DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2016.3.20952

Abstract: “Émilie” is the newest of the three operas of the renowned contemporary composer Kaija Saariaho, which premiered in 2010. As in two other musical-theatrical oeuvres of the composer – the operas “L'Amour de loin” (2000) and “Adriana Mater” (2004-2005), there is a female character in the center. The monodrama’s heroine is a French mathematician and physicist, Voltaire’s muse – Émilie du Châtelet. The goal of this article is to demonstrate the peculiarities of dramaturgy and compositional-technical side of the opera. The author used the methods of systemic and historical approaches, comparative and stylistic analysis, as well as literary and music sources. Multiple qualities of style that are characteristic to Saariajo are manifested in this opera. But at the same time, we can notice the new features, not inherent to the earlier oeuvres of the composer. First and foremost, it is the accent on certain repeated melodic, rhythmic, and sound combinations, which in one or another way correlate with the imagery-dramatic lines of the libretto. Adopting a new style, the composer experiments with structure and musical means that are new to her repertoire by creating a remarkably vivid and rich portrait of the personality that is tormented by the internal conflicts and controversies, unlike any of her previous compositions.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2023.2.40075

EDN: KOZWYB

Abstract: This article focuses on the Sixth "Liturgical" Symphony of Andrei Yakovlevich Eshpai, one of the brightest representatives of the national and world musical culture of our time. The composition is considered from the perspective of sacrality, which fully determines its artistic and constructive patterns and dramatic perspective. The scientific novelty of the work is due to the subject of research itself, which was first used in relation to this work. To study the phenomenon of sacrality, it was necessary to use an interdisciplinary approach, including system-structural, comparative, semiotic, and hermeneutic analysis methods. Close attention was paid to considering the properties of musical texture as the main indicator of the spatiotemporal organization of musical material. The connotative and denotative properties of the musical syntax turned out to be analytically significant. No less important was the role of intertextual interactions that determine the text's language mechanisms and reveal its content’s plan. It was established that the phenomenon of sacrality, responding to the aesthetic attitudes of the master, is implemented comprehensively—as a conjugation of philosophical, mythological, and spiritual-religious discourses, each of which has its own system of signs. The functioning of sign systems at the syntagmatic and paradigmatic levels of the text lead to linguistic differences in the instrumental and choral sections of the symphony, revealing phenomena of semantic multiplicity, polychronicity, ensuring the end-to-end formation and development of the liturgical idea. As a result of such interactions, the genre space of the symphony is formed, which is a synthetic, universal, communicative concept.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2017.4.25119

Abstract: The object of the study is the Theory of Interpretation in musical art. The subject of the study is the cognitive model of interpretation in musical art.  Particular attention is paid to the interpretation research of musical text from the standpoint of cognitive scientific paradigms, which implies knowledge of the laws and ways of evolution of musical culture, understanding of the functions, structure, content and language of musical art, analysis of the mechanisms of musical thinking. Expansion of the opportunities to learn about musical art is accompanied by a process of cognitive immersion into the nature of musical knowledge itself.  The methodological basis of the work is a cognitive approach that allows considering interpretation in musical art as a phenomenon connected with processes of musical thinking, consciousness, memory, and cognitive activity in general.  The novelty of the study is as follows:  the author developed and proposed a method of cognitive analysis of a musical text that allows covering the phenomenon under study as an artistic integrity in broad interrelations with the knowing subject, his/her intellect, experience, level of mental activity, as well as with the surrounding world. Main conclusions of the study: The cognitive model of interpretation in musical art is a methodological tool in the focus of which the facets (associated with assimilation of special knowledge, with methods of their mental organization, with formation of artistic ideas and their embodiment in acoustic, verbal and nonverbal forms) of musical conception of the cognitive process of the subject are manifested . Methodological foundations of the cognitive approach allow us tohighlight some new key points indicating the significant perspectives in understanding the semantic structure of interpretation in musical art in its multiple links with the knowing subject, his/her intellect, experience, and level of mental activity.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.2.29143

Abstract: The research object is “A German Requiem” by J. Brahms, which is a unique meta-text concentrating various semantic structures, both music and ideological. They serve as cultural codes containing a wide cultural and historic context: it was formed by the system of patterns of the German national culture - the Protestant religion, philosophy, history, literature, etc. The research subject is a group of internal semantic motives underlying “A German Requiem”. As the key approach, the author has chosen the context approach revealing the cultural and historic conditions the German romantic composers used to work in. Textological and music analysis of “A German Requiem” helped the author to describe the internal process of genre bifurcation between the traditional Catholic canon and Brahms’ individual project in the spirit of the German liberal Protestantism. The study of “A German Requiem” helped characterize it as a genre simulacrum preserving only formal resemblance with a traditional funeral mass. The internal composition of the music piece is unique; it is defined by the logic of the composer’s idea influenced by personal and national semantic motives. In total, the example of Martin Luther’s theory, considered by the majority of the Germans as a national hero; the cultural heritage, penetrated with the melodics of Protestant chorals; the works of outstanding baroque composers headed by J.S. Bach - all of it had formed a specific set of values, the semantic constants of of which were implemented in the works of many German philosophers of the 19th century, including romantic composers. The romantic individualism of Brahms had formed in the same conjunction with the German national music culture.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2016.1.18288

Abstract: The Polish art of the early XX century sands out overcoming the genre limitations and enriching the techniques thanks to the synthesis of the expressive literary means, painting, and music. Due to reframing the themes of antiquity in the context of modernity and symbolism, their new interpretations have appeared; the other part of this process consisted in the interest towards the ancient layers of the national folklore. The written in 1910-1920’s by Karol Szymanowski compositions, demonstrated the intensive search for the new technical means, as well as characteristic qualities of musical symbolism and modernity, in the end expressing the composer’s idea on the national Polish style. Reconceptualizing the ancient and medieval mythology, Polish artists gravitated towards understanding the eternal problems of the universe, and simultaneously referred to the national themes. Karol Szymanowski ballet “Harnasie” and cantata Stabat Mater expressed not only the artistic trends of its time, but also convincingly realized the national self-consciousness, manifested in the form of customs and legends.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.4.30635

Abstract: The purpose of the study is to reveal the meaning-making impetuses of one of mysterious works of Cesar Franck “Three chorales for Organ”. The key problem in the cycle interpretation is connected with the absence of the reference to genuine melodies of ancient temple singings. Traditionally, their presence in music works forms a conceptual core due to the connotation of a choral verbal text. The author of the article gives attention to Franck’s pioneer approach to the creation of the “Chorales” in the vein of choral fantasies, the principles of his composer’s thinking and the revelations of the inner conceptual structure of the composition. To reveal the content of the music of the “Chorales”, the author uses the complex approach taking into account the cultural and historical context, the influence of scientific concepts in the field of iconography and iconology, which had been popular in France since the 1830s, the peculiarities of Franck’s creative thinking with the signs of synaesthetic nature. The music-hermeneutical and semiotic analysis helped to consider the elements of the music language , such as music symbolism, music-rhetorical figures, semantics of modes and other representatives of the inner conceptual structure. Based on the research, the author makes an assumption that Franck’s chorales are the basic doctrinal images of Christ in terms of their spatial location in a Catholic church according to the iconic scenario developed as far back as in medieval theology. Correlations with iconographic and iconological principles in the composition of music images helped to design the following conceptual structure of the cycle: Chorale #1 - “The Nativity of Christ”, Chorale #2 - “The Passion of Christ”, Chorale #3 - “The Resurrection of Christ”. In terms of temple space, these images correspond to the entrance, the central part and the altar.   

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2020.5.33162

Abstract: The research object is the vocal-instrumental music of a well-known Saratov composer Elena Gokhman (1935 - 2010) as one of the crucial parts of her creative work. The research subject is the musical drama of the lyrical verses “What the wind is singing about” (2009) considered in the context of the vocal-instrumental works of the composer which is analyzed in order to reveal the plotline and the essence of the author’s poetic and musical-instrumental “moves” and preferences and to understand the genre identity of the composition. The researchers analyze the reasons of Gokhman’s turn to the poetry of A.Blok, the idea of the author’s preferences in relation to the performers collective, the presence of the plotline of the verses, the genre identity of the composition, thematic and intonational links with the first lyrical musical cycle of the composer based on Blok’s poetry of the 1970s. The vocal and instrumental music of Gokhman is considered through the lens of specific analysis of one of the late works of the composer, the complete musical score of the verses “What the wind is singing about” is introduced into scholarly discourse for the first time. The authors use the methods of overt observation, hermeneutical practices of subtext detection, and comparative studies. They help to find out what creative conclusions in the field of “small” forms Gokhman had arrived at, and to what extent they draw the details of the dynamics of the author’s way and comply with the modern music genres. The research shows that the composer builds a single, thin and subtle plotline out of various Blok’s poems of different periods of time, which is drawn by means of special musical means (bell tolls and the sound of the chorus as the leading timbre of the heroine) and intonations (the leading idea of the girl and her song) piercing the composition. The parts of musical instruments, especially the violin, help the composer to fill the composition with new senses and give the key to its interpretation and genre identification as a suite.  

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2020.4.32903

Abstract: The article considers the problem of textual borrowings from his own compositions as a way of author’s self-understanding and self-interpreting, in the style formation of the latest period of Tchaikovsky’s work (1890-1893). The research is based on the last vocal cycle of the composer - Six Romances, op. 73 (1893). The problem field of the research also covers a range of compositions related to the last four years of the composer’s life: “The Queen of Spades” opera, Sixth Symphony, “The Nutcracker” ballet, and an opera “Iolanta”. Special attention is given to the integral stylistic substantiation of such specific techniques of “self-hermeneutics” as anagrammatizing, self-citing, tonal reminiscences, and composition-drama correlations. The author considers the declared problem in the intertextual context, classifying it as “self-intertextuality”, and uses the intertext methodology of the French structuralist school (F. Saussure, Ju. Kristeva), and the Russian researchers of the phenomenon of self-intertextuality (V. Toporov, T. Fateeva). An additional methodological direction is a mythopoetic substantiation of anagrammatizing (the detection of an author’s monogram), for which the author uses the instruments of onomastic concepts of myth (A. Losev, Yu. Lotman). As a result of such an integrative (intertextual and mythopoetic) approach, very “unexpected” (at least at first sight) manifestations of self-intertextuality (the presence of a monogram “SNA”, citations from various compositions, non-conventional tone plan and “anti-final” cyclic composition in the music cycle) are comprehensively semantically substantiated by the author’s myth about “Name acquisition”. Thus, the discovered methodological strategy can be used for studying particular opuses and corpus-based text forms.   

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2021.2.35203

Abstract: This article explores the creative instrumental works of the modern Russian-Israeli composer Ilya Heifetz. His life and creative experience have two definite stages: one in Russia before 1991 and the other in Israel, each marked by the challenge of reconsidering his national roots in his personal life and artistic work. One of the examples of addressing this problem in Heifetz’s compositions of the Soviet period is his violin concerto. In this research, the author considers the composer’s combination of academic genre patterns with the intonational and structural peculiarities of Jewish folklore as an effort to comprehend his own national identity. Through the intonation and thematic analysis of the concerto, as well as the composer’s personal letters, it can be concluded that the piece contains a hidden message that addresses the history of the Jewish people and their national character, reflecting the unique peculiarities of Russian Jews as they attempt to understand their own national identity. As the main characteristic of this subethnic group is the Russian language and Russian culture perceived through it, the author of this article focuses on how the peculiarities of the Russian composing schools manifest themselves in this piece of music based on Jewish intonations and genres.  

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2021.1.34936

Abstract: In the last work by S.I. Taneev - a cantate “At the reading of a psalm” - a multifaceted mastery of the composer, his artistic convictions, which had defined his life journey, manifested themselves to the highest degree. In some research works of the Soviet period, rather ambiguous and tendentious assertions about the meaning and the content of the cantata can be found. Usually, they disavow the key - religious and philosophical - context of the composition, and only the works of the recent decades focus on this aspect. The author of this article offers the variant of the interpretation of the religious and philosophical concept of the composition based on the analysis of the composer’s work with a literary text and the detection of semantic interrelations between the poetic and the musical contents of the cantata. The author concludes that Taneev doesn’t set himself a task to literally reflect the literary text in music, but uses it, principally, as a source of colorful vivid associations, the preassigned order of which allows him to create a particular religious and philosophical worldview. The musical part of the cantata can be divided into two conceptual spheres: macrocosm - the universe in its religious and philosophical understanding (NN 1-4), and microcosm - a person and the way of her spiritual evolvement in the world, leading to the understanding of the highest moral fundamentals of life, formulated in the sacred text (NN 5-9).   

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2023.3.40831

EDN: STMXMG

Abstract: Two chronologically close musical interpretations of the myth of the ancient titan Prometheus are considered as the subject of the study: the symphonic poem by A.N. Scriabin and the chorus by S.I. Taneyev from the cycle "Twelve Choirs for Mixed Voices to the poems of Ya.P. Polonsky". The article discusses the specifics of the interpretation of Prometheus, one of the central symbols of European culture. It is noted that over its long history, the content of the Prometheus myth has been interpreted in a wide range from a rebel who goes to self-sacrifice for humanity, to an inspired artist-creator who revealed the benefits of culture to people; from the holy great martyr and prophet of the true God, to the leader of the revolutionary masses of the people. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that the central motive in Taneyev's work is the vocation of the artist, who goes to self-sacrifice against the forces of evil and ignorance. In Scriabin, Prometheus is interpreted as the active creative energy of the Universe, entering into a struggle with matter and transforming it. The analysis also reveals a number of stylistic parallels in the legacy of the two composers, such as philosophical conceptuality, monumentality of the idea and its implementation, striving for the transformation of a person through art, rational foundations of creativity, orientation to Western European art samples. As opposite stylistic features, the composers belong to different poles of protectiveness and innovation in art, and different approaches to the use of the literary word are noted. The influence of innovative insights of composers on the development of musical art of the XX century is emphasized.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2019.1.29105

Abstract: Blake’s images in the 20th century attracted attention of not only poets and writers, philosophers and artists, but also composers belonging to different schools. Dmitry N. Smirnov is the brightest representative of the Russian school whose works are full of admiration for Blake. Blake’s works inspired Smirnov to create many opuses. The key object of this article is Smirnov’s instrumental cycle “Four essays about Job”, expressing the principles of personification of Blake’s lyrics in music. The author conducts holistic and context analysis of this work from the viewpoint of revealing the synthesis of the two dramaturgies: graphic and musical. Using the instrumental theater the composer tries to deepen and broaden the significance of his works and bond all the participants of the process: a composer, a performer, and a spectator. Thus, Smirnov becomes not only a composer, but also a director, who can create event lines and visual imagery and finish telling the sources underlying musical works, particularly - Blake’s graphic works.  

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2020.6.33160

Abstract: The research object is the sacred music of a well-known Norwegian composer Henning Sommerro (born 1952), one of the bright components of his multifaceted creative work. The present article is the first work within the Russian scientific literature analyzing this aspect through the prism of one of the key works of the composer. The authors are also the first to introduce the complete musical score of the composition into the scientific discourse. Along with the recordings, it helps to understand how the composer manages to successfully combine the liturgical and secular components, the poetical and musical texts, and how they outline the modern musical directions. The research subject is the musical drama and expressive means of the “Partisan Requiem” (2000) by Sommerro performed by the combined Russian-Norwegian choir (Murmansk, 2019). The research shows that the composer keeps the graphic structure of the historically formed model of the genre. Owing to the musical expressive means and “citation”, demonstrating the postmodernist practices of the composer, the genre becomes recognizable, denoting the important “memory spaces”. At the same time, in terms of drama, Latin and Norwegian texts are “arranged” according to the internal connection, the monologue inclusions of the narrator are often accompanied with a reduced orchestra, whose timbre and color, on the one hand, thematically unite the Norwegian texts with the graphic and musical sphere of the composition, and on the other hand, deepen the understanding of the ideas underlying them. The briefness of poetic verses strengthens the importance of each of them; they are rhythmically linked to liturgical texts thus helping to create a single lexical and musical fabric of the composition by means of a complex interaction of the choir, the orchestra, the soloists and the actor-narrator.   

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2020.3.32529

Abstract: The article considers the synaesthesia of the two symbolic phenomena of Russian Christian culture -  znamenny chant and the art of calligraphy. The purpose of the research is to detect the most evident aspects of multisensority in the terminology and graphology of the both phenomena. The research object is the semantic level of the znamenny terminology, the graphological plan of calligraphy and the semiotics of the space of a handwritten text uniting these arts in religious chants books. The analysis of the semiography of znamenny chant is based on the idea about the interrelation between the perception of the phenomenon of znamenny chant and “znamya” itself as a set of equal mode senses. The research methodology is based on the methods of cognitive musicology, comparative Art Studies (I.V. Matsievsky), musical liturgics, the studies of the multisensor nature of the perception of art, lectures and workshops on the art of calligraphy by P.P. Chobitko, and the hierotopy approach to studying the phenomena of the church culture developed by A.M. Lidov. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the approach to the consideration of the two phenomena of the Church-Slavonic culture from the viewpoint of synesthetic codes of the Christian culture. The author arrives at the conclusion that znamenny singing is reflected in art together with the Church-Slavic calligraphy and the semiotics of the church liturgical space based on a special visual-spatial code of the Christian tradition and spaciousness as a feature of a handwritten text of a religious book.   

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2020.6.33331

Abstract: The author attempts to explain the methodology of structural analysis of music timbre. The research subject is music timbre, and the object is its semiotic system. Based on the semiotic system developed by  Ferdinand de Saussure, the author outlines two algorithms within the structure of music timbre - randomness and linearity. Considering the first principle, the author explains the anthropologic nature of a timbre sign, forming the total variability of a timber sign, and some patterns of music timber perception. The second principle is considered through the prism of psycho-acoustics which helps to detect and define the structural principle of linearity as a primary mechanism of perception of music. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the first experience of studying music timbre in terms of its structural organization. For the first time timbre is considered as a semiotic system with structural principles. Since musicology still doesn’t have an appropriate conceptual framework for structural analysis of a timbre space, the model by Saussure becomes especially valuable, primarily because of the fact that it emerged as an attempt to build such a language system which would take into account the correlation and interrelation between language and speech. This is the content of the novelty and topicality of the research which is based on a certain algorithm of structural analysis of music timbre. 

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2021.4.36165

Abstract: In Shostakovich’s creative work, metaphoric completeness becomes the most important constant of any concept, in which the orientation to the depth of the audience’s penetration into the controversial music whole prevails. Naturally, different metaphoric states are enclosed in definite, prevailing metaphoric layers: epos, lyrics, and drama with typical for them various emotional shades and the ways of narrative development. The research object in the article is the suite for two pianos created by the composer in 1922, which reflects the composer’s state of mind after his father’s death. It explains the images and themes in the composition, which  are connected with epos and the epic form of a novel. For the first time, the study of art considers a suite as a musical novel: the author parallels between a novel as a genre of literature and a novel as a possible form of narration and development of a piece of music. It represents the scientific novelty of the article. The author proves that due to its special form of narration, the suite has the features new to the field of piano duet: polysynthetism of the form of the whole, variety of drama “fractures”, diversity of artistic and musical metaphors, and, consequently, the virtuosity of performance. In its turn, it has predetermined the allocation of thematic structures, considerably new for the genre.   

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2014.2.13226

Abstract:

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2014.2.65761

Abstract: The object of research in this article is musical content, examined in light of one of the new Russian theories of musical content and in light of analysis of the musical practice itself under the angle of this theory. The examined theory reveals the presence in music of three categories of content, named here as emotion, depiction and symbolism. The examined practice covers the main historical periods of the Early Modern and Contemporary Era – the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th Century periods. The object of attention in them consists only of the so-called “serious” academic classical music – operas, symphonies, concertos, oratorios and chamber music – but not folk or popular songs. The methodology of research is connected with semiotics or, to be precise, with the triad of signs developed by Charles Peirce – the icon, index and symbol, – which are interpreted by the author of the article as emotion, depiction and symbol. The conclusions arrived at in the research are as follows: in each historical time period there exists a distinct, individual correlation of the three sides of musical content – in the Baroque period all three of them stand on an equally high level, in Classicism emotions prevail, whereas depiction and symbolism are of secondary importance, in Romanticism emotions reach an apogee, depiction is activated to a greater level in the second half of the 19th century, whereas symbolism is of minor importance, while in the 20th century symbolism takes a primary position, emotions are brought to their extreme stages, while depiction is of minor importance. The novelty of the research consists in laying out a sturdy semiotic foundation for the method of the “three sides (categories) of musical content” and in bringing out conclusions about the comparative correlation of the most important musical historical time periods according to their content.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2014.2.13227

Abstract:

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2014.2.65763

Abstract: Предметом исследования в данной статье является музыкальное содержание, рассматриваемое в плане одной из новых российских теорий музыкального содержания и в плане анализа самой музыкальной практики под углом зрения данной теории. Разбираемая теория выявляет наличие в музыке трех сторон содержания, именуемых здесь как эмоциональность, изобразительность и символика. Разбираемая практика охватывает основные исторические периоды Нового и Новейшего времени – барокко, классику, романтизм и ХХ век. Объектом внимания в них является только так называемая «серьезная», или академическая музыка – оперы, симфонии, концерты, оратории, камерные произведения, - но не народные или эстрадные песни. Методология исследования связана с семиотикой, конкретно с триадой знаков Ч.Пирса – икон, индекс, символ, - которые и интерпретированы автором статьи как эмоция, изобразительность и символ. Выводами работы предстают: в каждой исторической эпохе существует свое, особое соотношение трех сторон музыкального содержания – в барокко все они одинаково высоки, в классике превалирует эмоция, а изобразительность и символика второстепенны, в романтизме эмоция достигает апогея, изобразительность активизируется со второй половины XIX в., символика второстепенна, в ХХ в. первостепенна символика, эмоции достигают крайностей, изобразительность второпланова. Новизна исследования состоит в подведении прочного семиотического основания под названный метод «трех сторон музыкального содержания» и в выводах о сравнительном соотношении важнейших музыкально-исторических эпох по их содержанию.