# How come Nikolai Obhoukov got mugged and beat up and looted (wikipedia)



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

According to wikipedia this occured to him later in life, someone force is way in is appartement and stole his work the book of life almost half of it...

Than i ask what happen to this work who as it in integral, who were the mugger where they arrested, was Obhoukov victim of a plot?


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Wow, thanks for telling me about this composer. I've never heard of him before.

Gangs of thugs sometimes beat people up for no reason except for generalized hatred.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Things never change, people like to hurt people for no reason at all.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

An interesting , Scriabin-like figure, not much recorded though and not promoted by record companies. 
I hadn't heard about the theft story before.

The Classical Nerd, about Obuchov: says that his wife sabotaged the mentioned work too by trying to destroy it


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

joen_cph said:


> An interesting , Scriabin-like figure, not much recorded though and not promoted by record companies.


I see him as something between Scriabin and Messiaen, both for music and his personality. I absolutely love the music I've heard of him. For what I've read he was a fanatic and maybe even a bit crazy person, but (or maybe exactly for that reason) his music is so intense and otherwordly.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

A very peculiar character. I'd never heard of him before. I just listened to this performance of Révélation (Le Glas de l'au-delà):


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Interesting figure. There really seem to be a lot of fascinating, not so well known, or downright obscure Russian composers from the late romantic and (early) modern periods. All of them can be connected to a few common teachers and/or more famous composers for their influences. Russia at the start of the 20th century was an extremely interesting place for music.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

When Koussevitsky conducted a major performance of parts of 'La livre de vie' in the form of a symphonic poem, fully orchestrated, at the Paris Opera in 1926, Obukhov and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky played the piano parts. During an interval a member of the audience advised Slonimsky that for his own safety he should put up a sign saying, "I am not the composer." Although the audience had been warned that they were about to hear sounds from instruments and the human voice that they had never heard in such a setting before (Obukhov's instructions to the singers included 'ecstatic', 'harrowing shriek', 'malignancy', 'laughing', and 'whistling'), the audience's reaction, as one writer put it, did not match Obukhov's ambition.


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## Frank Freaking Sinatra (Dec 6, 2018)

"His music is notable for its religious mysticism, its unusual notation, its use of an idiosyncratic 12-tone chromatic language, and its pioneering use of electronic musical instruments in the era of their earliest development."

"In France Obukhov met and studied with Maurice Ravel, who not only showed some interest in his music but provided financial assistance for the refugee family and set Obukhov up with a publisher."

"While he at first lived in poverty, he was able to obtain sufficient outside help to be able to focus on composition and associated projects. These projects included the development of an electronic instrument, the croix sonore, a device similar to the theremin but built in the shape of a cross, with the electronics hidden inside a brass orb to which the cross was affixed."

"He worked with Pierre Dauvillier and Michel Billaudot on the construction of the device, probably at different times. They demonstrated a prototype of the croix sonore in 1926, withdrawing it to create a refined version in 1934; many of Obukhov's concurrent and subsequent works use the instrument."









"The croix sonore consisted of a brass cross 175 cm high, planted on a globe 44 cm in diameter with a flattened base. The center of the cross contained a star, which was around chest-height for a standing performer. The electronics were inside the globe, with the cross acting as the antenna, so that the player's hand controlled pitch by moving towards and away from the star. The name of the instrument was engraved on the globe in Russian and French."

"After Obukhov's death, the instrument fell into disuse and then disrepair. For a time it was kept at the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra in Paris, where it could be seen until the early 1980s, but then it disappeared. One of the workers there came upon it by accident in 2009, and now the instrument - the only one known to have been constructed - is on display at the Musée de la musique."






http://120years.net/la-croix-sonore-nicolai-obukhov-france-1929-1934/


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