Nikolay Golovanov's Memorial Flat

At the end of 1969 "The Artistic Laboratory of the Conductor's Creative Activities" was set up on the basis of N. Golovanov's memorial legacy as a branch affiliated to the Glinka Museum. Nikolay Semyonovich Golovanov, an outstanding conductor (1891  -  1953) for many years headed such leading artistic bodies as the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre and simultaneously the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra of the Soviet Radio. The musician's enormous archives consisting of manuscripts, documents, letters and photos are a testimony of the history of Russian culture. There are music books, books on the history of music, theatre and painting, rare editions and fiction in N. Golovanov's invaluable library. A wonderful collection of paintings, sculptures and articles of applied art reflects the diversity of the musician's artistic interests. The conductor's personal belongings, his documents and rare photographs were used as the basis of the exposition of N. Golovanov's Memorial Flat, which was open to its first visitors in 1974.

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 Alexander Goldenweiser's Memorial Flat

Alexander Goldenweiser's Memorial Flat is the first branch affiliated to the Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture. Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser (1875 - 1961) was a pianist, professor, composer, Doctor of Art-criticism. Paul Pabst and Alexander Siloti taught him to play the piano and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov gave him lessons in composition. Anton Arensky and Sergey Taneyev were also his teachers. A. Goldenweiser performed as a soloist and ensemble pianist. Close contacts with Sergey Rakhmaninov, Alexander Skryabin and Nikolay Medtner greatly influenced A. Goldenweiser's skill. Taking part in the reorganisation of musical education in the Soviet Union A. Goldenweiser created one of the leading piano schools in the country; he enriched performing and pedagogic traditions of the Moscow piano school. Over half a century A. Goldenweiser was professor and at different periods the head of the Moscow conservatoire. Among his numerous pupils (all together over two hundred) are Dmitri Bashkirov, Grygory Ginsburg, Leonid Roisman, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Tatyana Nikolaeva, Roza Tamarkina and Samuil Feinberg. A. Goldenweiser edited a number of works by Russian and foreign composers. He was the author of recollections about Lev Tolstoy with whom he was friends as well as those about Russian composers among them Sergey Taneyev, Alexander Skryabin and Sergey Rakhmaninov. A. Goldenweiser's diary presents a great interest.

Alexander Goldenweiser was a true friend and supporter of the Glinka Museum for many years. In 1955 he presented his archives and library to the State, his flat became a branch of the Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture. In April 1959 an exposition in Alexander Goldenweiser's Memorial Flat was opened. After functioning for half a century the necessity for its repair and reconstruction emerged. The work was completed in 2006 and Goldenweiser's Memorial Flat got a chance to display a greater number of memorial exhibits. It also became possible to arrange concerts, expositions and conferences which implement performing and pedagogic traditions of Goldenweiser. The memorial part of the collection reflects Goldenweiser's relations with his colleagues, such outstanding personalities as Prokofiev, Skryabin, Rakhmaninov and Medtner. One may get acquainted with the creative world of the musician, conservatoire professor of the past, to sense the air of home gatherings, to hear sounds of the memorial pianos which keys were touched by the hands of great musicians. 

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 The Sergey Prokofiev Museum

The Sergey Prokofiev Museum depicts the life and creative work of the outstanding composer of the first half of the 20th century. One may get acquainted with the fate of the musician who was one of the brightest and paradoxical creative personalities of the century. Sergey Sergeevich Prokofiev's first appearance on the concert stage compelled general attention. Nobody could be indifferent to his music. It was either appreciated or rejected, which occurred more often, because of innovatory methods, unusual sonority, hard and brutal rhythms.

The Museum is located on two levels. It displays the exposition "Sergey Prokofiev and Moscow" which informs about the most significant compositions, events, creative contacts of the composer during the last 20 years of his life as well as about his creative activities. The exposition includes the first ballet of the composer "Romeo and Juliet" created for the Soviet public. One may see the costume of Juliet whose part was performed by Galina Ulanova, Prokofiev's autograph and the ballet music book, photographs of some performance scenes. The exposition also includes papers and documents related to other Prokofiev's music works of the 1930s - the 1950s. They are the operas "Semyon Kotko" and "Betrothal in the Monastery", the ballets "Cinderella", "The Stone Flower". The dramatic story of creating and staging Prokofiev's opera "War and Peace" on Lev Tolstoy's novel is also presented in the exposition.

The sections dedicated to Vsevolod Meyerhold and Sergey Eisenstein, outstanding prominent producers of the epoch deal with Prokofiev's creative cooperation with these masters who transformed the theatre and the cinema of the 20th century.  Eisenstein was incessantly working up film editing technique, which was dear to Prokofiev because the principle of dynamic replacement of images was distinctive for his music. Cooperation of that kind brought forth such cinema masterpieces as "Alexander Nevsky" and "Ivan the Terrible". Eisenstein admired Prokofiev's skill to create the needed number of music bars indicated by the producer in order to coincide with the time of the film episode. Such precision was linked to the great power of influence of music which recreated images of Russian history.

The Sergey Prokofiev Museum exposition also presents papers and documents narrating about conductors, instrumentalists and singers, the most vivid interpreters of Prokofiev's music. Personal belongings and pieces of furniture are exhibited in Prokofiev's Memorial Room. The typewriter, chess, his autograph were testimonies of master's work at the ballet "The Stone Flower" during his last days.

Social creative gatherings are planned to take place in the Concert and Exhibition Hall and Performers' Drawing Room. Acquainting the public with the music of the 20th century is one of the tasks of the Museum. That is why together with Prokofiev's works music of other composers is performed at concerts.

Visitors are offered video recordings of opera and ballets by the composer in interpretations of different producers and ballet masters as well as theatres of various countries of the world. The Concert and Exhibition Hall is simultaneously a show room. Scientific conferences are held in the Museum, music and culture experts and other professionals participate in their work. The conference "Prokofiev. Shostakovich. Antitheses and Parallels" took place in April 2006.

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 The "Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Moscow" Museum

On May 18, 2007 the "Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Moscow" Museum, a new branch affiliated to the Glinka Museum, was opened in Kudrinskaya Square in the house, which the composer rented in 1872 ? 1873. In the residence Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky created the Second Symphony, the music to the spring tale "The Snow-Maiden" by Alexander Ostrovsky and the symphonic fantasia "The Storm". The exposition recreated the Moscow atmosphere of the 1860s and of the 1870s, which influenced to a great extent the formation of the composer's personality. P. Tchaikovsky, a graduate of the St. Petersburg conservatoire, was 26 when he came to Moscow at the invitation of Nikolay Rubinstein. Twelve years later he left the ancient capital, being on the threshold of his world fame. If at the beginning Moscow had effect on Tchaikovsky, later he became a key figure of the artistic life of the city and more than that of all Russia.

Valeriya Evseeva, head of the Museum stresses, "We do not call our Museum memorial and we do not compete with P. Tchaikovsky State House-Museum in Klin, which is the only one in the world possessing a great number of Tchaikovsky's personal belongings. We depicted the musical, cultural and artistic atmosphere of Moscow at the time of Tchaikovsky, showed his social intercourse and the atmosphere in which the composer's personality was formed. We also tried to reveal creative artistic views and interests of Tchaikovsky and how he started his way to the peak of his fame and how he became the greatest composer who has always been and will be the pride of Russia".

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 Sergey Taneyev's Memorial House

Since the end of 2001 the Glinka Museum has been carrying out work to set up Sergey Taneyev's Memorial House in the premises where the great Russian composer lived in 1904-1915. Sergey Taneyev was also a virtuoso pianist, the greatest music scientist, "conscience of musical Moscow". The house, a vivid witness of the past, used to be the musical and cultural centre of Moscow at its time. Famous "Taneyev's Tuesdays" were visited by the composer's students among them Sergey Rakhmaninov, Alexander Skryabin, Nikolay Medtner, Alexey Stanchinsky, Alexander Goldenweiser, Nikolay Zhilyayev. The parties were also attended by family members of the Tolstoys, by Alexander Goedicke, Modest Tchaikovsky, Sergey Prokofiev, Anton Arensky, Andrey Belyi, Apollinary Vasnetsov, Kliment Timiryasev and Ivan Tsvetaev.

Sergey Taneyev was known to be a disinterested man. He studied with his pupils free of charge. In this house he also worked at the theoretical papers "Invertible Counterpoint in the Strict Style" and "The Study of Canon", which later became world famous. Sergey Taneyev composed chamber and instrumental music, choruses, the famous cantata "At the Reading of a Psalm" on Alexey Khomyakov's words.

The Glinka Museum Fund incorporates memorial articles, documents, archival papers as well as a draft of the composer's two studies designed in the 1950s by Mikhail Uspensky, a painter.  Descendants of the composer presented the Glinka Museum with a unique set of furniture and articles of everyday life of the Taneyevs. They will be a good addition to the exposition of Sergey Taneyev's Memorial House.

The address of the Taneyev's museum to be is 2/18, Malyi Vlasievsky lane. However it took several years to clear the premises of the unique monument of history and culture. At the end of 2007 the Glinka Museum took possession only of a small part of Sergey Taneyev's house. In the near future the second part of the memorial house will be transferred to the Glinka Museum. The main aim is to reconstruct the house which is in a critical state, to restore the interior of the rooms and to start the activities of the cultural centre. In Sergey Taneyev's house exhibitions, chamber concerts and scientific conferences will be held and traditions of everyday life of Moscow intelligentsia at the beginning of the 20th century will be revived. It is planned to set up a library containing notebooks and literature in addition to a record library in Sergey Taneyev's Memorial House.

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 Fyodor Shalyapin's Memorial Estate

On September 23, 1988 Fyodor Shalyapin's Memorial House, now Fyodor Shalyapin's Memorial Estate was opened. Novinski Boulevard was the last Moscow address of the singer. He bought the 18th century estate for his family which lived in it almost twelve years. Shalyapin's memorial abode was set up by joint efforts of the Glinka Museum and Shalyapin's children mainly because Ekaterina Alexeeva, head of the Glinka Museum was friends with Irina Fyodorovna and Boris Fyodorovich Shalyapins. A pretty good effort had been made for about 30 years since the end of the 1940s to get permission to create a memorial house of the great singer. Only in 1978 the Moscow City Council handed over the house in order to found a museum but…exclusively as "The History of Russian Vocal Art" museum. In those years it was impossible to name the museum after Fyodor Shalyapin as he was still labeled a white emigrant and an outcast.

After the singer's departure abroad the magnificent building which had been turned into a communal dwelling was deteriorating and was about to be pulled down on the eve of the Moscow 1980 Olympic Games. The Glinka Museum managed to save the estate. It was reconstructed and Fyodor Shalyapin's Memorial Estate could welcome the first visitors, the great singer's descendants among them.

In 2008 Shalyapin's Museum celebrated its 20th anniversary. However there were remarkable days in the past when the Shalyapins were visited by Sergei Rakhmaninov, Leonid Sobinov, Maxim Gorky, Ivan Bunin, Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Golovin, Mamont Dalsky, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Ivan Moskvin.

The suite of rooms on the ground floor that witnessed Shalyapin have been restored. Among them the Boudoir of Iola Ignatievna, Shalyapin's wife, the Dining room, the Green drawing room, Fyodor Shalyapin's Study, the White hall, the Billiard room. These halls, the memorial furniture, personal belongings, rare photographs, picturesque works by outstanding artists recreate the image of the singer, the traditions and history of his family. The exposition in the halls on the first floor, the former children's rooms narrates about Shalyapin theatre and concert activities.

The cosy house in the centre of the capital quickly got its recognition and nowadays it remains a favourite musical house in Moscow. Actors of leading theatres perform here; sound recording parties and get-togethers of intellectuals are held here too. The memorial interior becomes the site for telecasts on Shalyapin's art and on his opera partners.

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