First exhibition in the N. Rimsky-Korsakov memorial Museum-Apartment
"N. Rimsky-Korsakov and his Heritage in Historical Perspective" (19 March - 23 August 2010)
This exhibition is focused on archival materials of N. Rimsky-Korsakov, his students and descendants. Among things exhibited at the Museum there are manuscripts of students of 1890-1900s St Petersburg conservatoire with marks by N.Rimsky-Korsakov and his former students-professors.
Among the important things there is an author's manuscript of the opera "Kaschey the Immortal", which was lost for 100 years and appeared in 1994 thanks to the descendants of G. V. Furman, who was a student of N.Rimsky-Korsakov in 1906-1907.
At the exhibition the EMIRITON - a unique musical instrument constructed in 1930s by the grandson of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov - Andrey Vladimirovich is established. The emiriton is e[electrical] m[musical] i[instrument] r[rimsky] i[vanov] ton[traditional ending of the whole row of new invented instruments].
The main inventors of this instrument were Rimsky-Korsakov�s grandson, Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov (1910�2002), and Aleksandr Ivanov (1907�1968). If for the latter this invention was almost a lifework, for A. Rimsky-Korsakov it was evidently a small part of his creative biography. There is no literature dedicated to the emiriton. Only a shorthand of report given by A. Ivanov was as excluding published in 1953. There one can read that the body of the instrument is in the shape of a trapezium and rests on a stand. The �heart� of the instrument is an electrical valve generator, which provides electrical sound current in sawtooth waveform. A form of current dictates future combination of sound timbres, the whole amount of which is equal 540. In order to get such multitude of forms (timbres), altered electrical current reaches a loudspeaker and turns into audible sound oscillations.
The sound oscillations are formed in the electrical circuit of the instruments and cannot be deformed by external actions. The emiriton is a melodic (one-voice) electro-musical instrument. It has a keyboard, which consists of a non-tempered, ultrachromatic scale and a traditional keyboard, two-legged pedal for regulating expression. The fingerboard allows changing sound in the range less than half step of twelve-tone temperament.
The special seventeen-key keyboard allows a choice of timbre. The range of this instrument is eight octaves. It is therefore played in a similar way to an organ.
The sound of the instrument evoked enthusiasm among its contemporaries. B. Asafyev, D. Shostakovich, A. Klimov and other musicians gave positive appreciations. Its sound was recorded and music was written for it. A. Ivanov (inventor) and M. Lazarev (emiritonist) toured the whole country, filling concert halls. The instrument was announced in newspapers.
CONTEMPORARY ART IN TRADITIONAL MUSEUM
26 September - 18 October 2009
Alexander Gurko �JUKEBOX� A musical machine made from served computer.
2009 Copyright � Lidia Ader lidiader@yandex.ru (text) � Manko Alexsandr alexsios-rel@rambler.ru (design)
