Free music school (abbreviated as HMS) is a private music and educational organization in St. Petersburg. It was founded in 1862 at the initiative of M. A. Balakirev and G. Ya. Lomakin . Officially, on the basis of the charter, the school began to exist on November 11, 1867. It was under the imperial protection. The school's directors were G. Ya. Lomakin (1867–1868), M. A. Balakirev (1867–1873 and 1881–1908), N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1874–1881), S. M. Lyapunov (1908 -1917).
Balakirev saw the school’s goal as “delivering insufficient music education to insufficient people to ennoble their aspirations and to make decent church choirs from them <...>, as well as to develop new talents from them through the preparation of soloists”. HMS students were residents of the capital, without age or social restrictions. The school received its first premises at the Medical and Surgical Academy . Subsequently (in 1871-1900), the BMS was located in the building of the St. Petersburg City Council , which was provided without rent.
The free music school was conceived by its founders not only as an educational, but also as a concert organization (fees from concerts were an important source of income for the school). HMS concerts (choral conducted by Lomakin, and by orchestral Balakirev) in the 1860s and 1870s became a platform for the propaganda of new Russian music. They performed the compositions of M. I. Glinka , A. S. Dargomyzhsky and especially the composers of The Mighty Handful . Due to a lack of financial resources, the school's activity from the second half of the 1880s was limited to vocal classes and teaching elementary music theory . Concerts that were once a mandatory part of the educational process became rare (the last HMS concert dedicated to the memory of Balakirev was held on March 5, 1911).
Among the teachers of the BMS (besides Lomakin, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov) N.P. Bryansky, A.I. Rubets, V.N. Pashkhalov , G.O. Dyutsh, V.M. Kutkin. Among the graduates of the school - the first performer of the party Boris Godunov , singer I. A. Melnikov .
The successor to the BMS in St. Petersburg (since 1918) was the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov School of Music .
Literature
- Stasov V.V. Twenty-fifth anniversary of the Free School of Music // IV 1887, No. 3, pp. 599-642; reprint on Sat articles by Stasov (M., 1953).
- Korabelnikova L.Z. Free music school // Musical Encyclopedia. T.1. M., 1973, stlb. 433.
- Free music school // Petrovskaya I.F. Musical education and musical public organizations in St. Petersburg 1801-1917. Encyclopedia. St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 39-44.