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Russian Repertoire: Developmental Perspectives

Petersen, Katherine
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4245-9832
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439481939

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Musical Arts, Ohio State University, Music.
An examination of almost any university’s collection of programs from past voice recitals would reveal a standard pattern. There may be an aria from oratorio or opera, a set of songs in each the Italian, French, German and English languages and periodically something in Spanish or Latin, but very rarely does an audience have the privilege of listening to songs or a song cycle from the standard Russian repertoire. Furthermore, for all intents and purposes, a standard Russian repertoire does not exist in the United States. Somehow during the process of recital programming, jury preparation, and song literature course construction, Russian art song gets neglected and left for another time. Certainly, the paucity of Russian repertoire is not due to a lack of appreciation for Russian music; most of the orchestras in the United States program at least one piece by a Russian composer every season. Consequently, almost every musician can name a piece by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, or the members of “The Mighty Handful.” And operatic works including Mussorgsky’s Boris Gudonov and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin regularly are heard. But, there is a generation of voice teachers that has limited knowledge of this repertoire and teachers have confined opinions as to how this repertoire should be assigned- perhaps because they were trained during the era of the Cold War. Not only was it difficult to access manuscripts for Russian music, but it was also taboo to study and/or perform this repertoire. Unfortunately, most teachers assign music with which they are already familiar and that will serve their intended pedagogical purpose; and so Russian repertoire has been ignored. The second reason why this music has yet to be assimilated into the standard vocal repertoire is more obvious: a language barrier. Russian is a difficult language with a completely different alphabet and imprecise application of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Assigning this music can be difficult and intimidating when the studio teacher is unable to guide pronunciation and language development. Fortunately, there is a growing number of resources to mitigate this process including Emily Olin’s book Singing in Russian and Anton Belov’s website russianartsong.com. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to acquaint the singer community with Russian music history and to cultivate an appreciation for the repertoire so as to reinstate these songs into the cannon of standard vocal repertoire. Part I of this document looks at the origins and influences of Russian art song and gives a brief narrative of prominent composers’ biographical information and compositional characteristics. Part II gives recommendations for repertoire assignments. Each song included in this section has been subjected to rubric assessment based on the rubrics in Dr. Christopher Arneson’s book Literature for Teaching: Repertoire for a Developmental Perspective (2014). The rubric used will provide a guide for difficulty level and notes for specific comments including gender requirements, registration issues, pronunciation caution, and other pedagogical concerns. Part III serves as a quick reference guide for choosing repertoire by listing songs in categories including gender, pedagogic concerns, and subject matter. In addition to the numerous published pronunciation guides and repertoire collections, it is this author’s goal to provide a resource that makes choosing to teach Russian song repertoire less intimidating.
Scott McCoy, DMA (Advisor)
Ryan Skinner, PhD (Committee Member)
Loretta Woliver, DMA (Committee Member)
189 p.
Music; Russian History

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Citations

  • Petersen, K. (2015). Russian Repertoire: Developmental Perspectives [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439481939

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Petersen, Katherine. Russian Repertoire: Developmental Perspectives. 2015. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439481939.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Petersen, Katherine. "Russian Repertoire: Developmental Perspectives." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439481939

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1439481939
488
© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.