A unique V.I. Povetkin Center for Musical Antiquity was opened in 1990 in Veliky Novgorod — one of the oldest cities in Russia. In the Middle Ages, Veliky Novgorod was a major commercial, religious and cultural center of Rus', second in importance only to Kiev. It was here that the Russian musical language originated: traditional znamenny chants, choral polyphony and the art of bell ringing. Many artifacts, documents and testimonies have been preserved that tell of the diversity of musical instruments of that time.
The founder of the Center, Vladimir Povetkin, was a painter-restorer and musician who developed an original method for restoring and reconstructing the musical instruments of ancient Novgorod. In addition, the scholar made an invaluable contribution to the development of musical archaeology as a field. Its essence is to take archaeological finds as a basis and recreate the appearance and sound of ancient musical instruments. Boris Roshchin wrote about this:
"...everyone assumed that the sound of medieval Russian instruments was rather poor, primitive. V.I. Povetkin proposed, while preserving all archaeological finds as carefully as possible and by no means experimenting on them, to reconstruct sounding instruments on the basis of all the data and from new wood. Thanks to his astonishing musical intuition, he fully succeeded in this."
The Center of Musical Antiquities is located in a distinctive house with a carved little porch, which Vladimir Povetkin and his associates furnished with their own hands. The Center regularly hosts guided tours. Here you can see (and listen to) gusli, jaw harps, harps, lyres, whistles from various historical periods. Some instruments can even be played. The Center also holds lectures, concerts of music of ancient Novgorod, and exhibitions. Characteristically, the program is not limited to music alone: the Center hosts thematic events that tell about the ethnography, crafts, traditions and everyday life of ancient Novgorodians.
The V.I. Povetkin Center of Musical Antiquities is a scientific and cultural stronghold of the musical tradition of ancient Novgorod, with no analogues in Russia or in the world. The Center's activity is unique. It is a living space in which traditions are closely intertwined with modernity.
May 18, 2023
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V.I. Povetkin Center for Musical Antiquity: gusli, jaw harps and musical archaeology
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