History and Culture: The Unique Materials Dedicated to the Musical Dynasty of Cranes Exhibition in Moscow

“The Music Dynasty Crane and Kº” exhibition, devoted to Crane dynasty - a unique phenomenon for the national culture of the XX century, will take place at the Museum of Sergei Prokofiev (Moscow) from March 13 to June 16, 2014. Since the time of J. S. Bach and J. Strauss a history of music knows very few cases examples where within one family children and even grandchildren became the professional musicians of renown.

The exhibition tells about the life and work of the most outstanding personalities of the musical dynasty: David, Alexander, Gregory and Julian, which personal stories have mirrored the fate of the country's history and the formation of the national musical culture from the 1900s and to the Soviet era.

The materials are gathered on 11 plates, each telling about a certain period in the life of the dynasty. Among the exhibits are the Crane brothers’ belongings, posters, programs, photographs, manuscripts, and much more. Displayed are the works of avant-garde artists of the 1920s, such as Marc Chagall, Robert Falk, I. Rabinovich. Authors of the exhibition has where first encounter with a need to combine such different and numerous archival material from the collections of M. I. Glinka National Museum Consortium of Musical Culture, the Central Theater Museum named after A. A. Bakhrushin, Russian State Archive of Literature and Art and the private collections. Most of the artifacts have never been opened before to the wide public.

The multimedia program and musical excerpts from the works of Alexander, Gregory and Julian Crane complete the visuals.