Marina Kavtaradze
PhD in Art History
The Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire
Professor
Tbilisi, Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0005-4313-461X
Marina Kavtaradze
PhD in Art History
The Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire
Professor
Tbilisi, Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0005-4313-461X
The Tbilisi Musical Life of the 19th Century in the Reflection of the Press
(Text and Context)
The paper deals with one of the important topics of Georgian musical discourse – the theme of Tbilisi, namely the phenomenon of Tbilisi's musical life. The research topic is the press of the second half of the 19th century (newspapers “Kavkaz”, “Teatri”, “Tsiskari”, “Droeba”) as a mirror of the era, the source of information with a PR function to attract listeners and viewers, which reflects main trends of the epoch and is an attempt to answer eternal questions - who, what, where, when. Based on objective reasons, in the absence of musical materials, the press gives an idea of the remarkable facts and events from the musical life of the epoch, and to some extent, provides the opportunity to shape their historical retrospective.
The main task of the study is to reconstruct the musical life of the epoch based on scanty materials scattered in the press of the time – information announcements, reviews, letters and articles, representing Tbilisi of that time.
Research methods are dictated by the interdisciplinary nature of the topic and based on the synthesis of comparative-historical and musical-cultural approaches...
The origins of Georgian music journalism and criticism are distinguished in their diversity and enviable abundance of sources. Of particular interest is the then newly opened Opera House and opera genre in general, this is why most publications touch upon this field: the majority of the material refers to the Opera and Ballet Theater, new opera performances, tours of Italian and Russian opera and operetta troupes, and individual opera singers.
Even though, compared to the musical life of the second half of the 19th century, our contemporary cultural life is much more multifaceted and diverse, therefore, the arena for music-journalistic activities is much greater, given the media space and the Internet's possibilities, as well as the increase in the professionalism of musicians, today’s music journalism undeniably looks much poorer and less interesting than the publications from a century and a half ago.
The press review and analytical excursus provided in the paper reflect the formation and development process of musical Tbilisiana. These materials are the result of source research and reflect an interesting perspective for a comprehensive study of the Tbilisi community.
The author presents the main themes from the musical life of Tbilisi in the context of the global problems of the epoch.
Keywords: Press in the XIX century, musical life in Tbilisi, musical journalism