Reading Memoirs by T.N. Livanova: Portraits of Contemporaries. Part I

Abstract

For the first time, the article attempts to analyse some aspects of the content of T.N. Livanova’s Memoirs (1974-1983), a three-volume text corpus preserved in the archives of the Russian National Museum of Music (RNMM). Memoirs are being prepared for publication as a planned work of the State Institute for Art Studies. This article continues a series of materials devoted to this valuable source. A significant place in it is occupied by the portraits of the author’s contemporaries. The article discusses different types of such verbal portraits — from more detailed generalized characteristics to “instantaneous” and very vivid ones consisting of literally a few words. The gallery of the portrayed is represented by people of different generations. The narrative begins with family chronicles — the portraits of Livanova’s relatives on the mother’s and father’s side, as well as her husband V.E. Ferman, and continues with the characteristics of friends and employees. Among them are composers D.B. Kabalevsky, N.Ya. Myaskovsky, V.Ya. Shebalin, and V.G. Zakharov, researchers B.V. Asafiev, M.V. Ivanov-Boretsky, V.V. Protopopov, Yu.V. Keldysh, Yu.K. Evdokimova, Yu.N. Kholopov and others.

Keywords

• memoirs
• t.n. livanova
• portraits
• generalized characteristics
• “instantaneous” sketches
• contemporaries