Abstract: Modern music research methods used for the analysis of the cantata "Now Always Snow" requires specific approaches to studying its external (formal) and internal (textural) structures. This paper proposes another approach to the analysis of "Now Always Snow" based on Helmut Lachenmann's classification of sound types for a holistic view on both imagery and content aspects of the composition. Lachenmann's system has been used to analyse the cantata's movements in terms of form making and dramaturgical development closely associated with the visual semantics of its means of musical expression. This paper presents a method to analyse sound structures used by S. Gubaidulina to describe a range of images in the poetry of G. Aigi, including Barthes's perception of modern literature, in which a new concept fraught with multi-dimensional meanings. Barthes's concept is used to analyse basic poetic universals of G. Aigi congruent with philosophic universals of S. Gubaidulina reflected in the cantata. Its analysis reveals the logic behind the interaction of sonorities, which can be classified into the fluctuation, texture, structure and colour sound types, according to H. Lachenmann. Apart from sound characteristics, each sonority is associated with certain images and meanings ranging from a landscape with calm snowing to an almost apocalyptic blizzard and escaping into a symbolic space in which textural means are used to depict the cross and a way for man to overcome his sinful nature. This analysis of the Cantata "Now Always Snow" has detailed the dramaturgical development and form making of the cantata's movements and musical means that S. Gubaidulina applied to the poetry of G. Aigi. The main conclusion is that the composer's vision of the cantata combines the power of imagination with strict form-making principles.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to determination of the system of musical-expressive means used by Alfred Schnittke to symbolically reflect the ethical opposition of good and evil in the “Psalms of Repentance”. The relevance of this research is substantiated from the perspective of heightened attention of the composers of the XX century to the musical symbolism that replaced programmability. The study is based on the method proposed by E. M. Akishina for determining the symbols of good and evil in different layers of timbre and texture arrangement of instrumental compositions of A. Schnittke. Application of this method to “Psalms of Repentance” for a cappella choir allows tracing the manifestation of these symbols on the timbre, phonism, melodic arrangement, musical language, and composition. The novelty of this article consists in the fact that unlike instrumental music of A. Schnittke, his compositions for a cappella choir are viewed from such analytical perspective for the first time. The following conclusions were made: the choral and instrumental compositions of A. Schnittke contain a ramified system of musical-expressive means, which clearly distinguishes the symbols of good and evil;  these symbols outline the logic of dramatic development of each part of the “Psalms of Repentance”; their interaction within the framework of general concept of the cycle contains the ultimate ideological message – human choice, which determines his path along the line of sin as eternal Evil or through repentance – on the way towards God as the highest Good.