Abstract: The article is devoted to the history of performance on a rare instrument of the Waves of Martenot. Its history of creation, repertoire and performance capabilities have not yet become the subject of a separate study, while at the Paris Conservatory there is still a class of Waves of Martenot, and the repertoire is periodically replenished. In connection with these facts, the coverage of the features of a musical instrument seems to be a very relevant topic. For the analysis, the main material was the works specially written for the Waves of Martenot, which can be used to determine the specifics of a particular version of the instrument that determined its technical capabilities, as well as various interviews of performers on the Waves of Martenot. The conclusion of the study is the discovery of new opportunities for enriching the timbre due to the established repertoire and the circle of performers on the instrument, as well as a special stylistic pluralism and sound imaging capabilities that determined the specifics of the instrument and at the same time its concert and cinematic fate, where it is widely used both in academic, film music, and in rock bands. The object of the study is the electromusical instrument Martino Waves, which became widespread in performing practice and composer's work of the 20th century. The subject of the research is the existing performing repertoire of Waves Martenot and performing practice. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that this is the first study in Russian about this music instrument. The applied methodology is based on a comparative analysis of various versions of the Martenot Waves instrument, the material for which are works created by composers in different years when its creator, Maurice Martenot, modified the instrument's design.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.5.30897

Abstract: The article studies the phenomenon of contact improvisation founded by the choreographer Steve Paxton. The contact improvisation technique is very popular today, being founded in America in the 1970s. Steve Paxton defined contact improvisation as a formation of a “spherical space” which is “the result of so many changes in spatial and kinesthetic orientation in a short time”. In the plastic of contact improvisation, both an individual body and an interpersonal system can take a metastable position. We can observe the same phenomenon in other improvisational experiments. The main research method is comparative analysis of philosophical roots of contact improvisation, particularly the connection with one of the postulates of A. Bergson holding that “all division of matter into independent bodies with absolutely determined outlines is an artificial division”, and the connection with the ideas of modern cognitive scientists and psychologists. Comparing contact improvisation with an equivalent phenomenon of ensemble improvisation in the works of Stockhausen “From the Seven Days”, the authors conclude that in both cases, the starting point of improvisation is the projection of individual peculiarities of physical conditions of the participants (heart rate, breath, the specificity of reflecting the initial images of movement in the improvisation and other aspects).

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.5.40318

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.2.29644

Abstract: The article studies the life and creative work of an Italian Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo Di Venosa serving as an opera plot. The article considers two opposing views on one of the most mysterious stories - jealousy murder of his wife and her lover committed by the composer. The author considers the issue of the composer’s legacy in new music and the reference to this issue as a cited material. The reason why the composer’s legacy is so significant for the music reflections of the 20th - the 21st centuries is particularly interesting. The author gives numerous examples of Carlo Gesualdo’s music interpretations in the late 20th - the early 21st centuries. The author studies various composers’ positions on the life and creative work of Carlo Gesualdo. The basis of Salvatore Sciarrino’s opera plot is the story expressed by non-verbal instrumental and sound means by the witnesses to the crime - nocturnal nature, birds and insects. Luca Francesconi defines his position in a different way. He doesn’t consider Carlo Gesualdo as a murderer, and the morder doesn’t take place. The author arrives at interesting conclusions about the revaluation of music legacy by these two composers: Sciarrino avoids citing choosing an elegy of Claude Le Jeune woven through the opera, while Francesconi electronically dissects the fragments of popular Carlo Gesualdo’s music.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.2.40294

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.1.29024

Abstract: The article contains the analysis of modern operas based on the works by Franz Kafka. The article studies the list of 24 operas based on Kafka’s plots. The works most frequently used for opera interpretations are “The Trial”, “The Castle” and “The Metamorphosis”. The genre range is also immense: from academic interpretations of the opera genre and avant-garde renditions to jazz opera and musicals. The author focuses on the three operas: Salvatore Sciarrino’s “Before the Law”, Philippe Manoury’s “K…”, and Michael Levinas’s "Metamorphosis". The subject scope of Kafka’s prose is very diverse; he refers to the problem of bureaucratization of the society in “The trial”, analyzes the essence of totalitarianism (“In the Penal Colony”), poetics and psychoanalytical essence of dreamings in “The Metamorphosis”. The author concludes that, in the Kafkian world, each composer finds not only themes close to their creative ideas, such as exterminative absolute power of bureaucracy, solitude and demolition of human relations, “body rebellion”, impossibility to find the answer to the fundamental questions of existence, but also a starting point of bright spatial-sound images.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.1.40281

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2018.4.28551

Abstract: The paper studies the multimedia opera genre represented in the works of an Italian composer Fausto Romitelli. The composer passed away at the age of 41, and his last work of art is also a projection of a requiem for the New media age. The author analyzes the plot of An Index of Metals, the process of forming and interrelation between abstract video and music in terms of the peculiarities of the New Media. The article considers the plethora of associations and allusions, manifesting themselves in the multimedia opera, in terms of creative guidelines of the composer. The peculiarity of the genre performance is the transformation of total perception of a spectator diving into the white-hot matter of floating sounds, forms and shapes, with heavy hypnotic influence. The author concludes about the process of genre transformation in which the spectator’s perception goes beyond the limits of a physical body through an alien sound material and the confluence of visual, sound and associative and verbal means of interpretation of the content of An Index of Metals.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2018.4.40274

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2018.1.25861

Abstract: The article is devoted to the phenomenon of sound corporality in the creative concept of Italian composer Pierluigi Billone. In the course of study, a continuity of the elements of his creative paradigm is traceable in "sound types of new music" by Helmut Lachenmann and in ideas of the focused point of hearing and "sound vision" by S. Sciarrino. The basic material for the analysis is the instrumental cycle "Mani" to which the composer was inspirited by works of contemporary conceptual artists. The study concludes that there is a continuity of the creative ideas of new music of the second half of the twentieth century in the works by Billone in the twenty-first century, which are objectified within the framework of different instrumentation that uses specific everyday items and objects as percussion instruments. The study applies an integrated approach to the material under consideration. The article will be interesting to specialists in the field of contemporary music and musical performance, it is addressed to professional musicologists, as well as to a wide range of readers interested in the issues of contemporary musical art in general and issues of musical actionism.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2018.1.40259

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2017.3.25012

Abstract: The article focuses on visualization of the sound image in New Music. The visual image is aligned with the concept of gestalt, and the sound perception - with Gestalt psychology. Gestalt belongs to Art even more than to Science. Each recipient can practice it in his own way which reflects his personality, experience and life philosophy. In the process of research the author considers various examples of sound visualization in New Music (Ya. Xenakis, K. Stockhausen, S. Sciarrino) as well as specific concepts of sound perception, described in works by the composers of New Music. A holistic approach applied to the phenomenon under study involved the use of various analytical methods. The conclusion from the conducted study is importance of the principle of isomorphism as an expression of structural integrity of the physical, physiological and psychological worlds. The article is intended for professional musicians occupied with aesthetics and technique of modern musical composition, as well as for a wide range of readers interested in music art in general.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2017.3.40243

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2017.2.25002

Abstract: The author of the article analyzes time and space in the concept of a French specral school composer Gérard Grisey. The new music does not separate time and space and views time as the way to organize events in the acoustic space. In this regard, space-and-time paradigm is defined by the principle of multidimensionality that is, in its turn, based on the principle of organized unity from the micro- to the macro-space. In the course of her research Lavrova referred to the liminal-thresholod concept of time and space used in specralism and Gerard Grisey's special methodology that was based on natural physiological processes. In terms of the philosophy of those times, the author of the research analyzes Grisey's work 'Tempus ex machina' and defines the coordination axis there. For further analysis, the researcher appeals to the same-name composition of Gerard Grisey and describes relevant rhythmic patterns. The author draws parallels with Moll's information theory and Weber–Fechner law. The final conclusion of the research is that the concept of intra-sound space in spectralism creates a new sound concept that views sound as a life phenomenon. Switch from the 'internal sound' to external factors and transfer from microphonic to macrophonic space allow to present sound as a living creature that goes out of its non-existence and dies when it crosses the border of silence. This reveals Gerard Grisey's special philosophy of life in general.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2017.2.40240

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2017.1.40236

Abstract: The article is devoted to the concept of phonorealism that became the basis for the composition style of an Austrian composer Peter Ablinger. The aim of the research is to define analogies in texnological techniques of the digital epoch. Photography and accoustic phonography, 3D modeling and pixelisation used by Ablinger, granular sythesis used by Xenakis - these are the creative techniques of modern technology that are involved in the author's comparative analysis. The author studies compositions of Ablinger that were created using the method of phonorealism, in particular, vocal series 'Voices and Piano', series of sound installations 'Quadraturen', as well as series 'The Book of Songs' and 'Instruments and Phonographs'. Series 'Weiss/Weisslich is taken as an example of Ablinger's special method of working with white noise. As a result of her research, Lavrova concludes that artistic methods are identical in music, literature and fine arts. All of them make us rethink over the reality and see it in a different light. Ablinger believed that music serves as an analyzer of reality and provokes fundamental changes in a recepient's perception based on a completely different relationship between noise and music sound. The article will be of interest to both professional musicians who want to get an insight into musical phenomena of the 20th century and non-specialist audience who are interested in modern music.