RE: Abrahamoff ?

He has a Wiki entry under Avraamov. One of his scales is mentioned disparagingly by J. Murray Barbour in Tuning and Temperament, IIRC. See the web page below for the wiki entry or Google Advanced on Avraamov.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arseny_Avraamov

--john

Thanks John! -C.

John Chalmers wrote:

> He has a Wiki entry under Avraamov. One of his scales is mentioned
> disparagingly by J. Murray Barbour in Tuning and Temperament, IIRC.
> See the web page below for the wiki entry or Google Advanced on
> Avraamov.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arseny_Avraamov
>
> --john
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "John H. Chalmers" <JHCHALMERS@...> wrote:
>
>
> He has a Wiki entry under Avraamov. One of his scales is mentioned
> disparagingly by J. Murray Barbour in Tuning and Temperament, IIRC. See
> the web page below for the wiki entry or Google Advanced on Avraamov.

Sadly, nothing there on 175 et.

I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if you are really interested.

By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian futurism, and it's really interesting.

Daniel Forro

On 9 Sep 2010, at 8:04 AM, John H. Chalmers wrote:

>
> He has a Wiki entry under Avraamov. One of his scales is mentioned
> disparagingly by J. Murray Barbour in Tuning and Temperament, IIRC. > See
> the web page below for the wiki entry or Google Advanced on Avraamov.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arseny_Avraamov
>
> --john

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
> I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if
> you are really interested.
>
> By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian
> futurism, and it's really interesting.

That would be great. I'm especially interested in anything about 175edo.

Are there any English web pages with good information?

The futurist movement - of which I know mostly about the Italians - had some
extremely creative ideas about music and performance art.

Chris

On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:10 PM, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:

>
>
> I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if
> you are really interested.
>
> By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian
> futurism, and it's really interesting.
>
> Daniel Forro
>
>
> On 9 Sep 2010, at 8:04 AM, John H. Chalmers wrote:
>
> >
> > He has a Wiki entry under Avraamov. One of his scales is mentioned
> > disparagingly by J. Murray Barbour in Tuning and Temperament, IIRC.
> > See
> > the web page below for the wiki entry or Google Advanced on Avraamov.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arseny_Avraamov
> >
> > --john
>
>
>

Andrey Smirnov will probably know. you can find him at:
http://asmir.theremin.ru/

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> Are there any English web pages with good information?
>
> The futurist movement - of which I know mostly about the Italians - had some
> extremely creative ideas about music and performance art.
>
>
> Chris
>
> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:10 PM, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if
> > you are really interested.
> >
> > By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian
> > futurism, and it's really interesting.
> >
> > Daniel Forro
> >
> >
> > On 9 Sep 2010, at 8:04 AM, John H. Chalmers wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > He has a Wiki entry under Avraamov. One of his scales is mentioned
> > > disparagingly by J. Murray Barbour in Tuning and Temperament, IIRC.
> > > See
> > > the web page below for the wiki entry or Google Advanced on Avraamov.
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arseny_Avraamov
> > >
> > > --john
> >
> >
> >
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> Are there any English web pages with good information?
>
> The futurist movement - of which I know mostly about the Italians -
> had some extremely creative ideas about music and performance art.
>

The german wikipedia page provides the following english link (that is missing in the english wikipedia page):

http://sonification.eu/avraamov

Not that much, though...
--
Hans Straub

> >
> > I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if
> > you are really interested.
> >
> > By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian
> > futurism, and it's really interesting.
>
> That would be great. I'm especially interested in anything about 175edo.
>
That mention of 175edo by Milhaud is not necessarily reliable. He describes Avraamov's work (whom he mistakenly calls Abrahamoff - or can the transliteration be so much off?) briefly, as an example of all the weird theories that were talked about in Moscow at that time.

Thanks everyone for the info.

I looked up the reference in Barbour's book, mentioned by John Chalmers. Barbour says that Avraamov's scale is worse than the worst scale listed in his whole book because it has such"unusual superparticular ratios". Whets the appetite...

Juhani

Here are some Russian links (English readers look for ABpaaMOB):
http://asmir.info/lib/index.htm

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Juhani" <jnylenius@...> wrote:
>
>
> > >
> > > I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if
> > > you are really interested.
> > >
> > > By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian
> > > futurism, and it's really interesting.
> >
> > That would be great. I'm especially interested in anything about 175edo.
> >
> That mention of 175edo by Milhaud is not necessarily reliable. He describes Avraamov's work (whom he mistakenly calls Abrahamoff - or can the transliteration be so much off?) briefly, as an example of all the weird theories that were talked about in Moscow at that time.
>
> Thanks everyone for the info.
>
> I looked up the reference in Barbour's book, mentioned by John Chalmers. Barbour says that Avraamov's scale is worse than the worst scale listed in his whole book because it has such"unusual superparticular ratios". Whets the appetite...
>
> Juhani
>

Unfortunately some of them are not available without login, and I didn't find where to register...

And what's available for reading, there's not much about Avramov. And from his own article there's only a short segment where he didn't write in detail about microtonality.

Daniel Forro

On 9 Sep 2010, at 6:16 PM, robert wrote:

> Here are some Russian links (English readers look for ABpaaMOB):
> http://asmir.info/lib/index.htm
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Juhani" <jnylenius@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>> I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if
>>>> you are really interested.
>>>>
>>>> By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian
>>>> futurism, and it's really interesting.
>>>
>>> That would be great. I'm especially interested in anything about >>> 175edo.
>>>
>> That mention of 175edo by Milhaud is not necessarily reliable. He >> describes Avraamov's work (whom he mistakenly calls Abrahamoff - >> or can the transliteration be so much off?) briefly, as an example >> of all the weird theories that were talked about in Moscow at that >> time.
>>
>> Thanks everyone for the info.
>>
>> I looked up the reference in Barbour's book, mentioned by John >> Chalmers. Barbour says that Avraamov's scale is worse than the >> worst scale listed in his whole book because it has such"unusual >> superparticular ratios". Whets the appetite...
>>
>> Juhani
>>

What I could find today about Avraamov theories, it's inconsistent and unreliable. Somewhere was written his system was based on 48 notes in octave, other source mentioned 96 notes per octave. Probably not true. Because what I have found in his own articles - his idea about "ultrachromatism" goes more far then Sabaneyev offer to use 53 EDO. He wanted to create a polyphonic instrument with a possibility to generate any frequency in real time, in a form of steady, continuously sustained tones, where performer can control dynamics and timbre even during sounding of tones. It looks somehow his ideal was harmonic series - he emphasized using of 7, 9, 11, 13 harmonics...
He prophecized an instrument with continuously changing spectre, mainly on the base of additive harmonic synthesis, but some of his ideas looks like physical modeling as he wanted such instrument which can start to sound for example like the flutes, changing to the brass and the end of sound should be in clarinet timbre... Nice idea - such morphing is to some degree possible with vector synthesis, or on phzsical modeling domain in Yamaha VP1.

Anyway he must have been pretty crazy person:

- his origin was from Don cossacks

- he changed his original name to Jewish sounding pseudonym "Avraamov" (based on Abraham) in Russia, country with high antisemitism and with all those pogroms (yes, this word is from Russian language) - but who knows, maybe he had good reason. As Solzhenitsyn mentioned in Archipelag Gulag, there were many Jews behind the Soviet October revolution and later in high positions (and many of them had very bad fate later), and Avramov got after the revolution some high position of state comissar in some government culture ministry...

- he hated Bach, called him the greatest criminal, responsible for destroying of human hearing

- he sent an official letter to Soviet government asking to destroy physically all pianos in Russia

- he wrote Sirens Symphony, and could get it even performed two times - in Baku (1922 - to celebrate 5th anniversary of revolution) and Moscow (one year later). In this work (happening? sound installation?) he used all sirens in the city factories, marine fleet in the port, artillery cannons and guns, convoys of truck cars travelling thru city, etc. There were many conductors using flags and guns to synchronize whole city. This all few years before Antheil and Varese with their decent number of sirens in their works... That I would call "industrial music"!

Otherwise it's difficult to get more information about people like Avraamov, many of them get lost in Gulag after big stalinistic purges in 30ies, and KGB and Soviet government very carefully erased any traces and records they left from the books, newspapers, magazines, libraries ... So even for musicologist in Russia with easier access to archives and knowledge of language is difficult to dig some piece of information.

Daniel Forro

On 9 Sep 2010, at 5:46 PM, Juhani wrote:

>
>>>
>>> I have found some pages in Russian language and can translate it if
>>> you are really interested.
>>>
>>> By chance recently I'm in a period of deeper study about Russian
>>> futurism, and it's really interesting.
>>
>> That would be great. I'm especially interested in anything about >> 175edo.
>>
> That mention of 175edo by Milhaud is not necessarily reliable. He > describes Avraamov's work (whom he mistakenly calls Abrahamoff - or > can the transliteration be so much off?) briefly, as an example of > all the weird theories that were talked about in Moscow at that time.
>
> Thanks everyone for the info.
>
> I looked up the reference in Barbour's book, mentioned by John > Chalmers. Barbour says that Avraamov's scale is worse than the > worst scale listed in his whole book because it has such"unusual > superparticular ratios". Whets the appetite...
>
> Juhani

Fascinating! Thanks so much.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
> What I could find today about Avraamov theories, it's inconsistent
> and unreliable. Somewhere was written his system was based on 48
> notes in octave, other source mentioned 96 notes per octave. Probably
> not true. Because what I have found in his own articles - his idea
> about "ultrachromatism" goes more far then Sabaneyev offer to use 53
> EDO. He wanted to create a polyphonic instrument with a possibility
> to generate any frequency in real time, in a form of steady,
> continuously sustained tones, where performer can control dynamics
> and timbre even during sounding of tones. It looks somehow his ideal
> was harmonic series - he emphasized using of 7, 9, 11, 13 harmonics...
> He prophecized an instrument with continuously changing spectre,
> mainly on the base of additive harmonic synthesis, but some of his
> ideas looks like physical modeling as he wanted such instrument which
> can start to sound for example like the flutes, changing to the brass
> and the end of sound should be in clarinet timbre... Nice idea - such
> morphing is to some degree possible with vector synthesis, or on
> phzsical modeling domain in Yamaha VP1.
>
> Anyway he must have been pretty crazy person:
>
> - his origin was from Don cossacks
>
> - he changed his original name to Jewish sounding pseudonym
> "Avraamov" (based on Abraham) in Russia, country with high
> antisemitism and with all those pogroms (yes, this word is from
> Russian language) - but who knows, maybe he had good reason. As
> Solzhenitsyn mentioned in Archipelag Gulag, there were many Jews
> behind the Soviet October revolution and later in high positions (and
> many of them had very bad fate later), and Avramov got after the
> revolution some high position of state comissar in some government
> culture ministry...
>
> - he hated Bach, called him the greatest criminal, responsible for
> destroying of human hearing
>
> - he sent an official letter to Soviet government asking to destroy
> physically all pianos in Russia
>
> - he wrote Sirens Symphony, and could get it even performed two times
> - in Baku (1922 - to celebrate 5th anniversary of revolution) and
> Moscow (one year later). In this work (happening? sound
> installation?) he used all sirens in the city factories, marine fleet
> in the port, artillery cannons and guns, convoys of truck cars
> travelling thru city, etc. There were many conductors using flags and
> guns to synchronize whole city. This all few years before Antheil and
> Varese with their decent number of sirens in their works... That I
> would call "industrial music"!
>
> Otherwise it's difficult to get more information about people like
> Avraamov, many of them get lost in Gulag after big stalinistic purges
> in 30ies, and KGB and Soviet government very carefully erased any
> traces and records they left from the books, newspapers, magazines,
> libraries ... So even for musicologist in Russia with easier access
> to archives and knowledge of language is difficult to dig some piece
> of information.
>
> Daniel Forro
>

I second that - thank you Daniel - that guy was a cool visionary~!

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 11:32 AM, Juhani <jnylenius@> wrote:
>
>
>
> Fascinating! Thanks so much.
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@> wrote:
> >
What I could find today about Avraamov theories, it's inconsistent
and unreliable. Somewhere was written his system was based on 48
notes in octave, other source mentioned 96 notes per octave. Probably
not true. Because what I have found in his own articles - his idea
about "ultrachromatism" goes more far then Sabaneyev offer to use 53
EDO. He wanted to create a polyphonic instrument with a possibility
to generate any frequency in real time, in a form of steady,
continuously sustained tones, where performer can control dynamics
and timbre even during sounding of tones. It looks somehow his ideal
was harmonic series - he emphasized using of 7, 9, 11, 13 harmonics...
He prophecized an instrument with continuously changing spectre,
mainly on the base of additive harmonic synthesis, but some of his
ideas looks like physical modeling as he wanted such instrument which
can start to sound for example like the flutes, changing to the brass
and the end of sound should be in clarinet timbre... Nice idea - such
morphing is to some degree possible with vector synthesis, or on
phzsical modeling domain in Yamaha VP1.

Anyway he must have been pretty crazy person:

- his origin was from Don cossacks

- he changed his original name to Jewish sounding pseudonym
"Avraamov" (based on Abraham) in Russia, country with high
antisemitism and with all those pogroms (yes, this word is from
Russian language) - but who knows, maybe he had good reason. As
Solzhenitsyn mentioned in Archipelag Gulag, there were many Jews
behind the Soviet October revolution and later in high positions (and
many of them had very bad fate later), and Avramov got after the
revolution some high position of state comissar in some government
culture ministry...

- he hated Bach, called him the greatest criminal, responsible for
destroying of human hearing

- he sent an official letter to Soviet government asking to destroy
physically all pianos in Russia

- he wrote Sirens Symphony, and could get it even performed two times
- in Baku (1922 - to celebrate 5th anniversary of revolution) and
Moscow (one year later). In this work (happening? sound
installation?) he used all sirens in the city factories, marine fleet
in the port, artillery cannons and guns, convoys of truck cars
travelling thru city, etc. There were many conductors using flags and
guns to synchronize whole city. This all few years before Antheil and
Varese with their decent number of sirens in their works... That I
would call "industrial music"!

Otherwise it's difficult to get more information about people like
Avraamov, many of them get lost in Gulag after big stalinistic purges
in 30ies, and KGB and Soviet government very carefully erased any
traces and records they left from the books, newspapers, magazines,
libraries ... So even for musicologist in Russia with easier access
to archives and knowledge of language is difficult to dig some piece
of information.

> > Daniel Forro
> >
>
>

There's a lot of interesting people among the musicians in Russian culture, I must say. Rough story: my interest started with Russian folklore and orthodox liturgical chants, then Mussorgski, Rimski-Korsakov, and continued to let's say "standard" composers like Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Stravinski. I still try to find my way to Shostakovich, which is not so easy - that one somehow doesn't fit to my musical taste. I like also Part and Schnittke.
Much later I started to be fascinated by Skriabin, he was also extraordinary person. Of course I couldn't miss Termen, and in connection with Haba and microtones there's Vishniegradski. About 15 years ago I met some music of Arthur Lourie, then found some notes from time to time in literature and on the net about Russian futurism.

Such music couldn't persist under Stalin, and lot of creators were eliminated and erased from the history.

It looks that Avraamov somehow survived the big purges in 30ies, but he has been living somewhere in Caucasus few years, collected folk songs and conducted some amateur choirs. To understand this properly - for sure it was not some musicological research. It reminds me the fate of some other composers - they were also expelled from Moscow or Petersburg to the distant parts of Russian empire, which seems like a forced (or voluntary?) exile to save pure lifes.

Tough times...

Daniel Forro

On 10 Sep 2010, at 4:42 AM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:

> I second that - thank you Daniel - that guy was a cool visionary~!

Thanks for that insight.

I really like Shostakovitch - especially his 14th symphony which is set as a
song cycle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._14_%28Shostakovich%29

To me - this is where art / technique / emotion become one

If you can find the recording with his son conducting (which I had on vinyl
once on Melodyia) that is by far the best, rawest version.

Chris

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 8:12 PM, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:

>
>
> There's a lot of interesting people among the musicians in Russian
> culture, I must say. Rough story: my interest started with Russian
> folklore and orthodox liturgical chants, then Mussorgski, Rimski-
> Korsakov, and continued to let's say "standard" composers like
> Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Stravinski. I still try to find my way to
> Shostakovich, which is not so easy - that one somehow doesn't fit to
> my musical taste. I like also Part and Schnittke.
> Much later I started to be fascinated by Skriabin, he was also
> extraordinary person. Of course I couldn't miss Termen, and in
> connection with Haba and microtones there's Vishniegradski. About 15
> years ago I met some music of Arthur Lourie, then found some notes
> from time to time in literature and on the net about Russian futurism.
>
> Such music couldn't persist under Stalin, and lot of creators were
> eliminated and erased from the history.
>
> It looks that Avraamov somehow survived the big purges in 30ies, but
> he has been living somewhere in Caucasus few years, collected folk
> songs and conducted some amateur choirs. To understand this properly
> - for sure it was not some musicological research. It reminds me the
> fate of some other composers - they were also expelled from Moscow or
> Petersburg to the distant parts of Russian empire, which seems like a
> forced (or voluntary?) exile to save pure lifes.
>
> Tough times...
>
> Daniel Forro
>
>
> On 10 Sep 2010, at 4:42 AM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:
>
> > I second that - thank you Daniel - that guy was a cool visionary~!
>
>
>