Pavel Chesnokov was born just outside of Moscow on October 24, 1877. He was very musically talented and spent nine years studying solfege alone! This amazes me so much. For anyone that doesn't know what solfege is, it is a system of singing designed to teach notes, rhythms and singing. Also known as sight singing. Everyone, well, almost everyone at one point in there life has seen the part of the Sound of Music where they sing "Doe, a deer, a female deer; ray, a drop of golden sun..." Those first words are solfege, representing a specific note in a diatonic collection, but spelled differently. So, a major scale would be {do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do}. In Russian, just slightly different. The ti is a si {до, ре, ми, фа, соль, ла, си, до}. Anyway, I'm amazed that he studied it for nine years. I am a music major and I barely have four semesters of solfege under my belt. It is very difficult stuff.
On top of studying solfege, he has seven years of training on violin and piano. Also, his composition training includes four years of harmony, counterpoint and form. What??!!! Four years of each. No one studies these this intently anymore. These are three areas that I feel are being blown off in the composition world, as well as some other things. New composers get so excited about creating their own stuff, that they don't learn the essentials and basics. Most all great composers have a very strong foundation in harmony, counterpoint and form. Especially counterpoint.
Most of the music that we have from Pavel Chesnokov is sacred, liturgical music. My favorite piece, as mentioned earlier, is the piece that he is best known for, Salvation is Created. It is simple, yet profound and powerful.
Спасение соделал еси, посреде земли, Боже. Аллилуия!
(Salvation is created, in the midst of the earth, O God. Alleluia!)
Take a listen to it here. I hope you like it as much as I do.
2 comments:
i read.
i listened.
i loved.
love it. put up more.
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