Review: The article analyzes the use of mathematical structures in the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and their incorporation in choreography. The author considers Pärt’s works interpreted by choreographs, namely: «Spiegel im Spiegel», «Fratres»,«Tabula rasa», «Summa». These works are analyzed from the viewpoint of the composer’s referral to “lyrical geometry” in while composing. The author also considers symmetry principles in choreography. Symmetry, first of all, is geometrically adjusted and balanced positioning of the artist’s body, it’s position in space. In choreographic incorporations of Pärt’s music, choreographers project symmetry of the musical text onto the choreographic one. The author analyzes the following ballets from the viewpoint of symmetry using: “Otello” by John Neumeier, “Déjà vu” by Hans Van Manen, “Ward No. 6” by Radu Poklitaru, “Nunc Dimittis” by Nacho Duato. The methodological basis of the research is the comprehensive approach based on scientific achievements of both the modern musicology and the study of choreography. In his works, Arvo Pärt often refers to mathematical structures in composing. It is determined not only by rational grounds of the author’s technique  tintinnabuli, but also by the spiritual component of Pärt’s music, so the structure in the composer’s works is often symbolic. In ballets to the music of Pärt, we can see the choreographer’s references to the symmetry principles as one of the ways of interaction with music. Depending on the artistic goal, relations with the music, the genre of the ballet, the symmetry principles incorporated into Pärt’s compositions and reflected in choreographic interpretations of his works, are used differently by choreographers.  

Keywords: Hans van Manen, John Neumeier, lyrical geometry, symmetry, mathematical structure, Arvo Pärt, Radu Poklitaru, Nacho Duato, Spiegel im spiegel, Fratres

Review: A Leningrad composer, music historian, conservatory professor Feodosii Antonovich Rubtsov (1904 - 1986) worked with the Union of composers for more than 50 years. Not only did he edit compositions and prepare musical and piano scores for publication, he also headed the department of music folklore. There he studied, gathered and used the genuine pieces of folk music culture. Rubtsov gave special attention to attracting young musicians - composers and music historians, students of Leningrad conservatory - to working with folklore sources, in order to use them in compositions and to study. The author of the article analyzes the documents kept in the Archive of Saint Petersburg Conservatory named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov and the Central State Archive of Literature and Arts of Saint Petersburg to unveil this poorly studied part of Rubtsov’s work. The author introduces into scientific discourse the transcripts of the records of meetings and reports of the music folklore department of the Union of composers proving that the department (and the folk music panel) was solving urgent tasks of creating a public fund of expedition recordings and music folklore library, organising expeditions and interaction between folklore specialists of various scientific and educational institutions, preparing publications about music folklore, etc.   

Keywords: Folk music department, Leningrad Conservatory, Feodosiy Antonovich Rubtsov, Union of composers, Section of musical folklore, history of ethnomusicology, musical folklore, folklore expeditions, folk songs, notations of tunes

Review: The research subject is the problem of correlation between the story “The sealed angel” by N.Leskov and the Russian liturgy “The sealed angel” by R. Shchedrin. The authors analyze the peculiarities of the creative method of the composer who creates a piece of music based on a literary work using a “typological exegesis” which is the main creative method of Medieval and canonical art. According to this method, an artist follows the truth of a “foreshadow” which appeared in the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition. The original piece of art should be “typologically” and “iconically” connected with this “foreshadow”. The research methodology contains the set of approaches of the study of art to spiritual and aesthetic phenomena of the Russian art. The authors come to the conclusion that R.Shchedrin creates a kind of a “music icon” showing the way to the truth through penance and junction with the Truth. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that the authors reveal Shchedrin’s method which he uses as a composer while creating a part song “The sealed angel”.   

Keywords: Holy Scripture, musical icon, typological exegesis, Russian Liturgy, Sealed Angel, Nikolai Leskov, Rodion Shchedrin, Holy Tradition, fore-type, verbal icon

Review:   The meaning of music is the subject of this research. It is represented in a dialogue with the method of immanent analysis of a music text of L.O. Akopian. The purpose of the research is to show that the system of paradigm-syntagmatic relations of F. de Saussure as a basis of “genuine” structural analysis of a music and artistic text can be successfully applied to the processes of music sensemaking as an effective instrument of analysis. Sequential comparison of two methods on the example of Chopin’s Nokturn H-dur op.32 helps the author to see the limiting character of “genuine” structural approach to a music text not only leaving aside the semantic layer of the composition, but even denying its existence, considering the artist’s idea as an impersonalized structure. On the contrary, the sensemaking discourse within which the abstract model of Saussure gains the meaning of a chronotope as an internal form of sense and can be realized only in the unity of the content and the form. In junction with the methodology of sense explosion of Yu.M.Lotman, the analysis of sensemaking gives music experts and performers an instrument, which helps to penetrate into the deep sense layers of the works, correlating with the “texts of consciousness”, and to discover individuality of a music and artistic text as an intimate saying determining an exclusive image of its sense structure. The represented method can be effectively used as an instrument of comprehensive analysis of the works of the 20th and 21st centuries continuing the traditions of classic and romantic music in the context of a dominating type of individual and creative consciousness  

Keywords: semantic structure, chronotope, syntagmatic, paradigmatic, immanent analysis, meaning formation, meaning, deep structure, music text, Chopin

Review: The article studies the logic of the process of style formation at the early stage of national composers’ work. The author uses the methodologies of ethnopsychology and sociology of the depths to make an assumption about the need for interpreting this process of the birth of a new, individual author’s form of artistic synthesis of the European professionality and the fundamentals of the traditional culture of the author’s ethnos via the structural logic of a rite of passage. This problem is solved based on the analysis of one of the early works of Dagestan composer M. Kasumov - “First concerto for violin with orchestra” (1971). The usage of a four-stage model of passage (V. Turner, Yu.M. Lotman, A.-J. Greimas), instead of a three-stage one (J.G. Frazer, V.I. Tiupa), which includes the stage of partnership, helps specify the process of assimilation of the Russian music culture and clarify the specificity of the moment of turning a “foe” into a “friend”. The analysis of Kasumov’s concerto shows that the principle of self regulation of heterogeneous style systems is connected with a special form of dialogue relations between the two canons which are among the supreme sacral values of the European and the traditional cultures. Therefore, the very process of sensemaking at the early stage of creative work of a national composer includes two stages of dramaturgic development. The first one is defined by the necessity to achieve cultural identity, the second one, inspired by the instinct of self-preservation, is aimed at ethnic self-identification. Every national composer solves this problem of a two-staged artistic challenge in their own manner forming the individual image of their style system.   

Keywords: modality, monodia, identification, sacred Canon, heterogeneous style, bilingualism, initiation, Dagestan, Kasumov, globalization

Review: The article studies the symphonic art of the modern Tatarian composer Rashid Kalimullin. The author analyzes 7 symphonies created by the composer in 2000 - 2015. Special attention is given to the orchestra and timbre-texture techniques used by the composer. The author considers only a small part of issues connected with Kalimullin’s orchestra scripts, namely the orchestra parts of symphonic music; solo timbres; typical ensemble combinations integrating timbre-texture techniques (“cliches”). Orchestration is by all means in the focus of the study, but the author also analyzes it in combination with other means of music language. The author uses the ideas and concepts contained in the works of foreign and Russian researchers of orchestration and the composers themselves, including I. Barsov, G. Berlioz, A. Blagodatov, A. Kars, N. Rimsky-Korsakov and others. The author comes to the following conclusions. Vivid and picturesque orchestra scripts of Kalimullin is one of the most important components of his creative style. The diversity and individuality, typical for the symphonies, are created in many respects by means of his timbre-texture characteristics. The author finds out the set of the most favourite composer’s timbres used by him as “soloists”, and the typical timbre combinations. The detailed analysis of Kalimullin’s symphonies for full orchestra helps reveal the set of timbre techniques (“cliches”) used in various works of the composer.   

Keywords: Rashid Kalimullin, modern Tatar composer, Tatar music, timbre techniques, orchestration, orchestra, timbre, symphony, orchestral aspect, timbre and form

Review: The research object is the creative work of a modern Russian composer, a member of the Union of composers of Russia, Vladimir Korolevsky. In 1986 he graduated from Saratov State Conservatoire on a class of the works of professor B.A. Sosnovtsev. From 2002 till 2012 the composer was working as an associate professor at the department of the theory of music and composition of Saratov Conservatoire where he taught composing and theory of music. The research subject is the cyclus “Six children’s songs” for soprano and piano with the lyrics by Boris Zakhoder. The purpose of the study is to detect interrelations between the musical text and the lyrics. To achieve this purpose, the author solves the tasks connected with the analysis of each part of the cyclus from the viewpoint of intonational, tonal and harmonical development. The author comes to the conclusion about the simplicity and naturality of the musical language strictly following the lyrics; that is a continuation of the best traditions of Russian vocal music and a significant part of accompaniment which is not a mere background but the reflection of the content of the lyrics and an individual tonal and harmonical plan of each part.   

Keywords: Saratov, songs, modern composer, contemporary music, vocal cycle, ABC, Zakhoder, Korolevsky, harmony, structure

Review: 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).   

Keywords: sound space, intuitive music, contact improvisation, Stockhausen, modern music, modern dance, Steve Paxton, postmodern dance, Material for the Spinå, dance technique

Review: The research subject of the article is the peculiarities of performing Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No.6. This composition is a part of the “war” piano tiad and reflects the essential traits of the late period of the composer’s work. Special attention is given to the question of the character of the performer’s interpretation requiring an active, creative participation of a performer on the recreation of the author’s idea. The authors emphasize the necessity to pierce into the sense layers of the performed composition, which helps to deepen the current interpretations and rethink the life and creative work of Sergei Prokofiev. The authors analyze the performer from the position of the theory of music, phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches developed in the works by L.O.Alopian and Z.V. Fomina. The authors detect the peculiarities of the individual idiom of Prokofiev. The authors demonstrate the ability of a pure artistic genius to go beyond the limits of socio-historic and cultural dependances and to express supratemporal, timeless senses in his work. The analysis of the Piano Sonata No.6  in the context of Prokofiev’s late works reveals significant evolution of his piano style speaking for spiritual and creative search of the composer.   

Keywords: original piano techniques, Sonata triad, performing interpretation, author's idea, style features, Sixth piano Sonata, Sergei Prokofiev, music, toccata's essence, new piano Prokofiev