Analytical Approaches to 20th-Century Russian Music

This volume brings together analyses of works by thirteen Russian composers from across the twentieth century, showing how their approaches to tonality, modernism, and serialism forge forward-looking paths independent from their Western counterparts. Russian music of this era is widely performed, and much research has situated this repertoire in its historical and social context, yet few analytical studies have explored the technical aspects of these composers' styles. With a set of representative analyses by leading scholars in music theory and analysis, this book for the first time identifies large-scale compositional trends in Russian music since 1900. The chapters progress by compositional style through the century, and each addresses a single work by a different composer, covering pieces by Rachmaninoff, Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mansurian, Roslavets, Mosolov, Lourié, Tcherepnin, Ustvolskaya, Denisov, Gubaidulina, and Schnittke. Musicians, scholars, and students will find here a starting point for research and analysis of these composers' works and gain a richer understanding of how to listen to and interpret their music.

Inessa Bazayev is Paula G. Manship Associate Professor of Music Theory and Theory Area Coordinator at Louisiana State University. Christopher Segall is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.

Table of Contents Contributors Introduction Part I: Tonality Chapter 1 Tonal Pairing in Two of Rachmaninoff's Songs Ellen Bakulina Chapter 2 Abundant Novelty of Antitonic Harmony in the Music of Nikolai Myaskovsky Scott Murphy Chapter 3 House of Mirrors: Distorted Proportions in Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 Rebecca Perry Chapter 4 A Curiosity in the Early String Quartets of Shostakovich, and Its Precedents in Previous Works Patrick McCreless Chapter 5 Navigating Post-Soviet Armenia: On Decoloniality in Tigran Mansurian's Requiem Knar Abrahamyan Part II: Modernism Chapter 6 Fifths' Paths through Nikolai Roslavets's Three Poems of Zinaida Gippius Inessa Bazayev Chapter 7 Alexander Mosolov's Piano Sonata No. 1 and Its Synthetic Modernism Daniil Zavlunov Chapter 8 The Rebirth of Melody in Lourié's Post-Neoclassical Concerto da camera Klára Móricz Chapter 9 The Features of Alexander Tcherepnin's Nine-Step Scale and Its Use in the First Movement of His First Symphony Joshua Bedford Chapter 10 Timbre and Vibration in Galina Ustvolskaya's Composition No. 1, "Dona nobis pacem" Maria Cizmic Part III: Serialism Chapter 11 Edison Denisov and Multiple-Row Serialism Zachary Cairns Chapter 12 Historical and Stylistic Reconciliation in Sofia Gubaidulina's Reflections on the Theme BACH Joseph Straus Chapter 13 Monogram, Theme, and Large-Scale Form in Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto Christopher Segall Index