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 SYNTHESIS OF PAINTING AND MUSIC: WASSILY KANDINSKY – ALFRED SCHNITTKE

The interaction between colors and sounds, music and painting has existed long since. Throughout the centuries these two kinds of art have been developing simultaneously and in close contact with each other, besides. Composers, especially those of the 20th century, find in the sphere of painting images for their musical compositions, without trying to depict definite plot lines or specific landscape sketches. The paper analyzes a specific composition by Alfred Schnittke – Wassily Kandinsky – The Yellow Sound. Research aim: to investigate the features of musical implementation of W. Kandinsky’s ideas by Alfred Schnittke on the basis of a comparative analysis of specific compositions of both authors. Research method: a comparative analysis

Musical symbols of good and evil in “Psalms of Repentance” by Alfred Schnittke

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.

Polystylism in the context of Postmodern Music. Alfred Schnittke’s Concerti Grossi

One of the multiple orientations of the musical postmodernism is polystylism – a concept used and theorized by the Russian composer and musicologist Alfred Schnittke. He identified its specific techniques in previous academic tradition and organized its principles by writing many essays, papers and by applying these compositional methods in his own work. The approach of polystylism offers the opportunity to observe artistic phenomena in a synthetic perspective and to understand the compositional methods by which tradition is still revalued in some directions of the postmodern period. This paper deals with the problems encountered in the research on this subject, the lack of this term in the dictionaries, the political and cultural context when polystylism was introduced, the tendency to consider unorganized and unoriginal those works based on quotes, previous writing techniques and musical languages, traditional genres or structures and therefore, the perception of some musicians to underestimate Schnittke’s talent and mastery as a composer.

Introduction

The Introduction to Sonic Overload explains the motivations for the book and sets in play its general themes. Taking stock of the contemporary overabundance of information, the introduction asks how we reached this point. It focuses on the late USSR for an answer by first looking at paradoxical accounts about information overload in the Soviet Union of the 1970s and early 1980s. Valentin Silvestrov and Alfred Schnittke serve as guides for considering further how information overload affected and was affected by music in the USSR. Schnittke’s and Silvestrov’s evocations of the past range across a spectrum from overmuch to not enough. Each composer engaged with overabundance, using music as a means to articulate a sense of self amid the often overwhelming sensations of too much. The introduction presents the main premises of the book by defining polystylism and style before tying style to fundamental senses of identity, purpose, and meaning both within and against society. The remainder of the introduction discusses the overall argument of the book, from embracing to rejecting polystylism, as well as the contents of each chapter and its role in the ongoing narrative.

Post Scriptum. A Few More Composers’ Names

In the previous lectures, which made up the cycle “Classics of Russian Music of the 20th Century”, the works of Sergei Rachmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, Georgy Sviridov, Rodion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke were examined. Let us supplement this panorama with two final lectures: the first is intended to extend the range of composers’ names, the second will be devoted to an overview of 20th century music with an outlet into the universal space. As it is well-known, since the time of Peter the Great, who established St. Petersburg, two capitals coexisted in Russia, each of which possessed its own face and style, among other things, in the creation of music. By the end of the 19th century, two compositional schools had developed: the St. Petersburg school, the core of which was the “Mighty Handful”, and the Moscow school, headed by Piotr Tchaikovsky. During the 20th century, these schools continued their fruitful interaction. Among the names presented in the main sections of my lectures, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Shostakovich, Sviridov began their activities in St. Petersburg- Petrograd-Leningrad, and later they became Muscovites (except for Stravinsky, who lived abroad from the early 1910s). In the second half of the 20th century, the leaders of the musical process in Russia were the Moscow composers Rodion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke, along with whom many other names can be mentioned, including Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Vladimir Martynov. Representatives of the Leningrad school continued to make a significant contribution to the treasury of Russian music. The following short overviews of the works of Sergei Slonimsky and Valery Gavrilin will testify to this. In addition to the two capitals, composers from a number of other cities in Russia, primarily, those with conservatories, have worked tirelessly in the field of the art of music, which has significantly expanded the scale of the panorama of the musical art in our country — the creative heritage of Elena Gokhman is cited as a characteristic example.

Interpretation of Medieval Repentance Poetry in the Choir Cycle by Alfred Schnittke “Stikhi Pokayannye”

Средневековые покаянные стихи - вид ранней русской поэтической лирики, тесно связанный с кругом богослужебных текстов. Поэтика стихов стремится к личному тону высказывания. В музыкально-стилевом отношении покаянные стихи принадлежат знаменному пению - они записывались в певческих рукописях, чаще всего подборкой на 8 гласов невменной нотацией с применением гласовых попевок знаменного распева. В 1987 году композитор Альфред Шнитке написал хоровой концертный цикл под названием «Стихи покаянные» на тексты опубликованных стихов по рукописи XVI века. В своей музыке автор пользуется тезаурусом техник XX века: заостренная хроматизмами и четвертитоновостью звуковысотность, диссонантная вертикаль, приемы сонористической фактуры. Тем не менее в композиционном решении одних и тех же стихов, в знаменной и композиторской версии, несмотря на многовековое расстояние, обнаруживаются и совпадения. Они детерминированы энергетикой молитвенного покаянного слова и конструктивными принципами организации поэтического текста. Номера хорового цикла выстраиваются в единое покаянное песнопение «высшего порядка». В интонации каяния особое место обретает и авторский голос. Покаяние как константа христианского самосознания является в конечном счете определяющей для музыкальной интерпретации данных текстов, сближая мышление средневекового распевщика и композитора конца XX века. Medieval repentance poems are a form of early Russian poetic lyrics, closely connected with the circle of liturgical texts. That poetry strives to a private discourse. In the musical and stylistic sense, repentance poems belong to the znamenny monody-they were recorded in singing manuscripts, most often by use of 8 modes with krukovaya (neume) notation. In 1987, composer Alfred Schnittke wrote a choral concert cycle entitled “Stikhi pokayannye” on the texts of published poems from a 16 -century manuscript. The author uses the thesaurus of 20 -century techniques in his music: chromatic and quarter-tone soundness, a dissonant vertical, techniques of sonoristic texture. Nevertheless, there are also coincidences in the compositional solution of the same verses, in the znamenny chant and composer version, despite a distance of several centuries. They are determined by the energy of the prayer of repentance and the constructive principles of the organization of the poetic text. The choral cycle numbers are lined up in a single repentance chant of the “highest order”. The author's voice also takes on a special place in the intonation of repentance. Repentance as a constant of Christian self-consciousness is ultimately decisive for the musical interpretation of these texts, bringing the thinking of a medieval chanter and composer of the late 20 century closer together. Repentance as a constant of Christian self-consciousness is decisive for the musical interpretation of these texts, bringing together the thinking of the medieval composer and composer of the late 20 century.

Intonation and genre montage in the compositions of Alfred Schnittke

The subject of this research is the works of the prominent national composer Alfred Schnittke. The analysis of musical compositions demonstrated that one of the dominant technique of their thematic development consists in the intonation and genre montage, and dramaturgy is structured as a peculiar intertwinement of imagery-thematic lines, each of which is formed as an assemblage of themes referred to the same genre. The main principle for this research served the principle of historicism as one of the fundamental within national musicology, which views an artistic phenomenon in unity of transformation of traditions and modern trends. The scientific novelty consists in determination of the leading principle of musical compositions of A. Schnittke – the principle of “generalization through the genre”, presented as an intonation and genre montage. In conclusions formulated in the article, the author summarizes and systematizes the results of study: combining different genres in a single sound space, the composer interprets them as so-called intonation-semantic signs formed in the process of prolonged historical-cultural development, generating valid content, and at the same time, in its intertwinement, creating an individual artistic view of the world.