The Glinka Museum of Musical Culture celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. There are, of course, disagreements among experts regarding the dating of its creation: can the museum be considered a successor to the museum of N.G. Rubinstein at the Moscow Conservatory or was it actually created during Soviet times? But musicians, music lovers and just visitors are pleased by the very fact of the existence of a museum of musical culture.
The museum is classified as a particularly valuable object of cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation, its funds include about a million storage units, and the museum includes several buildings in Moscow, concert and exhibition halls. The museum has recently also included the State Collection of Musical Instruments.
And now - not about the anniversary. Tomorrow the museum will be closed to visitors - the website states that for technical reasons. In fact, it is simply rented out for a corporate amateur concert of a private school of the Russian Pension Fund. Concerts in the music museum, including children's, are no exception, but its usual activity, and visitors always have the opportunity to get acquainted with the exhibition while there is a concert in the hall. Why it was necessary to close the museum for the whole day for the children's studio concert, one can only guess.
In all likelihood, another building managed by the Glinka Museum will soon be closed - the house on Kudrinskaya Square No. 46, where P.I. lived. Tchaikovsky, and where the museum bearing his name is now located. The building is planned to be transferred to the center for the cultural and historical heritage of Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya. The musical community is perplexed - Rostropovich, of course, is a great cellist, but why evict Pyotr Ilyich or reduce him to the position of a tenant in the Rostropovich center? The musicians are collecting signatures with an open appeal to Olga Rostropovich with a request to find another location for her foundation. http://www.onlinepetition.ru/Tchaikovsky/petition.html
And many more questions are raised by the activities of the current director of the museum M.A. Bryzgalov, a trumpeter by training and former Minister of Culture of the Saratov Region. In Saratov, Mikhail Arkadyevich did not show himself to be anything special in the creative field, but he showed himself to be an energetic leader, tirelessly reorganizing the sphere entrusted to him. But for some reason the Saratov Philharmonic burned down. It is difficult to understand what motives guided the Federal Agency for Culture in 2008 when it entrusted this honored figure with the most valuable funds of the museum and the treasures of the State Collection of Musical Instruments, which became part of the museum in recent years. Apparently, based on the successful experience of Mr. Bryzgalov’s tenure at the head of Saratov culture, Mr. Shvydkoy was absolutely confident that the creations of Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri and other priceless treasures of world and domestic musical culture would fall into the reliable hands of a trusted person.
http://redcollegia.ru/7871.html
http://www.old.rsar.ru/articles/480.html
Currently, the museum's scientific, educational and exhibition departments have been liquidated, and leading employees - art historians with conservatory education and academic degrees - have been fired. The permanent exhibition dedicated to the history of Russian music has been dismantled. There is an advertisement on the website asking for employees. Education not lower than secondary, citizenship of the Russian Federation. http://www.glinka.museum/about/vacancies/php
Is it really a waste of a museum?
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Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday: from 11.00 to 19.00. Thursday, Friday: from 12.00 to 21.00. Sunday: from 11.00 to 18.00.
Ticket price: Entrance ticket to the exhibition for children (under 16 years old) - 200 rubles, entrance ticket to the exhibition for adults - 400 rubles. Free day for Olympiad participants to visit - the first Tuesday of every month.
The Russian National Museum of Music is the largest treasury of monuments of musical culture, which has no analogues in the world. A unique collection of music and literary manuscripts, studies on cultural history, rare books, and music editions are stored here. The collections of the Museum of Music number about a million exhibits. The branches contain autographs, letters, photographs and various kinds of documents related to the life and work of figures of Russian and foreign musical culture. A special place is occupied by the collection of musical instruments of the peoples of the world. The collections of the Museum of Music include the State Collection of Unique Musical Instruments: the largest collection of stringed instruments by masters from different countries and eras, including masterpieces by A. Stradivari, the Guarneri and Amati families. UNIQUE INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL EXHIBITION PROJECT “SOUND AND...”! The exhibition project “SOUND AND... Universe, Man, Game...” continues to operate at the Museum of Music. What do we know about sound? How does it originate, what properties does it have, how does it affect a person? These and many other questions will be answered by the exhibition “Sound And...”, a fun, and at the same time philosophical, reflection on the essence of sound and its manifestations. Want something unusual? You can experiment with a drum set made from pots and ladles at the Musical Kitchen. Have you long wanted to determine which timbre your voice is closer to, Fyodor Chaliapin, Muslim Magomayev or Ivan Kozlovsky? Then you need to go to the exhibit “How do you like this timbre?” I wonder what's going on behind the neighbors' walls (eternal repairs, running vacuum cleaners, family quarrels, violin playing, etc.)? This can be done quite legally with the help of the “Oh, those neighbors!” exhibit. Have you heard about such a phenomenon in musical culture as beatboxing? You can master the basics of this art by watching video lessons from a professional beatboxer, and immediately apply the acquired knowledge in practice. Do you dream of managing a real orchestra? Nothing could be easier! Maestro Yuri Bashmet himself will give you a personal master class. By waving your baton, you will feel that the music is now in your power!
The museum was opened in 1912 at the Moscow Conservatory. The museum's holdings contain more than 900 rare musical instruments, personal archives of composers and performers, collections of photographs and documents, and a rich collection of paintings.In 1912, the Memorial Museum named after Nikolai Rubinstein, conductor and founder of the conservatory, opened in the building of the Moscow Conservatory. Moscow homeowner and music lover Dmitry Belyaev gave money for its opening. Among the few exhibits were, for example, the desk of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, portraits of the composer Anton Rubinstein and philanthropist Dmitry Belyaev, a collection of Central Asian instruments and an Italian lyre-guitar from 1656.
The funds were replenished gradually. Thus, Modest Tchaikovsky, the composer’s brother, donated a plaster death mask of Pyotr Ilyich, and an admirer of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Belanovsky, sent the composer’s penknife, which, however, was stolen in 1925. In the early 1930s, the museum was on the verge of closure. Then difficult times came for the entire conservatory. But the museum was not closed, and in 1938 Ekaterina Alekseeva was appointed to the position of director. With her arrival, the museum began to gradually recover. In 1943, at the height of the war, it received state status, and at the end of the 1940s, the name Rubinstein finally disappeared from its name.
The Music Museum went beyond the memorial room at the conservatory and became an independent institution. In 1954, in connection with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Glinka, he was named after the great composer. In 1982, the museum moved to a new house specially built for it on Fadeev Street.The museum has been and is working to replenish its funds. Back in 1943, director Ekaterina Alekseeva entered into correspondence with Sergei Rachmaninov, who then lived in the USA. The composer responded to a request to send some of his personal belongings and musical recordings to the museum. Ekaterina Alekseeva traveled to the USA twice and from her second trip in 1970, together with Rachmaninoff researcher Zaruhi Apetyan, she brought 20 boxes of exhibits for the museum.
In subsequent years, the museum received donations of many items related to world musical culture. For example, a handwritten clavier (arranged score of a vocal-orchestral piece for piano) of a ballet that belonged to ballerina Anna Pavlova, or a Stradivarius violin bequeathed to David Oistrakh by Queen Elizabeth of Belgium.
The main exhibition of the museum is called “Musical Instruments of the Peoples of the World.” More than 900 exhibits are exhibited in five halls. The department of Russian instruments features nine-string harps from the 13th century, found during excavations in Novgorod, balalaikas from the 19th century, old grand pianos from St. Petersburg from the 1830s to 1870s, shepherd's horns and, of course, harmonicas, which became widespread only in the 1830s. The Bashkir flute kurai, the Chuvash bagpipe shybr with a bag made of a bull's bladder, and the Karelian string instrument kantele, similar to a harp and mentioned in the epic “Kalevala,” are interesting. The exhibition of Central Asian instruments consists mainly of items from the collection of August Eichhorn, who served as bandmaster of Russian military bands in the Turkestan Military District from 1870 to 1883.
In 2011, the Museum of Musical Culture was renamed into the All-Russian Museum Association of Musical Culture named after. M. I. Glinka. Now it includes five more memorial museums: the F. I. Chaliapin Museum-Estate on Novinsky Boulevard, the P. I. Tchaikovsky and Moscow" on Kudrinskaya Square, the Museum-apartment of the composer and director of the conservatory A. B. Goldenweiser, the Museum of S. S. Prokofiev in Kamergersky Lane and the Museum-apartment of the conductor and composer N. S. Golovanov in Bryusov Lane.
Reviews about the Museum of Musical Culture named after. M. I. Glinka
Lyudmila Milkina 01/03/2017 at 18:39
I came to this museum by accident: I was walking down the street and saw a bus stop with that name. I think it means it’s somewhere nearby, I found the museum and didn’t regret it. I attended three Exhibitions: “Sound and...man, the universe, play,” musical instruments of different times and peoples, and “Dances of buffoons” with drawings by B. Messerer. First I went to an interactive exhibition about sounds. It was very interesting there for both children and adults. You could listen to different sounds, you could create different sounds, see how they affect nature and humans, and much, much more that we don’t know, but which is very interesting to find out. The exhibition of instruments from different peoples and times in general stunned me with the number and variety of these instruments; some instruments are of such a unique shape that it is unclear how they are played and what sounds they make. And here, unfortunately, I again encountered the disease of all our museums: the inscriptions near the exhibits are academically dry and do not explain anything about them: the name, the date of manufacture, even the country where it is from is not always indicated. There are, of course, banners with long, boring texts that no one reads. People come to the museum to see! It would be very cool if at least the most unusual instruments had pictures (photos, drawings) from which one could understand how they are played, and if one could also listen to their sound, it would be simply fantastic. By the way, the black letters on the glass are practically invisible, so even those inscriptions that are there are not readable. This museum also hosts various concerts. I took a ticket for one of them. I hope to become a regular visitor to this museum. Judge the exhibition of B. Messerer's drawings from my photos.
Lyudmila Milkina 01/03/2017 at 18:32
I came to this museum by accident: I was walking down the street and saw a bus stop with that name. I think it means it’s somewhere nearby, I found the museum and didn’t regret it. I attended three Exhibitions: “Sound and...man, the universe, play,” musical instruments of different times and peoples, and “Dances of buffoons” with drawings by B. Messerer. First I went to an interactive exhibition about sounds. It was very interesting there for both children and adults. You could listen to different sounds, you could create different sounds, see how they affect nature and humans, and much, much more that we don’t know, but which is very interesting to find out. The exhibition of instruments from different peoples and times in general stunned me with the number and variety of these instruments; some instruments are of such a unique shape that it is unclear how they are played and what sounds they make. And here, unfortunately, I again encountered the disease of all our museums: the inscriptions near the exhibits are academically dry and do not explain anything about them: the name, the date of manufacture, even the country where it is from is not always indicated. There are, of course, banners with long, boring texts that no one reads. People come to the museum to see! It would be very cool if at least the most unusual instruments had pictures (photos, drawings) from which one could understand how they are played, and if one could also listen to their sound, it would be simply fantastic. By the way, the black letters on the glass are practically invisible, so even those inscriptions that are there are not readable. This museum also hosts various concerts. I took a ticket for one of them. I hope to become a regular visitor to this museum.
The Glinka Museum, or the Central Museum of Musical Culture, displays a huge collection of instruments from all eras and peoples, the number of exhibits of which approaches a thousand. From historical rarities to modern sound extraction devices can be seen in this extensive collection. The main building of the museum association was built specifically for this repository, the basis of which was made up of exhibits collected by enthusiasts from the Moscow Conservatory since its founding in 1866.
The lobby of the Glinka Museum greets visitors with a bust of the great composer, music and text quotes from the author of the Patriotic Song, which for some time was the Russian anthem. The notes of this work are accompanied by an unofficial text, which, together with the music, claimed the status of a state symbol back in tsarist times.
Here visitors get acquainted with announcements of events, leave their outerwear, and purchase entrance tickets to the permanent exhibition or thematic exhibitions. The main permanent exhibition is located on the 2nd floor; temporary shows on various topics are organized on the 3rd floor.
The lobby houses one of the notable exhibits, a recent acquisition of the Glinka Museum - a European orchestra. This mechanical instrument recreates the sound of an instrumental orchestra; such devices have been used in a number of European countries as musical accompaniment to dance events.
Musical instruments located on the front side of a kind of orchestra produce their characteristic sounds, while accordions even demonstrate the movements of bellows. In Russia, such instruments were not widespread, which makes getting to know the orchestra more interesting for our lovers of musical wonders.
The second floor, which houses the main exhibition of the Glinka Museum, begins with a spacious hall where various exhibitions dedicated to musical culture are held. The main decoration of the room is a picturesque stained glass window, which is much larger in size from the outside of the building.
A massive staircase leads to the 3rd floor for visiting thematic temporary exhibitions. The composition of several bells recalls the role of church bells both in the life of the Russian people and in Glinka’s musical passions.
Also in the hall there is an organ made by the German master Ladegast, which was owned since 1868 by a descendant of the Khludov merchant family, the only surviving product of this master. Donated to the Moscow Conservatory and going through several more owners, the instrument was practically ruined.
The difficult restoration of the organ's interior was carried out in 1998 by Vilnius organ builders under the leadership of Guchas. Now this instrument is positioned as the oldest organ in Russia that has remained functional, and it is actually used during organ concerts organized by the Glinka Museum.
The permanent exhibition of the Glinka Museum, telling about the history of the origin and wide variety of musical instruments of the peoples of the world, is located in five halls on the second floor. They are clearly distinguished from each other by different colors of the background of the shop windows. The division of the halls representing the most ancient known instruments is made on a geographical basis. A separate hall is allocated to European exhibits, divided by country; the remaining continents are divided inside another hall, with expositions of individual countries highlighted.
Further halls present instruments that differ in their belonging to wind or symphonic instruments, percussion and keyboards. Mechanical and electronic musical instruments, devices for recording sound and playing it from various media are highlighted.
Vintage European musical instruments
How correct this choice of the principle of demonstrating musical instruments is is for professionals to understand, but the differences in the method of sound extraction seem more fundamental and obvious than national and state ones. After all, the shape of the pipe, no matter how great the differences, is still recognizable.
The drum or other percussion instruments cannot be confused with anything else. And finding out information about the place of origin of the exhibit, its attribution to a certain type of musical instrument and other details is still carried out by most visitors according to the explanatory inscriptions.
Russian folk musical instruments are collected in the Glinka Museum in a large assortment and variety of species. Here are the instruments of other peoples inhabiting the national republics within the Russian Federation. Percussion instruments are widely represented - after all, they use the simplest but most varied method of producing sounds, from simple collisions of objects, for which even wooden spoons are used, to rattles of various designs and designs.
Naturally, our ancestors had horns made of cow horns and pipes made of wood. Craftsmen could extract sounds even from a saw blade and a scythe blade, but this is rather in the realm of musical eccentricity. The main stringed instrument of the Russian people is the gusli, used in Rus' since time immemorial. The balalaika is also a plucked string instrument; despite the simplicity of the device, virtuosos perform any melodies on them. Finally, the Russian accordion has been the main folk instrument for a long time
Stringed instruments of different nations are visually similar, but the progenitor of all stringed instruments, the Scythian harp, differs from its other relatives. It does not yet have a resonating body and neck, and a common feature is the way it produces sounds by plucking the strings with your fingers.
Plucked string instruments have evolved from the ancient lyre and harp to the lute, domra, mandolin, balalaika and guitar, which has retained its greatest popularity to this day. Harpsichords, pianos and grand pianos are also related to plucked string instruments that impact the strings, for which keys with a drive system were invented.
In the updated exhibition, the European section has been replenished with instruments of Belarusians and Ukrainians, Moldovans and the Baltic peoples. As before, instruments from the Mediterranean and Scandinavian countries, Central and Eastern Europe are widely represented. String instruments are exhibited both plucked and bowed, with different shapes of the resonating body and bow design. The simplest xylophones represent a group of percussion instruments.
There are several variations of bagpipes that are generally considered Scottish and Irish traditional instruments. This is true, but a similar device with air bellows and tubes with reed formation of sounds was also used by other peoples. These are the French musette, the Portuguese gaita, the duda and the dudeisac of Eastern Europe.
Musical instruments of eastern countries
The countries of the East were the first to invent bows for extracting sounds from stretched strings; historians consider musicians who lived in the territory of present-day Uzbekistan to be the pioneers. From here bows came to China and India, to Arab countries and from them to the Pyrenees. A shepherd's violin with three strings is a rabel, as well as a viol with a large number of strings. The latter were later replaced by violins and their larger relatives. Eastern string instruments often feature longer necks, although there are also designs with short ones.
The wind and percussion instruments of eastern peoples are very diverse. Bamboo trunks and other hollow plant stems were often used for wind instruments. Percussion instruments were also made from tree trunks by hollowing out the core. Tanned animal skins were also used, stretched over frames made of various materials. In addition to stationary drums, hand drums such as tambourines, sometimes supplemented with bells, were popular.
The Japanese originality of national clothing is much more striking than the differences between Japanese musical instruments and all others. Japanese percussion instruments were usually placed on shaped stands; different materials were used for the bodies, even porcelain and other ceramics. String and wind instruments have forms that are close to traditional for other peoples, and it is difficult to invent something different in these areas.
Eastern countries used a variety of materials to make musical instruments, from stone, wood and metal to silk, leather and even hollowed out pumpkin shells. Local craftsmen paid special attention to the external design of their products and their decorative appeal.
Paintings and carvings, traditional for every nation, also decorated musical instruments; it is by these elements that it is easiest to identify xylophones, drums and other instruments from the cultures of other countries.
Ancient violin workshop in the Glinka Museum
The creation of violins and other bowed instruments has been around for a long time and is now a highly complex task. Preparation of wood for various parts and parts of tools required mastery of many technological operations - cutting and drilling, measurements and various methods of joining parts. The tools and equipment necessary for these works are presented on the violin maker’s workbench in the recreated interior of a workshop for the manufacture of musical instruments.
Violin makers could make a product of any size, from a violin and viola to a cello and a giant double bass. The violin could also be either classical sizes or half or even four times smaller.
In the room restored in the Glinka Museum, you can see all the stages of making instruments, from a wooden board to a finished violin or cello. You can examine all the components - the front and back soundboard and the shell connecting them, the neck with the underneck and the bridge for laying the strings.
Classical musical instruments of the Glinka Museum
Instruments used by modern musicians are presented to visitors of the Glinka Museum in several exhibitions. Components of symphony and brass orchestras, accessories of musical ensembles of various compositions are exhibited. Strings - bows and keyboards are adjacent to wind, wood and brass.
One of the museum corners contains genuine treasures - a concert harp and a collectible piano for home use. The perfectly balanced harp is stable on its small base, the resonator made of valuable wood is in harmony with the gilding of the column and neck, the shape of which is especially whimsical and attractive.
Showcases of bowed instruments are located on either side of the painting depicting the greatest master of the Genoese violin, Niccolo Paganini. It was this violinist and composer who developed the technique of playing the violin, which has remained almost unchanged to this day.
In addition to the violin, Paganini also played the mandolin and guitar impeccably. The great performer's own compositions, written for both violin and guitar, are popular. The world's most popular violin competition is held annually in Paganini's homeland, Genoa, Italy.
The showcase of classical wind instruments shows them in order of increasing size, with varieties of wooden instruments displayed first, followed by brass instruments. This division has been preserved since ancient times and now does not correspond to reality - the wooden flutes, clarinets, oboes and bassoons included in the group of wooden ones can be made not only from wood. They can be plastic or metal, flutes can even be glass. Classified by musicologists as a wooden saxophone based on its operating principle, which had no ancient analogues, it was always made of metal.
On the other hand, copper instruments were made only from this metal only at the dawn of the development of metallurgy; now copper alloys or silver are used. The brass instrument group includes trumpet, horn, trombone and tuba. Instruments of this series have increasing sizes and complexity of the device. The trombone stands somewhat apart, having a movable slide for smooth changes in pitch.
Almost all wind instruments are included, in addition to brass bands, in symphony orchestras and ensembles. Dixieland and jazz bands also use them.
The combination of stretched strings and percussion mechanisms controlled by a keyboard is characteristic of concert musical instruments, which include pianos, grand pianos and pianos. Some experts consider the grand piano and pianoforte to be varieties of pianos, differing in the horizontal or vertical arrangement of the strings.
Since the middle of the last century, only grand pianos and pianos have been produced; traditional pianos, which have less expressive capabilities due to the shorter length of the strings, have become history. Grand pianos are primarily used in concerts as an instrument to accompany vocals or independently, while pianos are used for home or chamber music playing.
The predecessors of today's keyboard instruments, both stringed and reed, are also on display at the Glinka Museum. String instruments include the percussion clavichord and plucked harpsichord, while reed harmoniums are related to harmonicas, button accordions and accordions. The first instrument with air bellows was the table harmonica of Kirchner, a Czech who worked in Russia. Unlike it and the hand instruments we are used to, the bellows of the harmonium were powered by foot pedals.
From hurdy-gurdy to synthesizer
The last hall of the Glinka Museum displays several instruments not included in the ensembles and orchestras, ancient means of reproducing recorded sounds. Unique exhibits are presented here, quite rare in the collections of museums and private individuals. Among them, a barrel organ stands out, which many have heard about, but not all visitors have seen.
The design of the instrument is a small organ; air injection and operation of the sound mechanism are ensured by rotating the handle on the body. Organ organs were used by traveling musicians, and their sounds accompanied the performances of farcical circus performers.
The creation of the first sound recording and reproducing devices has a specific pioneer, he was the famous inventor Edison. The phonograph he designed in 1877 provided the recording and playback of sounds with a sharp needle on a roller wrapped in tin foil or wax-coated paper.
Recording on a flat round record was invented by Berliner; sound was reproduced by devices with an external horn - a gramophone. Devices with a horn hidden in the body were produced by the Pathé company, hence the name gramophone. Further progress in sound recording proceeded quickly: magnetic tapes, laser discs, high-quality digital sound recording.
The rare photoelectronic sound synthesizer ANS, named after the initials of the great composer Scriabin, was invented by the Russian Murzin back in the late 30s of the last century, and was manufactured only in 1963. Viewers of Tarkovsky's science fiction films and Gaidai's Diamond Arm may remember the unusual sounds of this device.
The composer created the music on it without writing notes or involving an orchestra. Synthesizers also developed rapidly; with the invention of transistors, they became compact and affordable. Now all musical groups of various genres have synthesizers.
Another notable exhibit of the Glinka Museum was the giant drum kit of the musician and composer, tireless experimenter R. Shafi. Manual control of such a complex complex of drums and drums is clearly impossible,
Shafi invented a unique control pedal, Zmey Gorynych, which, due to the number of tools it can handle, was included in the Guinness Book of Records. There are other interesting exhibits in this section, including personal instruments of famous musicians.
A visit to the Glinka Museum may seem unnecessary after hearing about it, but such an impression is extremely wrong. There is a lot of interesting things here that are difficult to describe in a quick review; there are new interesting forms of working with visitors. Visiting here is educational and interesting for people with any level of interest and understanding of music; after visiting, this interest will definitely increase.