Abstract: In the works of the Latin American composers we can notice a consistent trend towards the compositions reflecting the specificities of world perception of residents of the region, in which the autochthonous elements of the folk music of Indigenous and Afro-American People are being interpreted by the means of the most recent composer’s techniques. A similar phenomenon in literature was dubbed the “magical realism”. Marlos Nobre (born in 1939) is one of the brightest representatives of Brazilian composer’s school; his music is known for emotional saturation, explicitness of form, as well as testifies of composer’s virtuosic technique. Nobre’s oeuvres “Ukrinmakrinkrin”, “Yanomani”, and “Kabbalah” are inspired with the magic of “miraculous reality” of Latin America. In composer’s works we can observe a fusion of the three diverse components – avant-gardism, as synonym of the novelty and experiment; neoclassicism, as reliance upon the professional art of the past; and neofolklorism, as embodiment of the modern interpretation of the problems of folk character. However, we should underline Nobre’s Brazilian ethnicity, which is manifested in his ideological-conceptual, as well as technical aspects of his compositions.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the Third Sonata for Violin and Piano by José Antônio de Almeida Prado – one of the brightest chamber works of his later years. As of today, the specificity, characteristic traits and logical origins of Prado’s works have only partially been interpreted and explained in separate articles of Brazilian musicologists. The author’s goal was to study the specificity of the stylistics of this sonata, particularly to analysis it's musical language and structure, including the specific complex of the tonal and modal harmonic means, mixed chords of a complicated structure, as well as the forms and methods of thematic development. The author utilized traditional musicological procedures, used in the field of modern harmony and analysis. Based on this analysis, the author makes the conclusions that the principles of the thematic development in this sonata are used as classical – various types of imitations, rearrangement of voices, variations of separate elements of the sound material, as well as specific – dictated by the individual peculiarities of the material. In the pitch organization of the sonata the special role is played by the modal expressive means; overall however, the sound texture of the sonata leans on the twelve-tone system, forming as the result of the overlaying of the diatonic scales, tonal alteration, and usage of polychords. Such analysis is conducted for the first time.

Abstract: The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1956) became one of the very first representatives of the New World, whose oeuvres attracted the attention of European artistic community. The composer is known for the extremely extensive range of his creative interests, as well as diverse circle of the images of his music. Villa-Lobos was among the first to study Brazilian folk music; at the beginning of the XX century he visited the remote parts of the country with preserved traditions of the natives and migrants from the African Continent. It was especially interesting to find out how the creative work of the composer was perceived, and how it correlated with European cultural context. The goal of this publication is to present the work of this Brazilian composer in the context of European art. Among many compositions by Villa-Lobos, the most diverse in its artistic images and musical material is the cycle Bachianas Brasileiras. It is also evident that through the prime examples of European art, the composer tended to make Brazilian music a part of the world culture. In this regard, his Bachianas is one of the manifestations of neoclassicism. For Europe, the interest to the works of Villa-Lobos was mostly due to the fact that at the edge of the centuries there was a spike in the interest towards the forgotten types of music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and deep antiquity, as well as the ancient folklore of African-Brazilian and Indigenous People have been assimilated.

Abstract: The second issue of our journal is devoted to various aspect of the contemporary foreign music. The authors were mostly interested in the problems of aesthetics and styles, as well as study of specificity of the contemporary means of expressiveness. Thus, the Doctor of Philosophy E. I. Shapinskaya in her article presents an extensive culturological analysis of the work of the medieval German painter Bernt Notke “Danse Macabre” (Dance of Death) alongside the cantata of the contemporary British composer Thomas Adès within the contexts of Medieval Times and Postmodernism, based on the descriptive method; an attempt is made to perform a hermeneutic analysis of both cultural texts. However, this issue focuses attention on the analysis of the works of the three renowned Brazilian composers – Heitor Villa-Lobos, José Antônio de Almeida Prado, and Marlos Nobre. Such peculiar attention to Brazilian music is explained by the fact that at the end of February of 2016 the State Institute for Art Studies held an the international conference titled “Brazilian Academic Music”. This event is remarkable because the music of Brazilian composers for the first time became the topic of the scientific discourse in Moscow: for majority of the Russian music lovers this area of contemporary art is yet quite exotic. The conference was held at high level; Brazilian guests and music culture experts, as well as audience from different scientific institutes were welcomed by the Brazilian Ambassador to Russia Antonio Jose Vallim Guerreiro, Director of the Institute for Art Studies Natalia Vladimirovna Sipovskaya, Deputy Director on scientific work Elena Ivanovna Strutinskaya, and First Secretary of the Embassy, attaché on culture Igor Zhermano. The initiator of this conference was the Department of Theory of Music, while the performance of Brazilian guests along with the concert program were organized with the support of the Brazilian Embassy in Moscow. Choosing the topics for the discourse, organizers were trying to illustrate a wide panorama of Brazilian music, especially considering that there are very few experts in this area of contemporary music. The materials from several reports prepared specifically for this conference, are presented in the main content of the issue of our journal.
The conference was opened by the report of Doctor of Art Studies and Senior Researcher at the State Institute for Art Studies Valeria Nikolayevna Fedotova “Villa-Lobos and the European Music”. At a certain point, the works by Villa-Lobos became the subject of dissertation of the musicologist; in her publications she also described the music of other Latin American countries. In her report, V. N. Fedotova re-learned multiple materials from the French archives and underlined that the artistic synthesis in the works of Villa-Lobos was performed on the highest artistic level; thus, his oeuvres were able to attract attention of the wide European audience and renowned creative communities in the 1920’s. Special interest sparked the report on the works by composer Marlos Nobre and “magical realism” by Vitaliy Romanovich Dotsenko (Post-Doctoral Degree in Art Studies, Leading Researcher at the Center of Culturological Research attached to the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, author of the monograph “History of Latin American Music of the XVI–XX centuries”, 2010). Marlos Nobre (born in 1939) is one of the brightest representatives of Brazilian Composer’s School; his music was the conduit for individualized reflection of the main music directions of the XX century – neofolklorism, neoclassicism, and various trends of avant-garde. The report of Natalia Sergeevna Renyova (Doctor of Art Studies, Docent at the department of Theory and History of Music, the Maimonid State Classical Academy) was dedicated to the analysis of the Third Sonata for Violin and Piano by José de Almeida Prado (1991). This composer’s music also aroused interest of another researcher Olga Valerievna Sobakina (Post-Doctoral Degree in Art Studies, Leading Researcher at the State Institute for Art Studies).
We hope that becoming familiar with the presented in this issue scientific material will be a continuation of the dialogue between the Russian and Brazilian musicians, contribute into the scientific and cultural collaboration, as well as spark interest of the performers and listeners to the expressive and remarkable music of the contemporary Brazilian composers.   

Abstract: In the works of the Latin American composers we can notice a consistent trend towards the compositions reflecting the specificities of world perception of residents of the region, in which the autochthonous elements of the folk music of Indigenous and Afro-American People are being interpreted by the means of the most recent composer’s techniques. A similar phenomenon in literature was dubbed the “magical realism”. Marlos Nobre (born in 1939) is one of the brightest representatives of Brazilian composer’s school; his music is known for emotional saturation, explicitness of form, as well as testifies of composer’s virtuosic technique. Nobre’s oeuvres “Ukrinmakrinkrin”, “Yanomani”, and “Kabbalah” are inspired with the magic of “miraculous reality” of Latin America. In composer’s works we can observe a fusion of the three diverse components – avant-gardism, as synonym of the novelty and experiment; neoclassicism, as reliance upon the professional art of the past; and neofolklorism, as embodiment of the modern interpretation of the problems of folk character. However, we should underline Nobre’s Brazilian ethnicity, which is manifested in his ideological-conceptual, as well as technical aspects of his compositions.

Abstract: At the beginning of the XX century the piano music was very popular in Brazil, thus it held a significant part in the works by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Camargo Guarnieri, and later, gained attention of the composers of the following generation. In the works by Almeida Prado (1943-2010), ten piano sonatas and large cycles attract attention; they are not only written by a renowned composer, but also a professional pianist, who was able to transmit the ideas that were typical for the music of the 60’s and 70’s, as well as the virtuosity in contemporary treatment of the instrument. The goal of this article is to form the perception of the evolution of the piano style of this composer. The piano works by Almeida Prado is being examined in the Russian musicology for the first time. The author highlights its significant place in the contemporary piano repertoire, limited transformation of modern trends, and dominance of the post-modernistic aesthetics. Many stylistic tactics, as well as the interest towards national themes allow us to characterize Almeida Prado as the follower of Villa-Lobos. At the same time, in the composing techniques of the first decades of his life we can see interest not only towards the works of Messiaen, but also Guarnieri, Ligeti, and Boulez.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the Third Sonata for Violin and Piano by José Antônio de Almeida Prado – one of the brightest chamber works of his later years. As of today, the specificity, characteristic traits and logical origins of Prado’s works have only partially been interpreted and explained in separate articles of Brazilian musicologists. The author’s goal was to study the specificity of the stylistics of this sonata, particularly to analysis it's musical language and structure, including the specific complex of the tonal and modal harmonic means, mixed chords of a complicated structure, as well as the forms and methods of thematic development. The author utilized traditional musicological procedures, used in the field of modern harmony and analysis. Based on this analysis, the author makes the conclusions that the principles of the thematic development in this sonata are used as classical – various types of imitations, rearrangement of voices, variations of separate elements of the sound material, as well as specific – dictated by the individual peculiarities of the material. In the pitch organization of the sonata the special role is played by the modal expressive means; overall however, the sound texture of the sonata leans on the twelve-tone system, forming as the result of the overlaying of the diatonic scales, tonal alteration, and usage of polychords. Such analysis is conducted for the first time.

Abstract: The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1956) became one of the very first representatives of the New World, whose oeuvres attracted the attention of European artistic community. The composer is known for the extremely extensive range of his creative interests, as well as diverse circle of the images of his music. Villa-Lobos was among the first to study Brazilian folk music; at the beginning of the XX century he visited the remote parts of the country with preserved traditions of the natives and migrants from the African Continent. It was especially interesting to find out how the creative work of the composer was perceived, and how it correlated with European cultural context. The goal of this publication is to present the work of this Brazilian composer in the context of European art. Among many compositions by Villa-Lobos, the most diverse in its artistic images and musical material is the cycle Bachianas Brasileiras. It is also evident that through the prime examples of European art, the composer tended to make Brazilian music a part of the world culture. In this regard, his Bachianas is one of the manifestations of neoclassicism. For Europe, the interest to the works of Villa-Lobos was mostly due to the fact that at the edge of the centuries there was a spike in the interest towards the forgotten types of music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and deep antiquity, as well as the ancient folklore of African-Brazilian and Indigenous People have been assimilated.

Abstract: The second issue of our journal is devoted to various aspect of the contemporary foreign music. The authors were mostly interested in the problems of aesthetics and styles, as well as study of specificity of the contemporary means of expressiveness. Thus, the Doctor of Philosophy E. I. Shapinskaya in her article presents an extensive culturological analysis of the work of the medieval German painter Bernt Notke “Danse Macabre” (Dance of Death) alongside the cantata of the contemporary British composer Thomas Adès within the contexts of Medieval Times and Postmodernism, based on the descriptive method; an attempt is made to perform a hermeneutic analysis of both cultural texts. However, this issue focuses attention on the analysis of the works of the three renowned Brazilian composers – Heitor Villa-Lobos, José Antônio de Almeida Prado, and Marlos Nobre. Such peculiar attention to Brazilian music is explained by the fact that at the end of February of 2016 the State Institute for Art Studies held an the international conference titled “Brazilian Academic Music”. This event is remarkable because the music of Brazilian composers for the first time became the topic of the scientific discourse in Moscow: for majority of the Russian music lovers this area of contemporary art is yet quite exotic. The conference was held at high level; Brazilian guests and music culture experts, as well as audience from different scientific institutes were welcomed by the Brazilian Ambassador to Russia Antonio Jose Vallim Guerreiro, Director of the Institute for Art Studies Natalia Vladimirovna Sipovskaya, Deputy Director on scientific work Elena Ivanovna Strutinskaya, and First Secretary of the Embassy, attaché on culture Igor Zhermano. The initiator of this conference was the Department of Theory of Music, while the performance of Brazilian guests along with the concert program were organized with the support of the Brazilian Embassy in Moscow. Choosing the topics for the discourse, organizers were trying to illustrate a wide panorama of Brazilian music, especially considering that there are very few experts in this area of contemporary music. The materials from several reports prepared specifically for this conference, are presented in the main content of the issue of our journal.
The conference was opened by the report of Doctor of Art Studies and Senior Researcher at the State Institute for Art Studies Valeria Nikolayevna Fedotova “Villa-Lobos and the European Music”. At a certain point, the works by Villa-Lobos became the subject of dissertation of the musicologist; in her publications she also described the music of other Latin American countries. In her report, V. N. Fedotova re-learned multiple materials from the French archives and underlined that the artistic synthesis in the works of Villa-Lobos was performed on the highest artistic level; thus, his oeuvres were able to attract attention of the wide European audience and renowned creative communities in the 1920’s. Special interest sparked the report on the works by composer Marlos Nobre and “magical realism” by Vitaliy Romanovich Dotsenko (Post-Doctoral Degree in Art Studies, Leading Researcher at the Center of Culturological Research attached to the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, author of the monograph “History of Latin American Music of the XVI–XX centuries”, 2010). Marlos Nobre (born in 1939) is one of the brightest representatives of Brazilian Composer’s School; his music was the conduit for individualized reflection of the main music directions of the XX century – neofolklorism, neoclassicism, and various trends of avant-garde. The report of Natalia Sergeevna Renyova (Doctor of Art Studies, Docent at the department of Theory and History of Music, the Maimonid State Classical Academy) was dedicated to the analysis of the Third Sonata for Violin and Piano by José de Almeida Prado (1991). This composer’s music also aroused interest of another researcher Olga Valerievna Sobakina (Post-Doctoral Degree in Art Studies, Leading Researcher at the State Institute for Art Studies).
We hope that becoming familiar with the presented in this issue scientific material will be a continuation of the dialogue between the Russian and Brazilian musicians, contribute into the scientific and cultural collaboration, as well as spark interest of the performers and listeners to the expressive and remarkable music of the contemporary Brazilian composers.   

Abstract: The subject of this research is the work of Ján Cikker (1911-1989), which remains virtually unknown in Russia, despite the fact that this composer is rightly acknowledged alongside Eugen Suchoňto be the founder of the modern composition school; it is no coincidence that out of his class graduated almost all notable composers of Slovakia. His work is marked by a special interest to opera, which remains a fairly rare phenomenon for the music of the XX century. Moreover, as his task he set the creation of such musical language that would combine modern forms with the national material. The author carefully examines the stages of life and formation of the creative principles of one of the renowned composers of the XX century. The main conclusions of the research consist in the fact that the creative style of Ján Cikker is distinguished by the clarity of idea, bright imagery, and inclination towards lyricism. The main theme of his work is the theme of human personality, developed in many works of various genres. The composer embodied the national theme and realized the national folklore on the highest level of composing mastery, but a special place for the Slovak culture is held by his operas

Abstract: The Polish art of the early XX century sands out overcoming the genre limitations and enriching the techniques thanks to the synthesis of the expressive literary means, painting, and music. Due to reframing the themes of antiquity in the context of modernity and symbolism, their new interpretations have appeared; the other part of this process consisted in the interest towards the ancient layers of the national folklore. The written in 1910-1920’s by Karol Szymanowski compositions, demonstrated the intensive search for the new technical means, as well as characteristic qualities of musical symbolism and modernity, in the end expressing the composer’s idea on the national Polish style. Reconceptualizing the ancient and medieval mythology, Polish artists gravitated towards understanding the eternal problems of the universe, and simultaneously referred to the national themes. Karol Szymanowski ballet “Harnasie” and cantata Stabat Mater expressed not only the artistic trends of its time, but also convincingly realized the national self-consciousness, manifested in the form of customs and legends.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the work of Ján Cikker (1911-1989), which remains virtually unknown in Russia, despite the fact that this composer is rightly acknowledged alongside Eugen Suchoňto be the founder of the modern composition school; it is no coincidence that out of his class graduated almost all notable composers of Slovakia. His work is marked by a special interest to opera, which remains a fairly rare phenomenon for the music of the XX century. Moreover, as his task he set the creation of such musical language that would combine modern forms with the national material. The author carefully examines the stages of life and formation of the creative principles of one of the renowned composers of the XX century. The main conclusions of the research consist in the fact that the creative style of Ján Cikker is distinguished by the clarity of idea, bright imagery, and inclination towards lyricism. The main theme of his work is the theme of human personality, developed in many works of various genres. The composer embodied the national theme and realized the national folklore on the highest level of composing mastery, but a special place for the Slovak culture is held by his operas.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the work of Ján Cikker (1911-1989), which remains virtually unknown in Russia, despite the fact that this composer is rightly acknowledged alongside Eugen Suchoňto be the founder of the modern composition school; it is no coincidence that out of his class graduated almost all notable composers of Slovakia. His work is marked by a special interest to opera, which remains a fairly rare phenomenon for the music of the XX century. Moreover, as his task he set the creation of such musical language that would combine modern forms with the national material. The author carefully examines the stages of life and formation of the creative principles of one of the renowned composers of the XX century. The main conclusions of the research consist in the fact that the creative style of Ján Cikker is distinguished by the clarity of idea, bright imagery, and inclination towards lyricism. The main theme of his work is the theme of human personality, developed in many works of various genres. The composer embodied the national theme and realized the national folklore on the highest level of composing mastery, but a special place for the Slovak culture is held by his operas

Abstract: The Polish art of the early XX century sands out overcoming the genre limitations and enriching the techniques thanks to the synthesis of the expressive literary means, painting, and music. Due to reframing the themes of antiquity in the context of modernity and symbolism, their new interpretations have appeared; the other part of this process consisted in the interest towards the ancient layers of the national folklore. The written in 1910-1920’s by Karol Szymanowski compositions, demonstrated the intensive search for the new technical means, as well as characteristic qualities of musical symbolism and modernity, in the end expressing the composer’s idea on the national Polish style. Reconceptualizing the ancient and medieval mythology, Polish artists gravitated towards understanding the eternal problems of the universe, and simultaneously referred to the national themes. Karol Szymanowski ballet “Harnasie” and cantata Stabat Mater expressed not only the artistic trends of its time, but also convincingly realized the national self-consciousness, manifested in the form of customs and legends.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the work of Ján Cikker (1911-1989), which remains virtually unknown in Russia, despite the fact that this composer is rightly acknowledged alongside Eugen Suchoňto be the founder of the modern composition school; it is no coincidence that out of his class graduated almost all notable composers of Slovakia. His work is marked by a special interest to opera, which remains a fairly rare phenomenon for the music of the XX century. Moreover, as his task he set the creation of such musical language that would combine modern forms with the national material. The author carefully examines the stages of life and formation of the creative principles of one of the renowned composers of the XX century. The main conclusions of the research consist in the fact that the creative style of Ján Cikker is distinguished by the clarity of idea, bright imagery, and inclination towards lyricism. The main theme of his work is the theme of human personality, developed in many works of various genres. The composer embodied the national theme and realized the national folklore on the highest level of composing mastery, but a special place for the Slovak culture is held by his operas.

Abstract: The subject of this article is the comparison of the work of renowned Polish composers of the XX century – Andrzej Panufnik (1914-1991) and Roman Palester (1907-1989). By the early 1950’s both composers were successful not only at home, but also in the countries of the Western Europe. But the desire for freedom of creative expression motivated them to elect the difficult path of being emigrants. From the mid 1950’s the work of Panufnik and Palester became banned in Poland, and all their future works faced the uneasy path of winning new audiences, first in England and Switzerland, and then, from the 1980’s, at home. The novelty of this research consists in the comparison of the creative paths and compositional principles of both composers, and presentation of their work to the Russian readers. A special emphasis is made on the fact that in continuing their path of emigration, the composers referred not only to new techniques of composition, but also to the traditions of Polish music. Preferring traditional genres of symphonic music, both have demonstrated remarkable creative innovation in their individual approach towards dodecaphony. We can certainly state that the works of Panufnik and Palester written during emigration have substantially enriched the scene of development of modern Polish music.

Abstract: The subject of this article is the comparison of the work of renowned Polish composers of the XX century – Andrzej Panufnik (1914-1991) and Roman Palester (1907-1989). By the early 1950’s both composers were successful not only at home, but also in the countries of the Western Europe. But the desire for freedom of creative expression motivated them to elect the difficult path of being emigrants. From the mid 1950’s the work of Panufnik and Palester became banned in Poland, and all their future works faced the uneasy path of winning new audiences, first in England and Switzerland, and then, from the 1980’s, at home. The novelty of this research consists in the comparison of the creative paths and compositional principles of both composers, and presentation of their work to the Russian readers. A special emphasis is made on the fact that in continuing their path of emigration, the composers referred not only to new techniques of composition, but also to the traditions of Polish music. Preferring traditional genres of symphonic music, both have demonstrated remarkable creative innovation in their individual approach towards dodecaphony. We can certainly state that the works of Panufnik and Palester written during emigration have substantially enriched the scene of development of modern Polish music.

Abstract: Piano music composed by Kazimierz Serocki and Bogusław Schaeffer includes highly original composition in the aesthetics of polish sonoristics and aleatorics. This composers created his own avant-garde piano stylistics. The main features of the works by polish composers of 1960 – 1970 are the stylistic synthesis and the interest to avant-garde techniques.