Abstract: The article considers the peculiarities of the content of the Makrokosmos III series by American avant-garde composer George Crumb. The author reveals its semantic properties, the peculiarities of correlation between the image and the form; substantiates flagship epigraphs and draws parallels with other opuses of the composer. The author emphasizes that the image of Space, used by Crumps as a background, is revealed logically enough both of the level of content and of the musical language. The main object of the study - Makrokosmos III - is devoted to contemplating the outer nature of Space, thence comes the title - Music for a summer evening. Space for Crumb is a ubiquitous phenomenon existing at all levels of entity. It is considered as the world as a whole - everything around us. Space is understood not only as outer space with different objects which can be thought of as an unseen reality (owing to scientific discoveries, now we can judge about its structure and spheres), and as a perceptible reality (Space which is perceptible to the human’s eye), but also as a particular human’s life.  

Keywords: Macrocosm, George Crumb, dramaturgy, space in music, art synthesis, philosophy of music, modern composition, art history, interpretation, Music and Time

Abstract: The essay is devoted to the Merited Artist of the RSFSR Ivan Yakovlevich Panitsky (1906-1990), an outstanding virtuoso of bayan, teacher and composer. Panitsky, a vision impaired original musician from the Volgian village Balakovo, was destined to pave the way for Russian bayan to the academic scene, significantly enrich the concert repertoire of professional bayanists. The author of the article traces back the beginnings of professional and spiritual and creative formation of I. Panitsky and reveals the spirituality and poetry of his character which defined the main direction of the musician’s work - the field of instrumental lyrics. The author gives special attention to music events devoted to the famous countryman initiated by the department of folk instruments of Saratov State Conservatory named after L.V. Sobinov. The author uses the historical method to study the musician’s biography and the method of musical analysis of the piece. The author studies Panitsky’s waltzes “Remembrance” and “Dead roses” as the examples of bayan lyrics. The paper describes the typical ways of work with music material revealing the main lyric idea of the piece: its improvisatory character, polyphony of the manner, variations, and the diversity of timbre colours of a bayan. The novelty of the study consists in the combination of the narration of historical and biographical material with the unprecedented analysis of Panitsky’s works in the waltz genre. The author concludes that Panitsky’s background is inseparable from the region of his birth. The strong spiritual bond with his small motherland, its history and traditions, defined the bright individuality and recognizability of the works of the famous bayanist, one of the remarkable representatives of bayan lyrics in the Russian instrumental music of the 20th century.  

Keywords: bayannya lyrics, cradle, teaching staff, Saratov State Conservatory, childhood years, Volga river, Russian festival, folk instrumental art, waltzes of Panitsky, Panitsky

Abstract: The article unfolds the phenomenon of a musical form in terms of its definition in social communication. In spite of the fact that particular studies within musicology discuss this issue (A.Sokhor, V. Zukerman, V. Kholopova, E. Nazaikinsky, M. Aranovsky), a precise definition of musical form does not exist. Its social and communicative significance is interpreted especially unclearly. The author uses the analytical research method based on the principle of selection of significant definitions of a musical form. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the approach to a musical form as a subject of social communication. Through the prism of the analytical approach, the author detects the degree of dependence of a form on focusing on a particular listener, on their perception in terms of concert platform or another performance principle.  

Keywords: social communication, the content of art, musical art, theory of music, genre in music, genre and society, theoretical musicology, genre, art history, musicology

Abstract: The paper studies the multimedia opera genre represented in the works of an Italian composer Fausto Romitelli. The composer passed away at the age of 41, and his last work of art is also a projection of a requiem for the New media age. The author analyzes the plot of An Index of Metals, the process of forming and interrelation between abstract video and music in terms of the peculiarities of the New Media. The article considers the plethora of associations and allusions, manifesting themselves in the multimedia opera, in terms of creative guidelines of the composer. The peculiarity of the genre performance is the transformation of total perception of a spectator diving into the white-hot matter of floating sounds, forms and shapes, with heavy hypnotic influence. The author concludes about the process of genre transformation in which the spectator’s perception goes beyond the limits of a physical body through an alien sound material and the confluence of visual, sound and associative and verbal means of interpretation of the content of An Index of Metals.  

Keywords: abstract video, requiem in matter, total perception, spectralism, Kenka Lekovich, multimedia opera, Paccini, Metal Index, Romitelli, sound matte

Abstract: The research subject is over-citation - the situation when composers use too much citation in one composition. In such cases there can be dozens of citations, and the composition itself (or some its part/completed fragment) is not very long. The share of the author’s material in this case is often minimal or even equal to zero. It’s obvious that this phenomenon raises some serious questions, including: 1) particular forms of organizing the borrowed content within the composition and its interpreting; 2) prerequisites leading to over-citation. To solve these problems one should use the following methods of analysis: intertextual, compositional, style, structure, semantic, hermeneutic and esthetic analysis. It is obvious that using over-citation aggravates the problem of building a composition as a whole. Therefore, in the compositions with over-citation, composers have to search for the approaches which help to organize it by means of 1) selecting the very material of primary sources of citations and their logic of sequence; 2) varying the share of citations. The reasons determining the use of over-citation form two groups: the specific idea of the piece (e.g., its story); the common prerequisites consisting in the chosen genre, the manner of the author’s thinking and finally - the particular type of the composer’s technique. Particularly, over-citation can be one of the manifestations of absurdism. In this case, the fragments of primary sources and their order are selected randomly and can be replaced with some others, and their characteristics (genre background, intonational specificity) are irrelevant (J. Cage’s “Europeras”, M. Kagel’s “Ludwig van”).  

Keywords: composition, semantics, structure, text, polistilistics, collage, hyperquotation, quotation, absurd, dramaturgy

Abstract: Sacred musical compositions play an important role in the intellectual development of a person. At the current stage of evolution of the Russian musical art, there are numbers of compositions of this type. The article considers the rise the orthodox sacred music at the late 20th century. The author considers the attitude of A. Ryndin, a composer from Astrakhan, towards this type of music. The author analyzes the cycle “The three sacred chants”  for the mixed choir a capella and soloists, and considers each item revealing some peculiarities of the correlation between the text and the specificities of the musical dramatic composition. The author notes that the “The three sacred chants” cycle is remarkable for the originality of the composer’s idea combining the traits of various musical styles and techniques, the interaction of various choir patterns (from the classical to the free). At the same time, each particular item (despite the fact that they are united in one cycle) is an integral  and independent piece of art.  

Keywords: spiritual music, spirituality, Alexander Ryndin, theory of music, philosophy of music, musicology, art history, choir cycle, Three spiritual chants, choir texture

Abstract: The article considers the notion of “genre”. The author uses the set of vocal items to demonstrate the principles of folkloric material classification.  The author enumerates the factors influencing on confinedness and non-confinedness of the material and the dependence of defining the elements composing the genre traits in the field of study. The author also considers the research of other scholars in the field and cites the key findings of such scholars as I.I. Zemtsovsky, Yu.N. Tynjanov, A.N. Veselovsky, G.N. Pospelov, Yu. G. Kruglov, F.A. Rubtsov, V.L. Goshovsky, E.V. Gippius, V.A. Lapin, E.A. Dorokhova, O.A. Pashina. The author notes the most popular interpretation of the criteria of evaluating folkloric vocal items proposed by E.V. Gippius. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that the author corroborates theoretical materials in the field of genre studies with the musical materials of the local tradition of Astrakhan region. The problem is that at the current stage of scientific development, there is a plethora of opinions of scientists basing on the data typical for a particular territory and a particular tradition. Thus, the set of elements under consideration is often varying and incomparable. Therefore, using local materials, scholars can work on their own arguments proving their hypotheses.  

Keywords: transformation of genres, genre-style dominant, song type, syntactics, folklore, art history, theory of genres, ethnomusicology, system of folklore, typology of genre