18th International Meeting

StubickeToplice
Croatia

13-17 April, 2011

at the invitation of

Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku

Ulrich Morgenstern, 
Hamburg, Germany
ulrich.morgenstern@t-online.de

The garmoshka Player Mikhail Sorochinsky. A Young Non-revivalist musician in the Smolensk Region

In the second half of the 20th century the unisonor diatonic button accordion (garmon’, garmoshka) khromka was the most wide-spread musical instrument in rural Russia. Nowadays regular musical activities are largely limited to village discos, sporadic guitar playing and predominantly Soviet-style performances in the regional centres. Tradition-oriented musicians and ensembles are more an urban phenomenon. Garmoshka players, acquainted with the local styles and repertoires, as a rule, belong to the pre-war generations.
In the context of this undeniable grey out, the young musician Mikhail Sorochinsky (b. 1974) from the Prechistoye rayon of the Smolensk region is a rare exception. He acquired the complicated old style-tunes from his father and even more from his uncle. In contrary to the recent past when an elaborated performing style considerably heightened the social prestige of a young male musician, Sorochinsky’s interest in the garmoshka is first of all a matter of aesthetic enjoyment. He is also far from any revivalist activism. From time to time the cultural department of the rayon and other officials invite the musician to play the garmoshka at festivities and competitions, but generally such performance occasions do not seem to be of high importance for Sorochinsky.
The phenomenon of the lonesome village musician, playing most of all for himself, is relatively wide-spread in contemporary Russia. Frequently these are the best musicians of their district. The phenomenon of music without social life to some extend may correct some considerations in modern ethnomusicology on the relation of the social and the aesthetic dimension of music.