Basel Evgenij Gunst exhibition in Moscow

The Russian composer and lawyer Evgeny Gunst (1877-1950) played an important role in Russian musical life before the Russian Revolution, for example as a confidant of Alexander Scriabin. He emigrated to France in 1920 and died impoverished in Paris in 1950. His widow then transferred his estate to Basel, where, as the university reports, it was discovered in spring 2010 in the archive cellar of the musicology department. The letters, documents, photos, autographs, prints and sketches were on display from June 8 to 26, 2011 in the special exhibition "Findings of a Life" at the Museum Kleines Klingental. The Institute of Musicology at the University of Basel published the accompanying volume Finds of a life - The composer Evgenij Gunst as well as, supervised by David Rossel, all of the composer's choral works. In May 2014, the CD Piano works - Wanderer between the worlds (Susanne Lang, piano, Oehms) and a detailed study is also planned for this year.

Photo: zVg

Evgenij Gunst (1877-1950)

From September 10 to October 5, the exhibition will be on display at Russia's largest music museum, the State Glinka Museum in Moscow. As the University of Basel writes, this means that "an important chapter of Russian cultural history is finding its way back to its homeland". The exhibition and accompanying book have been translated into Russian. On the one hand, the exhibition is intended to promote musicological discussion between Moscow and Basel and to make the forgotten artist accessible to a specialist audience and the interested public.
Following the vernissage, Jean-Jacques Dünki, Susanne Lang (piano), Ekaterina Kitschigina (soprano) and Andrei Kaplanov (baritone) will perform selected works from the Glinka estate in the concert hall of the Glinka Museum - some of them as Russian premieres.