Quarteto de Cordas nº 3 de Alfred Schnittke

Este estudo é uma análise do processo composicional intertextual de Alfred Schnittke no seu Quarteto de Cordas nº 3 (1983). O objetivo da análise é compreender como Schnittke abstrai elementos musicais de obras de outros compositores (“textos”) para reutilizá-los em seu Quarteto, especificamente o tema da Grande Fuga op. 133 de Beethoven, um motivo do Stabat Mater de Orlando Di Lasso e o monograma DSCH de Dmitri Shostakovich. Para tanto, este estudo discorre sobre: o uso de citações e alusões segundo Schnittke; a gênese e a estrutura do Quarteto de cordas nº 3; e a forma como os textos apropriados por Schnittke são resignificados em sua obra. A análise demonstrou que Schnittke realiza diversas transformações nos textos abstraídos para adaptá-los ao contexto sonoro e estrutural do Quarteto de cordas nº 3.

The Musical Oeuvres of Rodion Shchedrin

The previous issues of the journal featured publications of lectures about such outstanding 20th century Russian composers as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofi ev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian and Georgy Sviridov. This series is continued with a lecture about the music of Rodion Shchedrin. Following the portions of the lecture which deal with the early and middle periods of the composer’s music, the drama and even the tragic quality of his world perception and their overcoming. the present situation acquired maximal tension upon Shchedrin’s turning to the most acute problem for the romantic consciousness — the problem of interactions of personality and its surroundings, especially in the event of their confrontation. During the lecture’s exposition fragments of musical compositions are offered with their recommended performances, in their sum providing a perception of the most substantial sides of Shchedrin’s musical legacy.

The Musical Oeuvres of Alfred G. Schnittke

The previous issues of the journal featured publications of lectures about such outstanding 20th century Russian composers as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofi ev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, Georgy Sviridov, and Rodion Shchedrin. This series is being continued with a lecture about the music of Alfred G. Schnittke. The fi rst part of the lecture (“National ‘Fermentations’ and Early Works”) examines the questions of the genesis of the composer’s personality and the initial stage of his artistic formation with a drastic reorientation from a traditional style to avant-garde experiment. The second part (“The Middle Period”) is devoted to Schnittke’s explorations in the direction of contacts with wide audiences, which went along various lines of democratization of his artistic approach. The conclusive part (“The Late Style”) is directed towards the composer’s immense contribution to the formation of the stylistic realities of the Postmodern aesthetics. During the course of the lecture’s exposition fragments of musical compositions are offered with recommended performances of them, in their sum providing a perception of the most substantial sides of Alfred G. Schnittke’s musical output.

Prokofiev and Shostakovich

Much has been written on the professional and personal trajectories of the two luminaries of Soviet/Russian music, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. Their true relationship, however, has yet to be seriously explored. Many writers have focused on the composers’ alleged personal and professional antagonisms, caused by their supposed individual claims to the title of “the greatest Soviet composer,” referencing anecdotes of questionable reliability. This chapter compares the two composers’ contributions to certain genres; their typical compositional procedures; their collaborations with other highly regarded exponents of Soviet cultural life, and their common predecessors. It also contrasts the two composers’ written assessments of one another’s compositions, and compares their works, in which we can observe not only how Prokofiev influenced his younger contemporary but also how each composer might have inspired the other.

Mieczysław Weinberg and the Category of Borderland

Polish musicologist and author Danuta Gwizdalanka titled her publication Mieczysław Wajnberg: kompozytor z trzech światów [Mieczysław Weinberg: Composer from Three Worlds] (Poznań, 2013). Weinberg (1919–1996) was a Polish composer with Jewish roots who spent most of his life in the USSR. Without any doubt, he can be called ‘a composer from the borderland’ due to his ‘hybrid identity’, which was one of the most important reasons that affected the appreciation of Weinberg’s output both during his lifetime and after death. The main ideas of this paper centre on the category of ‘borderland’ and its representations in Weinberg’s biography and oeuvre. According to the typology proposed by Krzysztof Zajas, Weinberg’s life and works can be considered in terms of the following types of borderland: interdisciplinary, spatial, psychological, existential, sociological, and mythological. Through the prism of the category of ‘borderland’, Weinberg’s creative work manifests itself as a highly individual and invaluable testimony of his times, Far from eclectic and epigonic in relation to the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, his oeuvre is unique in the world’s music literature.

Mieczysław Wajnberg a kategoria pogranicza

Mieczysław Wajnberg and the Category of Borderland Polish musicologist and author Danuta Gwizdalanka, titled her publication Mieczysław Wajnberg: Composer from Three Worlds (Poznań, 2013). Wajnberg (1919–1996) was a Polish composer with Jewish roots who spent most of his life in USSR. Without any doubt, Wajnberg can be named “the composer from the borderland” due to his “hybrid identity”, which was one of the most important reasons preventing appreciation of Wajnberg’s creative activity both during life and after death. The main ideas of the paper are focused on the “category of borderland” and its representation in Wajnberg’s biography and output. According to the typology proposed by Krzysztof Zajas, Wajnberg’s live and works can be considered in the frame of following types of borderland: interdisciplinary, spatial, psychological, existential, sociological and mythological. Through the prism of “borderland’s category”, Wajnberg’s creative activity shows itself as a very individual and invaluable testimony of his times (far away from eclectic and epigonic in relation to music of Dmitri Shostakovich), unique on the scale of world music literature.

The Musical Oeuvres of Dmitri Shostakovich

This lecture of Doctor of Arts, Professor Alexander Demchenko illuminates in a maximally compact form the evolution of the music of the great composer, the main stages of which are corresponded to by the respective sections of the present text: “Early Works,” “Middle Period” and “Late Works,” which is supplemented by generalizations contained in the sections “The Issue of Humanism” and “The Artistic Constants.” The expounding of the lecture will be accompanied by listening to a number of fragments designed to give an overall impression of the range of the composer’s artistic quests.