The Academic Activities of the Gnesins’ State Musical-Pedagogical Institute During the First Ten Years of its Work

Abstract

On the basis of the documents preserved at the Russian State Archive for Literature and Art, the author of the article illuminates the historical context of the inauguration in 1944 of a musical institution of higher education of a scholarly-methodological profile, and also provides her evaluation of the first decade of its functioning. As a characteristic feature, the absence of a strongly pronounced “formative period” is noted, since the activities of the Gnesins’ State Musical-Pedagogical Institute relied on the half-a-century old experience of the functioning of the other educational institutions founded by the Gnesins’. The article examines questions of the active development of the music theory education of a three-level system (from the school to the college, and then to the higher educational institution), of the formation of the genres of musicological literature, the collaboration of the faculty of the new musical education with the Moscow Conservatory, etc. The author of the article emphasizes that the constructive scholarly-methodological work under the guidance of Elena Fabianovna Gnesina was of an expedient character. During the course of a decade the tutorial-methodological basis of the professional musical education of the whole country was formed. During the course of a short period of time, the activities of the institute acquired a national scale, thereby, the Gnesins’ State Musical-Pedagogical Institutes became an outstanding project of time.

Keywords: Gnesins’ State Musical-Pedagogical Institute, musical education in the Soviet Union, Elena Fabianovna Gnesina, musicological research, professional musical education