Edward Alekseyev – founder of Yakut ethnomusicology

Abstract

The paper studies the life and creative path of the outstanding Russian ethnomusicologist E. E. Alekseev. He was born in 1937 in Yakutsk. He studied at the Moscow State Conservatory, named after P. I. Tchaikovsky. He wrote a large number of scientific papers. To a great extent, he explored the mode-scale and mode-intonation sphere of Yakut folk song and early folklore traditional music. He created models of the mode-intonation basis of archaic singing. He also studied various aspects of the traditional singing of Yakuts: genres and styles, the connections of the word and music of Yakut folk songs, the heterophonic polyphony of the Yakut ritual osuokhai, and the Yakut folk instrument khomus. Together with N. N. Nikolaeva, he published the collection of Yakut folk songs of various styles and genres (“Samples of Yakut song folklore”). He conducted the editorial work on the publication of other researchers’ works. He edited the piano works of G. A. Grigoryan. He participated in the release of the record “Ustin Nokhsorov Sings” and the creation of the documentary “Times of dreams” about shamans of Siberia and the Far East. As a composer, he created romances, choirs, and treatments of folk songs. He composed “Sergelyakhsky sketches” comprising 4 piano pieces. Together with composer G. N. Komrakov, he created the opera “Song of Manchary” on a historical plot. His research work is being developed by Russian and foreign researchers of musical folklore. A lot of statements put forward by E. E. Alekseev have further prospects for study.