestras consisting of violins, guitars and a tambourine; in ensembles with flutes and violins. The use of the balalaika in opera performances is also known. So, in M.M. Sokolovsky’s opera “The Miller, the Sorcerer, the Deceiver and the Matchmaker”, Melnik’s aria from the third act “The way the old man and the old woman walked” was performed to the accompaniment of a balalaika.

The popularity of the balalaika among the masses is reflected both in folk songs and in fiction. The instrument is mentioned in the works of A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, F.I. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, I.Turgenev, N.V. Gogol and others.

By the middle of the 19th century, the popularity of the balalaika as a mass instrument began to fade. In its primitive form, the balalaika could no longer fully meet the new aesthetic demands. First, the seven-string guitar, and then the harmonica, ousted the balalaika from folk home music making. The process of gradual disappearance of the balalaika also begins in the folk musical life. From the ubiquitous distribution of the instrument, it increasingly turned into a subject of musical archeology.

The origin of the guitar is lost in the darkness of time: scientists do not know when and where it came from. The historical development of the guitar can be roughly divided into five periods, which I would call formation, stagnation, revival, decline and prosperity.

During its formation in European culture of the 11th-13th centuries, the guitar replaced many stringed instruments, and was especially loved in Spain. Further, the era of stagnation began for the guitar, which began after the Arabic lute was brought to Europe. For four whole centuries, most European musicians, carried away by the lute (for which an extensive repertoire was created), forgot about the guitar. However, true supporters of the guitar learned to play the lute repertoire, took advantage, on the one hand, of the characteristic techniques of playing this instrument, and, on the other hand, the advantages of the guitar itself, which consisted in greater ease of performance due to a thinner and longer neck and fewer strings. As a result, from the middle of the 18th century, the process of the revival of the guitar began. In the 19th century, many musicians fell in love with this instrument and managed to understand its soul. Music for the guitar was written by F. Schubert, K. Weber, G. Berlioz and others. A significant number of compositions for the guitar and with its participation were created by Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) (the works written by him still live on the concert stage Six sonatinas for violin with guitar accompaniment). Performers and composers appeared who devoted their lives entirely to the guitar, for example, F. Carulli (1770-1841), M. Giuliani (1781-1829), M. Carcassi (1792-1853) in Italy. In Spain - F. Sor (1788-1839) and F. Tarrega (1852-1909), who are justifiably called the classics of guitar art. In the future, the tradition was continued by M. Llobet (1875-1938), E. Pujol (1886-1980) and especially the great Spanish guitarist of the 20th century Andres Segovia (1893-1987), who brought the guitar from the salon to the largest stages in the world.

In Russia, surprisingly, it was from the middle of the 19th century that the decline of guitar art began to appear. Guitar classes were closed in musical educational institutions, which at that time were widely distributed thanks to the activities of the Russian Musical Society. Learning to play the guitar was concentrated in the hands of private teachers, and its touching sounds were heard most often from taverns, at best - from salons and garden arbors. Only at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries in Russia began a revival of a serious attitude to the guitar, and then a gradual flowering of guitar performance. This was largely due to the tour of Andres Segovia in Russia, who convinced our listeners that the guitar as a concert instrument is on a par with the violin, cello, and piano. Russian associates of the Spanish master Pyotr Agafoshin and his student Alexander Ivanov-Kramskoy largely contributed to the departure of the guitar from the petty-bourgeois life to the sphere of musical and academic art. Thus, a new era began in Russia - a time of intensive formation and development of academic (solo and ensemble) guitar performance. The achievements of domestic guitar music are convincingly evidenced by the work of concert guitarists - pupils of Russian musical universities.

Along with the undoubted successes of the modern Russian school of guitar playing in this area, we have accumulated a lot of acute unresolved problems - both musical and artistic, and psychological, pedagogical, technological, even socio-cultural. Perhaps the most exciting is the shortage of highly qualified, professionally playing and, moreover, creatively thinking teachers. Yes, the property of domestic guitarists is a number of performing schools created by excellent mentors, serious educators of youth, great musicians. Their names are well known. These are M. Carcassy, ​​A. Ivanov-Kramskoy, E. Larichev, V. Yashnev, B. Volman, P. Veshitsky, P. Agafoshin, V. Kiryanov and others. The creative work and school of E. Pujol, who studied with the great F. Tarrega, deserves serious study. Another example is the work of the Samara guitarist A.I. Matyaev, an authoritative teacher and methodologist, whose students seek and develop their own ways in guitar performance and teaching methods. So, in fact, it should be. Therefore, raising here the problem of the discrepancy between the growing popularity of the guitar, the demand for training on it and the number of qualified teachers, I emphasize the need to organize an exchange of views between guitar teachers, in a broader sense, to establish serious methodological work on the scale of the regions and all of Russia. Otherwise, the state of our methodological literature that exists today may take root for a long time.

Unfortunately, the domestic guitar market is now flooded with base "guitar schools" (or "tutorials"), which in no way develop either the basics of professionalism or a serious attitude to the guitar in general. The authors of such manuals, most often in this way, seek to establish themselves in their narrow guitar "world", in which they themselves supposedly "mastered" the guitar. Usually the text or musical material is rewritten, sometimes the fingering is changed in some places, one or two new exercises are invented - and the "School" for self-taught is ready. Of course, there is nothing of the kind in relation to learning to play the violin, piano, or, say, any wind instrument, and cannot be. But the guitar is a special instrument: simple and complex. When it comes to playing in everyday life - it seems that the easiest. If you play for real, professionally, it is very difficult. But the guitar culture should still be one. And it is from academic guitar playing that we need to start in all its manifestations - both professional and amateur, if we want this popular instrument to become part of our musical culture, which, as you know, is very high in its artistic level.

It must be taken into account, of course, that the guitar and guitar art exist in two dimensions - folk and professional. As a folk instrument, the guitar undergoes almost no changes: the plays, songs and romances performed on it are preserved to its accompaniment, the playing techniques remain unchanged. But as a professional musical instrument, the guitar is progressing all the time: the repertoire is becoming more musically and technically complicated, new trends in the technology of guitar performance are emerging, more advanced methods of sound extraction, coloristic means, schools, and methods are emerging. However, sometimes there are misunderstandings here.

It turned out that a new guitar was invented, which is called "Gran". I remember a meeting with gran guitarists who came to the Togliatti Institute of Arts for a review. They also had a patent for the "invention" of a new guitar, and supposedly a higher guitar education (a private academy of grand guitar!), However, in reality it turned out that this instrument was not an invention of the present time at all. In Norway, there is a kind of violin, which, in addition to the four main strings, had the same number of resonant ones, located below and giving the instrument a special coloring, enriching its timbre. This violin was tuned in different ways and used only as an auxiliary instrument in the orchestra. As you know, the same acoustic principle underlay the construction of many violas. The gran guitar has 12 strings in relation to the horizon of the soundboard, these are six lower (metal) and six upper (nylon). Grand guitarists try to play all twelve strings! In particular, they actively use precisely those strings in their playing, which for Norwegian violinists are only resonant. As a result, when playing such an instrument, incredible falseness arises - and, above all, dirty (random) chord combinations. It is clear that such a large number of strings will create colossal difficulties of a purely technical nature in the game, which, perhaps, only a robot, and not a person who lacks flawlessly functioning orienting reactions and an exceptionally hardy nervous system, could well cope.

However, in fairness, it must be said that the sound of the gran guitar is quite deep and timbrely beautiful, since it is the result of the simultaneous sounding of nylon and metal strings. Therefore, it is possible that further research will help those who play this instrument, having overcome organic difficulties, to reveal its useful qualities. But while the pretentious statements of the apologists that the era of the grand guitar has now come, and all other types of guitars have already become a thing of the past, in my opinion, are deeply erroneous.

Every guitar teacher needs, apparently, to ask himself the question of the main values ​​of learning to play the guitar. It is unlikely that they can be admiration for new-fangled methods, magnificently advertised innovations, hastily composed and "tradable" repertoire. In guitar performance, as in all other types of musical performing arts, it is necessary, first of all, to strive for a culture of performance, for revealing the artistic content of what is being performed, for high-quality sound and, of course, for a free, developed technique. That is, in other words, to everything that makes up an integral musical and artistic impression that enchants and captivates the listener. At the same time, a teacher who follows in his art the classical traditions tested by practice should not pass by searches and innovations (if, of course, they come from qualified, competent musicians). It is important in all cases to reserve the right to analyze, generalize and synthesize the best, most progressive and useful aspects. It is necessary to learn to see and use the most necessary, trying to predict what new things can really be useful in a particular educational situation - say, to be useful in the development of a student for the future (in a year or two). After all, success ultimately depends on the appropriateness of the individual application of a particular technique, stroke, method, approach, etc. exactly in this situation. For example, to argue abstractly about whether to use the technique apoyando or not to apply ... It is hardly worth talking about it. It is important to analyze and understand where, when, why and to what extent it is advisable to use this most beautiful performance technique.

Let's take another example - the seating of a guitarist. There were many methods of its formation. The body of the guitar was even leaned against a chair or table for better resonance. And to this day, various benches are substituted under different legs. One guitarist puts his left foot on his right, and the other - vice versa. There are different opinions about the position of the right elbow, about the game form of the right hand, about the magnitude of the angle of the neck in relation to the body of the performer. In a word, there are many opinions, and the general criterion for determining the most correct game positions, and even taking into account the individual characteristics of the structure of the hands and the entire physical constitution of the student, should be differential. In my opinion, what is beautiful is true. But for every guitarist, aesthetic appeal cannot be purely external, visual, but must come from within, which, in essence, is a manifestation of internal musical culture. Only with such a culture, a guitarist will be able to freely “pronounce”, intotone music with the help of a live musical sound, which, in turn, will become the beauty of the external order, that is, perceived by someone's exacting ear. Thus, the circle of considerations expressed here closes: for music to have an aesthetic effect on the listener, its performer must be a fully cultured person with impeccable artistic taste.

Let us now turn to another problem that seems relevant. Often, parents, referring to the inclinations of the child himself, bring almost six-year-old children to the guitar class. In such cases, they should be convinced of the expediency of the previous initial versatile, complex introduction of the child to various types of art (dancing, singing, playing the so-called "elementary" instruments, which have a quite beautiful timbre, but are quite easy in terms of sound extraction techniques, etc.). d.). It is necessary to convince parents that it is much more important to develop a sense of rhythm and coordination of movements, to tune your ear to the perception of musical intonations, to achieve an understanding of music possible at this age, than to strive for early mastery of guitar playing skills.

Another subject of our reflections is the so-called “entry exams” for the guitar class, which, as is well known, allegedly test whether a young applicant has an ear for music, rhythm, and memory. I would like to warn about the uselessness of such tests to determine the prospects for successful instrumental playing - especially on the guitar. Only after a few months of classes, the teacher has the right to assess the student's abilities and the prospects for his learning, which are often revealed in the process of live creative communication with music, the teacher, and other students. Sometimes three, four, five years pass and it turns out that the student recognized at the very beginning as “deaf, non-rhythmic” receives an award and the title of laureate of the All-Russian competition, listens to the flattering words of authoritative musicians.

Also relevant, of course, not only for the guitar class, is the question of how, from the very beginning of studying at a music school, to achieve planned, systematic student lessons on the instrument? Here one cannot do without the most serious educational work, necessary for the student to understand the futility of the intention to master playing the instrument, managing only by attending lessons at school and not studying at home. Of course, this is a separate topic that deserves special development in psychological and pedagogical terms. I will emphasize its special importance for successful music lessons.

There are many more guitar problems that need serious discussions by reputable guitarists and highly cultured musicians. Perhaps the most important of them is the problem of sound (relevant, of course, for all musical instruments, but for violinists, cellists, pianists, it is quite developed). The guitar, figuratively speaking, is indeed exactly that musical instrument that does not break the silence, but creates it. But not only in this poetry lies the secret of the huge popularity of the guitar: in skillful hands it sounds like an orchestra. Taking this “orchestra” in your hands, you can leave, sail away, go to the mountains, or go to the stage and, after a minute tuning, give free rein to sounds and fingers (these “five nimble daggers,” as Garcia Lorca said) - to give our souls along with them get excited or forget.

Estulin Grigory Eduardovich
01.08.2006