Review: 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.  

Keywords: post-serialism, Kafka theme, modern opera, Michael Levinas, Philippe Manoury, Salvatore Sñiarrino, Franz Kafka, french spectral school, acousmatic music, live-electronik

Review: 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.  

Keywords: avant-garde, art synthesis, innovations, musical aesthetics, creative method, musicology, art studies, postmodernism, contemporary music, music and painting

Review: The research subject is the work of Fine Arts Society which existed in Saratov in 1889-1903. The author finds out that the Society actively popularized all types of arts among citizens. The department of music organized vocal and instrumental music concerts which were interesting for local melomaniacs. The most significant event was the opening of a music school which provided music education and the educational programme which declared the Italian method of voice-training. The research methodology is based on the analysis of unpublished materials of the State Archive of Saratov region, the Central State Historic Archive of St. Petersburg, and rare sources. Based on the reconstructed image of the Society’s work in terms of the political situation in the city of that time, the author proves that among the reasons of the Society closing were: gradually rising competition with Saratov Branch of The Imperial Russian Musical Society, supported by authorities, and the popularity in democratic circles of Saratov citizens.

Keywords: democratic segments of the population, concerts of vocal music, music school, pedagogical school, Formation of vocal traditions, charter, program of training, Italian method, repertoire, office letter

Review: The research subject is the music culture of Astrakhan region, the research object is music culture as a system. The article studies the role of a festival as a specific form of activity of regional music organizations, which are the elements of a formerly powerful system - The Composers’ Union of the RSFSR. Special attention is given to the example of Astrakhan Composers’ Union’s role in organizing the modern music festival, which, in the author’s opinion, had boosted the potential of regional music culture. The author uses the system approach to study the phenomenon of music culture as a system, historic-genetic, ideographic and problem-chronological methods to work with historic materials, and cluster-analysis to process the data and compose charts. The author formulates the conclusion about the recognition of an important role of the Composers’ Union of the RSFSR in the evolution of regional cultures, which received a stimulus for the development of a holistic music system. A festival as a form of interaction within a music culture played a special role in this process. The author’s special contribution is the study of the history of Astrakhan festival of modern music, which demonstrates that regional music culture after the 90s is still developing despite the weakness of the central organization. The present article is the first scientific work to raise the problem of a contribution of a festival movement as a specific form of activity of regional organizations.

Keywords: Astrakhan Union of composers, organization of festivals, musical culture, Music system, Modern music, Regional music unions, Musical culture of the regions, Festival, Union of composers, Astrakhan festival

Review: The article considers one of significant phenomena of the modern musical art - graphic notation typical for musical scores of some avant-garde composers. The article presents the analysis of scientific works, devoted to graphic notation, written by Russian and foreign authors. The author formulates the definition of graphic notation. On the one hand, modern graphic notation does not have a clear definition, classification or typology; on the other hand, the system of musical signs and symbols in modern graphic notation has not formed yet, and doesn’t have a unique and unified appearance. The scholars’ opinions about modern graphic notation do not match, and it also hampers the phenomenon understanding. The author offers her own classification of graphic notation and studies its history of evolution. The author studies the musical scores by D. Cram, V. Globokar, G. Kurtag and others. The history of graphic notation is, of course, ongoing, and it is too soon to evaluate its significance as a whole. But now we can already claim that it has become one of the brightest novations in arranging musical texts.  

Keywords: notation, visualization of music, graphics, score, innovations, art synthesis, music theory, art his, art history, music theory, art synthesis, innovations, score, visualization of music, graphics, notation, music and painting

Review: The research subject is the live electronics genre -  the sphere of electroacoustic music in which electronic sounds are performed on stage by an operator or a computer. Sometimes they are planned by a composer, sometimes they are improvised according to the established rules, sometimes the operator prepares them beforehand. In the live electronics genre, coordination between the instrumentalist(s) and the operator is very important. Agreements or disagreements between their parts often determine structure, duration and functionality of musical pieces. In the majority of cases, it is clearly defined by composers even if its is an ultimate disagreement of elements: in such a case, the sequence or simultaneity of structures is planned. The author demonstrates the genre evolution patterns based on the analysis of particular pieces in terms of amplification of the electronic part and extension of its role in process. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that for the first time, live electronics is not considered as a specific type of electroacoustic music using conventional instruments. The author studies the functionality of live electronics to demonstrate that it is a specific genre with its features, which is transitional towards multimedia.  

Keywords: improvisation, form-building, monody, machine man, part of electronics, functionality, electro-acoustic music, live electronics, structure, time value

Review: The research subject is the anti-music nature of the Fluxus band’s art projects. The author studies the works of one of the founders and members of the band - American artist Benjamin Patterson. The author demonstrates the specificity of the process of appearance of a pragmatist performance genre out of the musical works of the artist. The article studies the transformation of a concert as a classic way of performing musical works into an anti-concert and then - into a performance. The author considers esthetic prerequisites of these processes in music phenomena of the mid-20th century similar to the Fluxus. Special attention is given to the study of implementation of these phenomena in the first public performance of Fluxus - Wiesbaden concert - and Patterson’s role in its organization. The research is based on the consideration of concert, anti-concert and performances documentation and recollections of the participants. On the base of these materials, the author conducts genre and style analysis of the main forms of artistic activity within anti-music. The author formulates the vision of anti-music nature of Fluxus-movement which in its formation harks back to the classical concert form. The author outlines the key stages of the fluxus-movement evolution from a concert to a performance. The author analyzes the first fluxus concert, Patterson’s role and participation in the formation of the movement, and concludes about genre and style peculiarities of such forms of fluxus art as concert and performance.  

Keywords: Action Art, Wisbaden festival, Ben Patterson, performance, anti-concert, concert, anti-music, fluxus, parody, Neo-Dada

Review: The main task of the article is to detect those styles of modern jazz which are esthetically reduced and inclined to contingence with idealistic layers of pop-music. Among the most prominent phenomena of this kind the author considers smooth jazz, the variety of jazz music formed in the 1970s-1980s. The article uses the historical approach to generalize particular persons representing this disputable phenomenon of musical culture. Special attention is given to the problem of penetration and integration of ideas from “high” jazz music (J. Coltrane) into the sphere of simplified musical discourses. Under the influence of complex sociocultural processes, Smooth jazz has simplified the range of complex idealistic principles formed in the world of creative jazz performers. Smooth jazz has become one of numerous life forms whose appearance should be explained not by esthetics or artistic necessity, but primarily by aggressive economic principles of music industry.  

Keywords: art history, musicology, music business, music market, commercialization of music, jazz creativity, jazz labels, jazz music, theory of genres, improvisation