Nikolai Yakovlevich Tchaikin

Nikolai Yakovlevich Chaikin ( Russian Николай Яковлевич Чайкин ; born February 2 ^{. Jul} / 15. February  1915 ^greg. In Kharkov , Russian Empire , now Ukraine ; † 17th February 2000 in Moscow ) was a composer , bayan player , teacher and Honored Artist of RSFSR (1980).

Life

Origin and musical teaching

Born into a family of office workers, Tchaikin got an interest in music from his father, who was himself an amateur musician. While attending the music college, he worked from 1930 to 1936 in the orchestra for folk instruments of the Kharkov Radio Committee. In 1936 he entered the Kiev Conservatory at the historical-theoretical faculty. There he studied composition (with Levko Rewuzkyj and Wiktor S. Kosenko ), instrumentation (with Borys Lyatoschynskyj ) and piano (with Abram Lufer ) in the classes . The Russian composer Reinhold Glière was among his teachers . At the same time he was giving courses in music theory and reading scores there. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1940 as a composer and pianist.

Musical creation in war

After graduating, Tschaikin worked as a composer, conductor and accordionist-bayanist from 1941 to 1945 in the Kiev Ensemble-an-der-Front under Scheinin and Wirski, where he produced more than two hundred arrangements and instrumentations by Russian and other composers. With the retreat of the Red Army, leaving Ukraine, the ensemble was evacuated to Saratov . There Tchaikin met the musician Iwan Panizki (who later performed his concert for bayan and symphonic orchestra with the Saratov Philharmonic in January 1952). During this time the composition of the sonata in B minor for bayan falls, which is of particular importance, especially in the creation of demanding repertoires for this instrument, which had previously not known similar standards of difficulty, complexity and conceptual depth. It showed the possibilities of the bayan as a concert instrument and formed the basis for the creation of other high-quality works. Ultimately, this first sonata for bayan in Soviet music history led the 29-year-old to membership in the Soviet composers' association.

Russian period - teaching

After the end of the Second World War, Tschaikin moved to Russia. He worked in Moscow as an editor at MusGis, the largest Soviet music publisher; a job he held until 1956. In 1951, at the request of the rectorate of the State Musical-Pedagogical Institute in Gnessin, he accepted an apprenticeship in which he taught the bayan, chamber ensemble, methodology, instrumentation and score reading classes. The Gnessin Institute had set up a department for folk instruments only three years earlier, to which the bayan belongs. In 1963 he was given the title of lecturer, but a year later he did not prevail in the internal competition for the filling of his position and left the institute. From 1964 to the end he held an apprenticeship at the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory Michail Glinka, from 1973 with the title of professor. At the same time he taught at the Belarusian Conservatory from 1973 to 1978.

Tschaikin represented the Soviet side several times at international symposia and acted as part of the jury at domestic Russian, Soviet and international competitions. As he spoke several languages, he worked actively for the Confédération International des Accordéonistes (CIA) at UNESCO . 1970 to 1972 he held the position of Vice President of the International Confederation and from 1976 was chairman of the music committee. In 1980 he was named an Honored Artist of the RSFSR. He died on February 17, 2000 on the third day after his 85th birthday and was buried in the Domodedovo Cemetery, about 37 km south of Moscow .

Style and impact

Tchaikin's first successes were with the Sonata in B minor for bayan, which was written during the war. In addition to showing the possibilities of the instrument and the new complexity of the piece, one innovation was above all in the way the works were presented and presented. Tschaikin used the sonata form and sonatic cycle forms in four movements. Passages, scales and “symphonized” monumental representations contributed to the recognition of the bajan as a solo instrument in the symphonic orchestra. While the musical variety and complexity of the works was typical until the mid-1960s, his style later changed towards the chamber music conception of solo or chamber music-based works, the general absence of diversity, the use of high musical registers and the avoidance of Duplications. Since then, his works have found recognition at international competitions such as the CIA's Coupe Mondiale with the Concert Suite (Leicester, Great Britain 1968) and the Ukrainian Suite (Bruges, Belgium 1971).

The sonata and the first concerto for bayan and symphonic orchestra encouraged the bayanists to think outside the box and to strive for a professionalization of their way of working. Tchaikin's way of working as a pedagogue resulted in the formation of a Soviet school for the bayan. As part of the question about the type of teaching on the bayan, he kept in contact with other musicians around the world and developed and established the new way of playing the bayan with five fingers, after it was previously customary to put the thumb behind the fingerboard .

Works

• Sonata in B minor for bayan (1944)
• Concerto for bayan and symphonic orchestra No. 1 (1951)
• Ukrainian Rhapsody for Bayan Trio (1960)
• Sonata for Bayan No. 2 (1964)
• Concert Suite (1964)
• Children's album (1969)
• Ukrainian Suite (1971)
• Concerto for bayan and orchestra No. 2 (1972)
• As by Magic or The Magic Balalaika (По щучьему велению, или Волшебная балалайка) - Ballet (1987)

literature

• Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Tschaikin: Course in reading sheet music for orchestras of Russian folk instruments (Курс чтения партитур для оркестра русских народных инструментов), Moscow. 1966–67 in two volumes
• AP Basurmanow / Editing by Nikolai J. Tschaikin: Handbook of the Bayanists (Справочник баяниста). Ed .: Sowetski kompositor (Советский композитор [today composer Sankt-Petersburg / Композитор Санкт-Петербург]), Moscow 1987
• Biographical, encyclopedic dictionary of the world (Всемирный биографический энциклопедический словарь). Ed .: Great Russian Encyclopedia (БРЭ) (publisher). Moscow 1998

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Jurij Jakowlewitsch Lichatschjow: On the 100th birthday of the composer Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Tschaikin. In: www.baspb.ru. Bayan and accordion website in St. Petersburg, accessed October 2, 2017 (Russian).  
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Nikolai Tchaikin. In: akkordeonfest.ru. Accordion Festival (part of the St. Petersburg Division of the Russian Creative Association of Cultural Workers), accessed October 2, 2017 (Russian).  
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} A. P. Basurmanow / Editor Nikolai J. Tschaikins: Tschaikin Nikolai Jakowlewitsch. In: www.goldaccordion.com. Sovetsky composer, 1987, accessed October 2, 2017 (Russian, online August 6, 2009).