Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Oct 2022)
Music Training in the Ekaterinburg Diocesan Women’s School at the Turn of the 19th–20th Centuries in the Context of Religious and Musical Education of the Region
Abstract
The article is devoted to studying the traditions of Church singing education in the Urals on the example of Ekaterinburg Diocesan Women’s School. The author aims to reconstruct the main activities of the school on the basis of archive materials, to identify the role of subject «Church Singing» in teaching and upbringing and to consider some methodological aspects of teaching. The article provides a brief summary of teaching and learning process, the activities reflecting the skills formed during Church Singing lessons, and describes the teaching aids used in the process. The article consistently analyzes the curriculum, reveals the role of doctrinal and musical disciplines in it, conducted divine services (including bishop’s) and extracurricular activities. Some concert programs and repertoire of the liturgical women’s choir are given. Special attention is paid to the teachers of musical disciplines, as well as teachers of liturgical singing. The most important features of the methodology of teaching liturgical singing by A. N. Karasev, according to whose manuals the classes were held at the diocesan women’s college, are also revealed. The author presents corresponding publications of the Ekaterinburg Diocesan Gazette, which recorded in detail the life of Ekaterinburg Diocesan Women’s School. It is noted that in process of training, students were introduced to the culture of native country, they also received professional abilities and skills in singing and even regency, and this was accompanied by a process of forming religious, moral and ethical ideals, together with value orientations imprinted in Orthodox Art. Students studied melodic features of a number of canonical chants and thoroughly scrutinized the genre system and church service structure. There was a study and practical learning of the annual, weekly and daily cycle of Church service; the eight church modes and the main set of characteristic chants were also studied. The author has concluded that teaching at the Ekaterinburg Diocesan Women’s School combined both the religious and upbringing, educational (including Rudiments of Music) and historical-cultural aspects.
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