Значение культуры

     Culture is one of the most  important  components,  which  form  every

nation. It is one occurrence that distinguishes and unites  all  the  people

who live in the world. But it is impossible to imagine the  culture  without

music, a very big part of our life.

Every nation has one’s own music and I think  that  inside  music  are

concluded all peculiarities of  the  nation,  it  is  contain  the  key  for

understand the soul of people.

    When I was associated with foreigners (they were  Americans)  I  noted

that they liked our folk music, they frequently  listened  it  and  each  of

them had without fail an audiocassette with Russian folk  music.  They  told

me about the most popular in United States Russian  singers  and  composers.

Our pop music is not famous outside  Russia.  But  many  people  from  other

countries love our folk and classical music.

    On the contrary we know nothing  about  American  folk  and  classical

music and I would like to discuss about it.

    By my opinion  a  serious  study  of  American  music  is  arrestingly

important at this time. Music has become on of American  leading  industries

American performing standards are probably now higher than anywhere else  in

the world, and Americans are making rapid strides in  music  education.  How

large a part in all this activity is American music to  play?  How  good  is

it? How does it differ from Russian music?

    There are many signs of an awakened interest in American  composition.

More of it is performed, published, and  recorded  than  ever  before.  This

interest is not confined to the United States alone.  During  the  past  few

years Russians who have always liked American popular music  (like  Brithney

Spears, Madonna, Michael Jackson) have discovered that America have  several

composers in the  serious  field  well  worth  its  attention.  As  for  the

foundations,  fortunes  are  being  spent  to  discover,  to  train  and  to

encourage American native talent.

    We could imagine a pattern, which would include Billings,  Harris  and

Gershwin.  Each  of  them  contributed  substantially  to  American  musical

tradition,  and  when  American  can  grasp  their  interrelationship   they

perceive that there is indeed an American music, a hardy one just  beginning

to fell its strength and destined to stand beside their other  contributions

to world culture.

    I would like to tell about my three favorites American composers.

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn on September 25, 1989. He was  by

no means a prodigy, and  his  musical  education  was  spasmodic.   He  took

lessons at the piano and later studied harmony. In his teens, he acquired  a

job as song plugger at one of the largest publishing houses. Before long  he

was writing songs of his own; and in 1919, he was the  proud  present  of  a

“hit” that swept the  country  –  Swanee.  His  rise  as  one  of  the  most

successful composers for the Broadway stage was rapid.

    In 1924, he composed his first serious work in  the  jazz  idiom,  the

historic “Rhapsody in Blue”  the  success  of  which  made  Gershwin  famous

throughout the world of music. After that he divided his activities  between

writing popular music for the Broadway stage (and later  for  the  Hollywood

cinema) and serious works for concert hall consumption. In both  fields,  he

was extraordinary successful and popular. He died in Hollywood on  June  11,

1937, after an unsuccessful operation on the brain.

    It is mainly since Gershwin’s death that  complete  awareness  of  his

musical importance has become almost universal. The little  defects  in  his

major  works  –  those  occasional   awkward   modulations,   the   strained

transitions, the  obscure  instrumentation  –  no  longer  appear  quite  so

important as they did several decades ago. What many did  not  realize  then

and what they now know –  is  that  the  intrinsically  vital  qualities  of

Gershwin’s works reduce these technical flaws to insignificance.  The  music

is so alive,  so  freshly  conceived,  and  put  down  on  paper  with  such

spontaneity and enthusiasm that is youthful  spirit  refuses  to  age.   The

capacity of this music to enchant and magnetize audiences’ remains as  great

today, even with, familiarity, as it was yesterday, when  it  came  upon  us

with the freshness of novelty.

    That he had a wonderful reservoir of melodies was,  of  course,  self-

evident when Gershwin was alive. What was not  quite  so  obvious  then  was

that he had impressed his identity on those melodies – his way of shaping  a

lyric line, his use of certain rhythmic phrases, the piquant effect of  some

of his accompaniments – so that they would always remain recognizably his.

Other my favorite American composers is Roy Harris.

    Few American composers of XX century and our  time  have  achieved  so

personal a style as Roy Harris. His  music  is  easily  identified  by  many

stylistic traits to which he has doing  through  his  creative  development:

the long themes which span many bars before pausing to catch a  breath,  the

long and involved development  in  which  the  resources  of  variation  and

transformation  are  utilized   exhaustively,   the   powerfully   projected

contrapuntal lines, the modal harmonies and the asymmetrical rhythms  are  a

few of the qualities found in most Harris’s works.

    Through  Harris  has  frequently  employed  the  forms  of  the  past

(toccata, passacaglia, fugue, etc), has shown  a  predilection  for  ancient

modes, and en occasion has  drawn  thematic  inspiration  from  Celtic  folk

songs and Protestant hymns,  he  is  modern  in  spirit.  His  music  has  a

contemporary pulse, the cogent drive  and  force  of  present  –day  living;

there is certainly nothing archaic about it. More  important  still,  it  is

essentially American music, even in those works in which he  does  not  draw

his ideas from folk or popular  music.  The  broad  sweep  of  his  melodies

suggests the vast plains of  Kansas,  the  open  spaces  of  the  West.  The

momentum of his rhythmic drive is American in its nervousness and  vitality.

But in subtler qualities, too, Harris’s music is the music of America.  “The

moods”, Harris once wrote, “which  seem  particularly  American  to  me  are

noisy  ribaldry,  then  sadness,  a  groping  earnestness  which  amount  to

suppilance toward those deepest spiritual yearnings within ourselves;  there

is little grace or mellowness in our midst”.

    Such moods as noisy ribaldry, sadness, groping earnestness are  caught

in Harris’s music, and to these moods are added  other  American  qualities;

youthful vigor, health, optimism and enthusiasm.

    Harris was born in the Lincoln  country,  Oklahoma,  on  February  12,

1898. While still a child, he learned to play the clarinet  and  the  piano.

In 1926 he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. In  Paris  he  wrote

his first major works: of them, The Concerto for  the  Piano,  Clarinet  and

String Quartet (1927) was the most successful. His Fifth Symphony  has  been

dedicated to the “Heroic and Peace-loving People of the Soviet Union”.

I guess, we know nothing about American  folk  music  excepting  jazz-

singers and composers. The sole  and  the  most  famous  of  them  is  Louis

Armstrong. I believe that all people know this name  and  I  would  like  to

tell about my favorite album of his legendary music, it’s called “Louis  and

the Good Book”.

    Anyone who has ever read a history book on jazz knows that  there’s  a

connection between jazz, spiritual music, work  songs  and  the  blues.  But

often  historians  don’t  explain  this  relationship  clearly  enough.  The

phrasing of the arrangements for the brass and read  sections  in  big  jazz

bands are of course a direct inheritance from the preacher’s  call  and  the

parishioner’s customary response in church. The some  is  true  for  today’s

funky songs, which derives  from  gospel.  But  all  this  illuminates  only

specific styles without saying anything about the antecedence and legacy  of

jazz in general. This album introduces some aspects of this history  and  by

my opinion is the best album of Louis Armstrong.

    During the first three years of his recording career, Louis  Armstrong

played blues and stomps. In fact, that was what  he  recorded  in  his  very

first session with king Oliver in 1923. Then same rhythmical airs and  other

hits of that era were added. During those years his  technique  and  musical

concepts acquired such a degree of substance and affluence  that  he  became

the first jazz virtuoso. Beginning with the late 20’s he added  a  new  kind

of melody to his repertoire: the “ballad”. In these interpretations  another

side of his talent unfolded, incorporating a whole series of standards  into

his jazz repertoire. Standards refer to themes taken up  by  all  musicians.

Thus, he not only demonstrated that jazz phrasing  is  applicable  to  these

kinds of melodies and tempos, but he did it so well that the  mood  of  show

ballads became an integral part of every form  of  jazz.  This  is  not  the

first time that Louis Armstrong interprets spirituals. In 1938  he  recorded

same versions of four pieces with the Lynn Murray choir for  MCA.  Shadrack,

based on the traditional form of spirituals, Jonah and the Whale,  Going  to

Shout All Over the God’s Heaven and Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.  Two

years later he did a version of Cain and Abel  with  the  big  band  he  was

directing at that time. He had actually recorded Motherless Child  in  1930.

While the melody is identical to the second part of the Dear  Old  Southland

interlude by Creamer and Layton, which he recorded in a duo  with  the  near

legendary pianist Buck Washington, the melody of Motherless  Child  is  also

very close to others that he used in several blues, better  known  in  their

broad versions: Steady Roll, Round the  Clock,  My  Daddy  Rock  Me.  So,  a

number of spirituals are blues at least in form.

    On My Way in this volume obviously belongs to  the  blues,  which  are

most commonly known in the 12 measures from today. One stanza, musically  of

four measures – iambic pentameter in prosody – the stanza  is  repeated  and

finally a third stanza which rhymes with the first, completing the  couplet.

Some maintain that in its most archaic form of the blues  the  first  stanza

was repeated three times instead of twice, thus arriving at a  verse  of  16

measures. On My Way is precisely of this format. Rock My Soul belongs  to  a

different category of blues with 16 measures.  Each  chorus  consists  of  a

verse with eight-measures played in “stop-time”, each time  in  a  variation

ending with the same refrain every time. If you know  Georgia  Grind,  which

Louis Armstrong recorded in 1926, or Hesitating Blues, by  Handy,  which  he

recorded in 1954, or even Blue Suede Shoes, you know the  shortened  version

in 12 measures of this type of blues with refrain. Go  Down  Moses  in  this

album is structured in this manner.

   A jazz musician playing spirituals? In a sense  that  Louis  Armstrong

has been doing all along.

   A few other features need to be painting out.  The  second  chorus  in

Down By  the  Riverside  starts  with  a  break  (the  steady  rhythm  being

interrupted for an instant) just the way it is in dozen of work songs.

In This Train there is  so-called  stop-time  interlude,  which  Louis

Armstrong used so successfully in several  of  his  instrumental  renderings

during the 20’s. The “call and  response”  formula  can  be  heard  in  This

Train, Didn’t it Rain, and Go Down Moses.

    But for me Louis Armstrong’s greatest talent is  the  way  he  handles

the exposition of a melody. The trumpet solo in  Swing  low,  Sweet  Chariot

and down By the Riverside sow what I mean. Of course his  play  is  forceful

and convincing. But there  are  suspensions;  almost  imperceptible  melodic

changes showing his offbeat rhythm.  All  this  will  immediately  and  most

directly bring out the melody, enhancing it to a point  of  opening  up  new

vistas that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

    The arrangements are by Sy Oliver who was also the  musical  director.

Oliver’s career as trumpeter – composer – arranger goes back to the time  of

Zack Whyte’s orchestra in the early 30’s and  he,  more  than  anyone  else,

created the style of Jimmy Lunceford’s powerful orchestra between  1933  and

1939. After that, he was Tommy Dorsey’s arranger and has  since  become  one

of the principal arranger – directors for MCA.

    As for pop American music I believe that since death of Frank  Sinatra

in the U.S have not anyone real  pop-singer.  By  my  opinion  “Sinatra  was

America and America was Sinatra”.

    Frank Sinatra has been called the greatest popular singer of the

century. Whether that is true,  in  a  century  that  also  offers  us  Bing

Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and many others is, of course, a matter of  personal

emotional choice and, therefore, unknowable. What can be said is that  under

the intense and fickle scrutiny of  the  pop  marketplace  for  nearly  two-

thirds of a century, Sinatra’s music was in the air the world  breathed  and

fell out of fashion only long enough for the deserters either to grow up  or

recognize that what was offered in its place  was  almost  always  trash  by

comparison.

    Sinatra was born December  15,  1915,  in  Hoboken,  N.J.,  and  as  a

schoolboy nursed ambitions to be a journalist. The  earliest  known  example

of Sinatra on record come from his  1935  performance  on  the  Major  Bowes

Amateur Hour, in which he was matched with three  other  aspirants  to  sing

“Shine.” After the program they were sent out as a group, the Hoboken  Four,

on a Major Bowes road show.

    Sinatra touched the big time in 1939 when Harry James,  fresh  out  of

the Benny Goodman band and not yet a major star in him own right, hired  him

to be vocalists in his new band. In August he recorded “All  Or  Nothing  At

All” with James, but the record would not become a major hit until  Columbia

reissued it during the  recording  ban  in  1943.  Sinatra  was  on  a  fast

trajectory to the top himself. He left James to take  an  offer  from  Tommy

Dorsey, with whom he recorded more than 90 songs before he left. The  Dorsey

years connected him to Axel Stordahl, who  would  arrange  and  conduct  the

first four Sinatra records under his own name in 1942 and become  his  chief

musical architect for the next decade. He also made two movies with  Dorsey,

Las Vagas Night at Paramount and Ship  Ahoy  at  MGM.  But  aside  from  two

pictures with  Gene  Kelly,  Sinatra’s  film  career  would  be  of  passing

interest until the 1950s.

   The band singer period ended in September 1942. When Sinatra went  out

on as a soloist, it was to join  the  stock  company  of  vocalists  on  the

weekly “Lucky Strike Hit Parade.” But  there  was  buzz  in  the  air  about

Sinatra, and it burst wide open when  in  1943  when  he  was  booked  as  a

supporting act to Goodman at the Paramount Theater. Goodman introduced  him,

turned to kick off his band, and before he could lower his arm heard an ear-

shattering scream of 3,000 mostly female  fans  explode  behind  him.  “What

they hell is that?” Goodman muttered.

    During the bobby-sox years, Sinatra recorded for Columbia and turned  out  a

steady  flow   of   romantic   ballads   backed   by   Stordahl’s   tasteful

orchestrations. But nothing as intense as  the  Sinatra  phenomenon  of  the

‘40s could sustain indefinitely. The energy ran out of the Sinatra boom  and

by the 1952, it is said, he was washed up.

    With the ‘40s behind him, however, the stage was set  for  his  golden  age.

Capitol Records signed him up and concentrated on  marketing  him  to  young

adults through carefully planned long  playing  albums  organized  around  a

mood, an idea, a feeling, a concept. In the  Wee  Small  Hours,  crafted  by

Nelson Riddle, became the matrix for his  recording  career  from  then  on.

Among the ballad albums, All Alone, arranged  by  Gordon  Jenkins  in  1962,

stands in a class by itself for its stark sense of melancholy.

    After Wee Small Hours, Sinatra turned to develop a side of his musical

personality that had never been exploited  --  the  swinging  Sinatra  doing

upbeat tempos against jazz-styled big band charts that caught  some  of  the

feeling that the new Count Basie band was  generating  on  the  instrumental

side.

    The albums and a string of successful films took Sinatra into  the  ‘60s  at

the top of his fame and form. He played the Newport  Jazz  Festival  in  the

‘60s, recorded with the Basie and Ellington, and played the  Chairman  to  a

colorful Clan that included  Dean  Martin,  Sammy  Davis  and  other  chums.

Talent was the admission ticket.

    Yet, the force of youth movement and rock music in the late ‘60s  and  early

‘70s seemed to shake his own confidence in his own hipness, and he tried  to

embrace some of the new material. But after a period  of  retirement  and  a

few false starts in the recording studio, he  returned  to  form  doing  the

kind of music that told stories worth telling. In the ‘90s his  stubbornness

paid off. The youth icons of the ‘60s and ‘70s finally came to him  to  sing

his song on his terms. Duets may have received mixed critical reaction,  but

once again Sinatra was king of the hill, scoring the largest album sales  of

his career.

    Sinatra received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983. He  died  May  14,

1998, at the age of 82.

    In 1998, Sinatra was elected by the Readers into the Down Beat Hall of

Fame.

    From the times of the Pilgrims American people have  liked  music  and

made it a part of their lives. They  have  played  and  sung  and  fashioned

their own songs for all occasions.

There were, however, no European courts for  the  cultivation  of  art

music and opportunities were  rare  for  the  training  and  development  of

individual talents. When sufficient number  of  professional  musicians  had

arrived to establish centers of serious musical culture American role  as  a

backward province of European music  was  firmly  established.  I  was  only

natural that the foreign arbiters of taste would regard any deviations  from

European musical thinking as deplorable savagery to be resolutely put down.

Small wonder, then, that a serious dichotomy developed  in  the  field

of American composition. American educated young people, fresh  from  French

or German influences, did their loyal best to write good  German  or  French

music. For subject matter they turned to “remote legends  and  misty  myths”

guaranteed to keep them from thinking  about  the  crudities  of  the  land,

which they found so excruciating upon their return from  abroad.  They  did,

however, bring back with them a professional competence,  which  was  to  be

their significant contribution to the American scene.

    Meanwhile the  uneducated  creator,  finding  good  stuff  about  him,

carried on a rapidly developing music speech, which was a blend of  European

folk music, African rhythm, and regional  color,  and  discovered  that  the

public the public liked his music and was ready to pay  for  it  handsomely.

As a result via the minstrel ballad, through ragtime into  jazz,  a  genuine

popular  American  music  made  its   appearance   and   was   given   every

encouragement by the entertainment industry. European musicians  were  quick

to recognize the originality and value of this  music  and,  beginning  with

Debussy, accepted it as a new resource.

    The American serious group, however, anxious to  preserve  their  new-

found dignity, nervously dismissed this music as purely  commercial  (a  lot

of it was and is), and until it was made respectable by the  attention  paid

to it by Ravel and Stravinsky there were only occasional attempts to  borrow

from its rhythms and melodies. The highly successful popular group,  on  the

other hand, has developed the notion that the technique  of  composition  is

not only unnecessary but an affectation. Such needs as may arise  for  their

concerted numbers, ballets, and orchestrations they can well afford  to  pay

for from the hacks   (the underprivileged  literate  musicians).  Gershwin’s

contribution to the American scene is significant beyond  his  music  itself

in that he was able to reconcile the two points of view and achieve  popular

music in the large traditional forms.

    Americans  are  ex  –  Europeans,  to  be  sure,  and  as  such  have

responsibilities to the preservation and continuance  of  European  culture,

but American are also a race – and a vigorous one – and it  is  increasingly

evident that we are capable of developing cultural traditions of our own.

As for Russian music it is impossible to describe its contribution  to

the world musical culture, and will be difficult to estimate it. Of  course,

the great musical occurrence is the Russian classical  music,  and  I  would

like to tell about my favorites Russian composers.

    Sergei Procofyev was five when his mother gave  him  his  first  piano

lesson. At the age of six he was  already  composing  and  actually  writing

small pieces for the piano and a few years later he write an  opera  to  his

own libretto called The Giant. Procofyev graduated  from  the  Conservatoire

in the spring of 1914. Taking his final exams  as  a  pianist,  he  won  the

highest distinction: the Anton Rubinstein gold medal and prize.

    Procofyev worked for nearly fifty years in all spheres and  genres  of

music. His powerful and original talent has won universal  recognition.  His

best works – and these are not few –  have  enriched  the  legacy  of  world

musical culture.

    Procofyev belonged to the older generation  of  Soviet  composers  who

entered upon the scene before the October Revolution.  He  was  a  pupil  of

Rimsky – Korsakov and Lyadov who educated the young composers of their  time