Meshcheryakova N.

“The Song House” by Maria Olenina-d’Alheim: a dialogue with descendants

The article is devoted to the 150th anniversary of M. A. Olenina-d’Algeim, a celebrated chamber singer and tireless enlightener. The author aims at filling the gap in the readers’ ideas about her legendary brainchild which is the musical and educational project “The Song House”. In online references, this musical artistic organisation is called “a small club for romance lovers” but in the article it is presented in all of its aspects. “The Song House” (1908–1918)was open during one of the most difficult and dramatic periods in the history of Russia. In the article, it is examined in different aspects such as the creation of new artistic and communicative forms as well as the realisation of unusual creative experiments aimed at an active involvement of the public in the creative process which turns out to be a kind of school of musical perception. By realising a socio- aesthetic order of the epoch, Olenina-d’Algeim broke through into the future with her brainchild as she passed ahead of her time with its “Internet-free” space and predicted bold experimental approaches to educational activities by indicating the main task of the project which is to help each participant (both the performer and the listener) learn to clear new musical horizons as well as to create his own life as an unusual work being its Artist and Creator. The bright works of Olenina-d’Alheim’s publishing activity under the aegis of “The Song House” (a Bulletin and a newspaper under the name of the project) are examined as a kind of journalistic ensemble with one and the same goal which is the transformation of creative space.

Key words

M. Olenina-d’Alheim, “The Song House”, artistic communication, musical educational project, workshop, laboratory, school of perception, unity, breakthrough into the future, bulletin.

For citation

Meshcheryakova N. “The Song House” by Maria Olenina-d’Alheim: a dialogue with descendants // South-Russian musical anthology. 2020. No 1. Pp. 86–90.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.24411/2076-4766-2020-11011

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