Rostislav Genika: performer, teacher, composer
Under consideration are various facets of the creative work of Rostislav Genika, a comprehensively educated musician, universally gifted personality, one of the founders of the Kharkov piano school. The research is based on the study of critical reviews of R. Genika’s and his students’ concerts. Under analysis is the main genre of R. Genika as a composer and pianist – a transcription represented by the piece “Concert Paraphrase” to the motive of “Kupava’s Complaints” from P. Tchaikovsky’s music to the play “The Snow Maiden” by A. Ostrovsky. Rostislav Genika (1859 – 1942?) focused on piano art, which can be considered the key basis of all his theoretical, historical and musical-critical generalizations and conclusions, as well as practical activities as a performer, teacher and composer. The education received by R. Genika in the class of N. Rubinstein at the Moscow Conservatory prompted the Kharkov musician to pay tribute to piano performance in the early stages of his career. The information about the pianist R. Genika, which came to us from publications in the press and the memoirs of his colleagues, gives an opportunity to reconstruct, although not in full, the style of his piano playing as a soloist, ensemble performer and accompanist. All this together constituted the subject of a comprehensive review and the relevance of this article. The research material includes reviews of R. Genika’s concerts and an example of his composer’s heritage in the field of piano music – a transcription “Concert Paraphrase” to the motive “Kupava’s Complaints” from P. Tchaikovsky’s music to the play “The Snow Maiden” by A. Ostrovsky. The purpose of the paper is to reveal the universalism of the composer’s talent, the scale of his work, which was mainly focused on piano performance, through the analysis of various aspects of Rostislav Genika’s creative work. It would be wrong to call R. Genika a concert pianist in the traditional sense of the word. He had few solo concerts in his practice and they refer to the very beginning of his work career in Kharkov. As a concertist, he mostly performed works mastered in the class of N. Rubinstein, as well as piano parts in various ensembles, learnt by him when playing with “K. Gorsky Quartet” and other ensemble performers. The piano repertoire of R. Genika included pieces by I. S. Bach, G. Handel, D. Scarlatti, L. van Beethoven, K. M. Weber, F. Liszt, F. Chopin, R. Schumann, M. Mussorgsky, P. Tchaikovsky and others. Raised on the best examples of piano music, R. Genika appreciated such an interpretation that would meet not only the criteria of "accuracy", but would also be spiritually filled, sublimely emotional, and not outwardly ostentatious. Since the first days of working in Kharkov R. Genika, was able to combine lecturing, performing and correspondent activities with piano pedagogy. The sphere of pedagogy was one of the prevailing and time-consuming in his life. There is quite little information about R. Genika as a teacher and it can be found mainly in the reviews of his students’ concerts, in the notes of the local press as well as in the reports on academic concerts and exams at Kharkov Music College and Conservatory. The personal pianistic experience of R. Genika and the pedagogical style of his teacher N. Rubinshtein affected the choice of virtuoso programs and concert programs for his students. R. Genika’s composing experiments are closely related to his concert-pianistic and pedagogical work, as well as to the study of piano music history. The circle of his genre interests in this area was quite symptomatic. As an ardent supporter of concert pianism traditions R. Genika considered the genre of transcriptions and arangementds in the Liszt-Talberg spirit to be a new wave in piano literature of that time, a promising direction. This is how his transcriptions to the motives from “Parsifal” by R. Wagner, a piano arrangement of the “Arabic Dance” from the “Nutcracker” by P. Tchaikovsky, a fantasy “Abyss” to the motive of E. Grieg appeared. R. Genika also wrote short pieces intended for his concerts, as well as for educational practice. Unfortunately, the score of these works are still either not found or not preserved. An exception is the “Concert Paraphrase” to the motive of “Kupava’s Complaints” from P. Tchaikovsky’s music to the play “Snow Maiden” by A. Ostrovsky (author’s handwritten text dedicated to the pianist V. Timanova). Being a pianist was very important for R. Genika. Understanding pianism as a musical aesthetic phenomenon resulted in a multifaceted and deep understanding of the essence of musical art, which was characteristic of R. Genika as a music educator. The musician thought of himself precisely as a “generalist” who could handle any music profession – a performer’s, teacher’s, or researcher’s one. Hence, further study of the creative and critical heritage of R. Genika will invariably affect the spheres of other areas of musical art (opera, chamber, etc.). Such universal personalities as R. Genika have always been an engine for the musical-historical process, idea generator of the era. Nowadays such universal musicians, who would be a kind of "litmus test" of their time and faithfully served the art, are still in need. One of such outstanding figures in Ukraine, a universal personality was Valerii Oleksandrovych Bohdanov (07/13/1939 㶹– 10/10/2017) – performer, teacher, scientific researcher, composer. His multifaceted activities encompassed a wide range of musical art and were reflected in many years of pedagogical work, a large number of research works, transcriptions, and composer’s experiments. We would like to hope that this anniversary collection dedicated to V. Bogdanov will serve as a prelude to a deep and comprehensive study of the life and work of this bright and extraordinary musician.