02/09/2021
On Wednesday, January 6th, 2021, a special edition of the online international talk, which is a piano concert talk, was held on Zoom. Sixty-three participants, including Japanese and international students, faculty members, and staff members, joined.
Prof. Evgeny Pyshkin (from the Software Engineering Lab) was invited as the speaker. The date January 6th was chosen because it is the eve of Orthodox Christmas (Russian Christmas). In such a special condition, the talk focused on discussing Tchaikovsky, a Russian composer. Prof. Pyshkin also introduced a few pieces from different composers to support the discussion.
The concert talk was divided into two parts. The first half of the event consisted of some pieces and explanations. It started with Tchaikovsky's "Reverie interrompue", following by Wagner's and Liszt's work. Prof. Pyshkin introduced these two composers because they were active before Tchaikovsky. Introducing these two composers' pieces allows us to compare Tchaikovsky's composition style with theirs. He introduced his favorite composer, Scriabin, also a Russian composer. He was active after Tchaikovsky, so his composition style was also used to compare with Tchaikovsky's. After discussing Tchaikovsky's composing style, the focus shifted to discussing Tchaikovsky's "CHILDREN'S(?) ALBUM: TIME, METAPHORS, REDISCOVERIES". While explaining about the thoughts on the work, Schumann's "Album for the Young" was used. It is because Tchaikovsky stated that his work, "CHILDREN'S(?) ALBUM", has a connection with Schumann's "Album for the Young".
In the second half of the event, Prof. Pyshkin performed the entire "Children's Album, "consisting of 24 short pieces. The pictures displayed on the screen were the illustrations of a Russian artist, Vera Pavlova. She drew those illustrations based on the "Children's Album".
What makes this international talk special is that it focused on arts, instead of a country. It is rare to know more about Russian music during the Romantic era and enjoy piano performances. We believed that this talk could arouse people's interest in classical music in general.
The next international talk "Let's learn about Vietnam online!" will be held on February 3rd. We're looking forward to seeing you on Zoom!
