Multifaceted Creativity: Legacy of Alexander Ivashkin Based on Archival Materials and Publications

Abstract

Professor Alexander Vasilievich Ivashkin (1948-2014) was one of the internationally eminent musicians and researchers at the turn of the most recent century. His dedication, willpower and wisdom in pioneering the music of his contemporaries as a performer and academic were the driving force behind his numerous successful international accomplishments. This paper focuses on Ivashkin’s profound knowledge of twentieth-century music and contemporary analysis in a crossover of cultural-philosophical contexts, together with his rare ability to combine everything in retrospect and make his own conclusions. His understanding of inner meaning and symbolism bring new conceptions to Russian music, when the irrational becomes a new stimulus for rational ideas. The discussion of these subjects relies heavily on unpublished archival and little-explored publications of Ivashkin in Moscow and London.