Review: The subject of the study is a new "sounding image" of the piano in the chamber-vocal cycles of Russian composers of the 1960s and 1970s. The chosen perspective is "female" vocal cycles, i.e., those that should be performed exclusively by female voices. The author examines the piano parts in the vocal cycles of B. Tishchenko, D. Shostakovich, A. Knaifel, A. Schnittke, E. Denisov, G. Banshchikov, V. Gavrilin and other Russian masters, reveals the new, original, fresh that they brought to the music of piano accompaniment in the wake of the Khrushchev "thaw". First of all, in the field of texture, rhythm, avant-garde performance techniques, timbral-register organization of musical fabric. The main conclusion of the study is the idea that the fruitful synthesis of the achievements of the European avant-garde and domestic experience led to the emergence of a new "sounding image" of the piano in Soviet music of the 1960s, which was fully in demand in the vocal cycle. Each of the composers followed his own unique path in art, individually refracted tradition, but the overall panorama of musical art, chamber vocal creativity turned out to be rich and saturated with outstanding achievements. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the piano accompaniment of the Russian vocal cycle was first subjected to a separate and fairly broad analysis.

Keywords: Sound image, Vanguard, Russian Bells, Dmitry Shostakovich, Boris Tishchenko, Valery Gavrilin, Alfred Schittke, Piano, Domestic music, Vocal cycle

Review: The rapid revival of baroque music in Russia places ever higher demands on singers regarding a historically grounded style of performance. This is manifested not only in the content of vocal and technical equipment (implying the presence of flexibility of the vocal apparatus, possession of a wide cantilena and light coloratura fluency), but also in the need to form your own creative approach in creating an original version, including ornamentation and improvisation in cadence, repeating parts of da capo arias. The proposed article is aimed at solving topical problems in the field of baroque performance related to vocal ornamentation and improvisation. The methodology of the research is based on a historical approach, which includes both a diachronic aspect aimed at identifying the dynamics in the evolution of the phenomenon under study from the XVI to the XVIII century, and a synchronic one, thanks to which various types of jewelry, features of improvisation in baroque performance are considered as the most important elements of style. The author draws conclusions about the significance of ornaments in the baroque music. The material of the article and the conclusions will be useful to musicians, singers performing old music, for its stylistically correct interpretation, as well as in training courses on the history of vocal performance at performing departments of music colleges and faculties of universities.

Keywords: decorations in singing, diminutions, improvisation, ornamentation, education, training, vocal technique, style, baroque music, questions of vocal performance

Review: The article is devoted to the work of Ivan Glebovich Sokolov (born 1960), which unfolds in many areas of activity, and among them the main one stands out – composer and pianist. Performance directly affects his composer's searches. Realizing the special impact of the music of romantic composers on listeners, I. G. Sokolov changes the focus of his work from a «conceptual» vector to a traditional style of writing. He creates a number of works directly related to the romantic tradition, among them the piano cycle “Gospel Pictures» (2012) stands out, in which the high role of associative links with the heritage of romantic composers (J. Brahms, F. Liszt, S. V. Rachmaninov, A. N. Scriabin, P. I. Tchaikovsky, F. Chopin, R. Schumann). The focus of the article is the intertextual layer in the «Gospel Pictures», which is realized at two levels: compositional and intonational-thematic (quotes, quasi-quotes, allusions), the latter is given special attention in the article. As a result of the analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the noted material, which is directly related to the musical culture of romanticism, merges into a single whole with the style of the musical language of the piano cycle, forming a «mono-stylistic» (G. V. Grigorieva) musical fabric, which emphasizes the relevance the concept of extending romantic traditions in modern domestic musical culture. At the same time, this perspective of the study confirms the concept of A. V. Mikhailov about the «phenomenon of the omnipresence of romantic music», as well as its «indestructibility» and «immortality» in the process of evolution of musical culture.

Keywords: piano cycle, Gospel Pictures, Ivan Glebovich Sokolov, composer-pianist, romantic traditions, citation, allusion, quotation, intertextuality, prelude

Review: The purpose of this work is to present a scientific overview of the research on the palace music of the Qing Dynasty during the “Golden Age” and to identify new aspects of the study of this unique phenomenon of artistic culture. The relevance of the topic raised is due to the growing role of Chinese culture in the global processes of cultural integration, when the problem of preserving objects of traditional non-material culture is exacerbated (and the palace music of the Qing Dynasty of the 17th-18th centuries is one of them). The author believes that the presence of gaps in Russian musicology on the problems of Qing music for a long time was caused by objective difficulties in communication with the Chinese scientific community and the lack of access to archives and libraries in connection with well-known political events, such as the fall of the Qing Empire at the beginning of the 20th century and cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s, when the study of imperial culture was not encouraged. Nevertheless, the modern openness of the Celestial Empire to scientific contacts already today makes it possible to introduce the achievements of Chinese science of recent decades into the corpus of Russian musicology. The author sees the prospects for the study of Qing musical culture in the study of the cultural and historical context in the aspect of the continuity of dynastic traditions, in the study of the architectural spaces of sounding music in the aspect of their acoustic features, functional purpose and symbolic meaning, as well as in the continuation of source studies, which imply the comprehension of the content of musical and theoretical writings of the Qing era.

Keywords: LÜLÜ ZHENG YI, Emperor Qiánlóng, Emperor Kangxi, Yayue music, Confucius, Chinese musical instruments, Gùgōng, the musical-theoretical treatises of Qing, court music, the music of the Qing dynasty

Review: The article is dedicated to the history of the Department of Folk Singing and Ethnomusicology of the Saratov State Conservatory named after L.V. Sobinov. The role of the pedagogical, methodological and scientific activities of L.L. Christiansen as the founder of folk singing education at the Saratov Conservatory is described. The article also draws attention to the founder of the department of solo folk singing, People's Artist of Russia E.A. Sapogova and the basic principles of teaching folk vocals in her class. A special section is dedicated to the multifaceted activities of A.S. Yareshko as head of the Department until 2018. His name is associated with the modern period of the Department’s development, which included many practical and scientific publishing projects. The article reveals the role of the Department of Folk Singing and Ethnomusicology of the Saratov Conservatory in the establishing of folk singing education in Russia, as well as the preservation of folk heritage through the professional learning process. The main creative and educational achievements, the uniqueness of the structure of the department are described, the multi-vector orientation in teaching students (folk singing and ethnomusicology) is emphasized, which makes it possible to determine of a complex concept - the Saratov school of musical folkloristics.

Keywords: tradition, professionalization, folklore expeditions, ethnomusicology, repertoire, methodology, folk singing, folk singing education, Folklore, Conservatory