E-mail: elena-biteryakova@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (495) 629-67-11
13/6, Bolshaya Nikitskaya str., Moscow, 125009, Russian Federation
PhD in Аrts, Senior Researcher, Klyment Kvitka Research Center for Folk Music, Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory
The author expresses deep gratitude to her colleagues O. V. Gordienko, E. A. Dorokhova, L. P. Makhova, and N. M. Savelyeva for help in clarifying some historical questions.
This article is devoted to the expeditions of the Moscow Conservatory to the Starodubsky region of the Bryansk region in the 1950s, initiated by Prof. Klyment Kvitka. Their unique audio recordings, handwritten field notes and photographic documents have mostly remained unpublished and not been introduced into scholarly use. Still, these materials, collected by Leo Batchinsky and Klavdia Svitova, retain their scholarly and artistic value today, and their joint work can be inscribed in the history of Russian ethnomusicology as an important episode. On the basis of phonograms and handwritten documents stored in the Klyment Kvitka Research Center for Folk Music, the author analyzes the circumstances of this field work in the 1950s, clarifying its goals and objectives, and gives a general assessment of its results. Batchinsky and Svitova’s main achievements include high-quality recordings of ensemble singing and solo instrumentals, created during a time of active local folk traditions, and the collection of a significant amount of ethnographic information.
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