Ru
EnA. Aleshina
Marcel Grandjany – performer, composer and teacher
The article is devoted to the formation period of the American harp school on the example of the diverse creative activity of the outstanding French-American harpist, teacher, composer, one of the founders of the American Harp Society – Marcel Grandjany. The purpose of the article is to significantly expand the range of ideas about one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, who had a huge impact on the development of harp art. For the first time in Russian musicology the author examines the artist’s creative biography, his performing and pedagogical activities, as well as work on the organization of the American Harp Society. The article presents the methodological ideas developed by Grandjany in the process of work in the educational institutions of the USA and Canada. The principles of the musician’s attitude towards the work of a composer are formulated. His contribution to the art of transcription is emphasized. Furthermore, the author analyses the most characteristic techniques used by the musician in his compositions. The research methods involved in the article include historical and bibliographic, along with the source criticism and diverse analysis methods they were used in the study of Grandjany’s biography, art and characteristic features of his individual style. The introduction to the article presents the general picture that had developed in the harp art of the USA on the boundary of the 19–20th centuries – the time of the beginning of the artist’s professional career. The main part of the paper is devoted to the biographical information about Grandjany’s life, as well as the analysis of his compositional work and the characteristic features of the musician’s performing style. In conclusion, a general assessment of Grandjany’s contribution to the development of American harp art is given. The presented information is introduced for the first time into the Russian musicology and is drawn from foreign sources: monographs, articles and memoirs about Grandjany, as well as press materials of the first half of the 20th century.
Key words
American harp art, Marcel Grandjany, concert performing art, transcriptions and arrangements, harp pedagogic.
For citation
Aleshina A. Marcel Grandjany – performer, composer and teacher // South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2021. No. 4. Pp. 142–150.
