Ученые записки РАМ имени Гнесиных

Harp cadences in Tchaikovsky’s ballets. Stage fate and questions of authorship of the text

Автор: ·

Original article
DOI: 10.56620/2227-9997-2023-3-83-95

Maria A. Fedorova

Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, Moscow, Russia,
masharpha@yandex.ru, https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0994-2389
Abstract: The article is devoted to the harp cadences of three ballet opuses by P. I. Tchaikovsky, as well as the history of their performances. The study of Tchaikovsky’s harp solos is impossible without referring to the history of harp performance, as well as to the position of that instrument in Russian musical culture of the second half of the 19th century. Tchaikovsky’s perception of this instrument, characteristic of the composers of that time, was marked by an extremely critical assessment. This formed a certain rejection of the knowledge of the expressive and technical qualities of the instrument, which resulted in the scarce ideas of composers about the specifics of the harp. Thus, harp solo cadences in the orchestral music of those years became the most vulnerable for composers in terms of performance capabilities and sound palette. Cadenzas in Tchaikovsky’s ballets are no exception. For this reason, the practice of editing the author’s text or completely replacing the composer’s cadenza with those created by harpists appeared. The article provides a comparative analysis of cadenzas from all three Tchaikovsky ballets, their editions, as well as specifically composed cadenzas by the St. Petersburg harpist Albert Tsabel; a set of performance shortcomings in the author’s material is formulated and the positive aspects of the transformed material are identified.

Keywords: Harp, cadence, Tchaikovsky, ballet, Zabel

For citation: Fedorova M. A. Harp cadenzas in ballets by P. I. Tchaikovsky. Stage fate and questions of authorship of the text. Scholarly papers of Gnesin Russian Academy of Music. 2023;(3):83-95. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.56620/2227-9997-2023-3-83-95

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