RU | EN
Submenu

Khazdan E. From Museum Exhibit to Live Sound: Ways of Reconstruction

Evgenia Khazdan
Independent researcher
Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0002-6709-5484
E-mail: kle-zemer@mail.ru

 

 Download  |  Go to Issue #3. 2024

 

ABSTRACT. A museum or an archive is a quiet place. Researchers speak on behalf of the exhibits. When recreating the sound patterns of the past, they often rely not so much on the physical properties of museum artefacts as on information drawn from the works of musicologists of the past and, where possible, also on various kinds of contextual information. Sound itself — before the advent of the phonograph and wax rollers — could not be preserved, but indirect information about it is stored in objects studied by archaeologists (musical instruments, and more often their fragments), art historians (paintings, sculptures, mosaics, frescoes or fragments of decoration) or musicologists (various forms of music notation). The historical context is filled based on the texts of books, the most important of which is the Bible. The earliest examples of musical notation of the chants with which the Holy Scripture was supposed to be read are presented in the work of the founder of Christian Kabbalah, Johannes Reuchlin. Modern methods do not always make it possible to accurately identify sound-producing instruments, determine their timbre and possible tuning. It is even more difficult to reconstruct the repertoire, to define the performing situation and its ritual context. The article compares the possibilities of extracting information about past sound codes from different sources, and the results of the research are correlated with living tradition. The material for the study included artefacts from the culture of the ancient peoples of the Middle East, as well as from the European Christian tradition interpreting the Old Testament.

 

KEYWORDS: sound pattern, musical instruments, musical archeology, recording of musical tradition

 

FOR CITATION: Khazdan E. From Museum Exhibit to Live Sound: Ways of Reconstruction. Kunstkamera. 2024. 3(25): 57–69. (In Russian). doi 10.31250/2618-8619-2024-3(25)-57-69

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2024-3(25)-57-69
UDC 316.722+78.072.2

 

СПИСОК ИСТОЧНИКОВ И ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ

  • Assmann J. Kul’turnaia pamiat’: Pis’mo, pamiat’ o proshlom i politicheskaia identichnost’ v vysokikh kul’turakh drevnosti [Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination]. Moscow: Iazyki slavianskikh kul’tur, 2004. (In Russian)
  • During J. Golos dukhov i skrytaia storona muzyki. Put’ mastera Khatama ‘Asgari [The Voice of Spirits and the Hidden Side of Music. The Journey of Master Hatam “Asgari’]. Muzyka v kontekste islama: traditsii Irana [Music in the Context of Islam: Iranian Traditions]. Moscow: Sandra, 2019, pp. 430–482. (In Russian)
  • Ivanova S. V. Angel’skie truby v srednevekovom khristianskom iskusstve [Angelic Trumpets in Medieval Christian Art]. Opera musicologica, 2022, no. 3, pp. 46–53. (In Russian)
  • Ketuvim [Writings]. Ed. by D. Yosifon. Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kuk, 1978. (In Russian)
  • Khazdan E. V. Ot masoretskikh pomet k znakam kantilliatsii: dinamika vospriiatiia [From Masoretic Signs to Cantillation Marks: A Paradigm Shift]. Bogosluzhebnye praktiki i kul’tovye iskusstva v sovremennom mire [Liturgical Practices and Cultural Studies in the Modern World]. Ed. By Svetlana Khvatova. Krasnodar: Magarin O. G., 2020, iss. 4, vol. 1, pp. 288–310. (In Russian)
  • Khazdan E. V. “Glas v pustyne”: traktovki stikha iz Knigi Isayi v russkikh i ievropeiskikh perevodakh: K voprosu o dinamike vzaimodeistviia kul’tur [“Voice in the Desert”: Translations of a Verse from the Book of Isaiah in Russia and Europe: On the Dynamics of Cross-Cultural Interactions]. Etnografia, 2020, no. 2, pp. 80–102. (In Russian)
  • Khazdan E. From Masoretic Signs to Cantillation Marks: Initial Steps (On the Virtual Dialogue between Alfonso de Zamora and Johannes Reuchlin). Lietuvos muzikologija, 2021, no. 22, pp. 56–64.
  • Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides). Putevoditel’ rasteriannykh [The Guide to the Perplexed]. Transl. and comment. by M. A. Schneider; scientific ed. U. Gershovich. Jerusalem: Menachem; Moscow: Gesharim, 2010. (In Russian)
  • Putilov B. N. Fol’klor i narodnaia kul’tura [Folklore and Folk Culture]. St. Petersburg: Nauka Publ., 1994. (In Russian)
  • Putilov B. N. Teoreticheskie problemy sovremennoi fol’kloristiki: kurs lektsii dlia studentov Muzykal’no-etnograficheskogo otdeleniia Sankt-Peterburgskoi gosudarstvennoi konservatorii (1995–1996 gody) [Theoretical Problems of Modern Folkloristics: A Course of Lectures for Students of the Music and Ethnography Department of the St Petersburg State Conservatoire (1995–1996)]. Ed. by A. F. Nekrylova. St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design Publ., 2006. (In Russian)
  • Rosowsky S. The Cantillation of the Bible: The Five Books of Moses. New York: The Reconstructionist Press, 1957.
  • Seroussi E. In Search of Jewish Musical Antiquity in the 18th-century Venetian Ghetto: Reconsidering the Hebrew Melodies in Benedetto Marcello’s «Estro Poetico-Armonico». The Jewish Quarterly Review, 2002, vol. 93, no. 1–2, pp. 149–200.
  • Shiloah, Amnon. Jewish Musical Traditions. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992.
  • Sounds of Ancient Music: Catalogue, ed. by Joan G. Westenholz. Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, 2007.
  • Zemtsovsky I. I. Antropologiia muzykal’nogo sushchestvovaniia: kniga ob universalii [The Anthropology of Musical Existence: A Book of the Universal]. St Petersburg: Composer, 2003. (In Russian)
  • Werner E. A Voice Still Heard: The Sacred Songs of the Ashkenazic Jews. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 1976.