The attitude of the general public and musical circles to the work of Sergei Nikiforovich Vasilenko (1872–1956) changed more than once. Now that it becomes possible to consider his work more objectively, it is attracting the increasing attention of performers and researchers. One of Vasilenko’s most interesting works yet to receive critical reappraisal is his opera Son of the Sun [Sïn Solntsa] (1929). A year after its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre, the opera was largely forgotten; however, as the present work sets out to demonstrate, this was primarily as a result of political and not artistic factors. Up until now, Son of the Sun has not been the object of detailed musicological analysis. Fortunately, the score, archival materials and critical responses to the production have been preserved. By turning to them, one can reconstruct the atmosphere of its creation to provide this important work with an unbiased assessment and answer the question about the reasons for its unhappy stage fate. The relevance of Son of the Sun today is determined by another circumstance: it is the only Soviet opera whose subject matter is connected with China: the libretto by Mikhail Galperin is based on the events of the Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901. As well as drawing on elements of romanticism, impressionism, and modernism, Vasilenko’s music reveals a keen interest in Chinese folklore: in addition to repeatedly quoting themes from Chinese folk music, the composer finds new ways of working with them that correspond to the nature of the material itself. In the musical dramaturgy of the opera, four independent lines can be distinguished: ethnographic, lyrical, revolutionary–ideological and “topical”. In the last of them, the composer comes close to the genre of Zeitoper, which became popular in European musical theatre during the 1920s and 1930s. The study of Vasilenko’s forgotten opera on the eve of its 100th anniversary shows that Son of the Sun has many merits that justify its more thorough study and new attempts to bring it to stage.

Of special relevance in the research of Russian music of the Baroque period are the methods of analysis that appeal to the music theory textbooks of that time. This article examines for the first time the theory of amplification developed by Nikolai Diletsky in his treatise Musikiyskaya grammatika [Musical Grammar]: the most significant techniques are disclosed of expansion of composition, which include exact repetition and various types of varied repetition, including modal, metric-rhythmic and melodic transformations of the musical material. It is suggested that the models of the ascending and descending motion, according to Diletsky, the so-called ascents and descents, are also means of amplification. The main aim of the article is the study of the music of the most significant composer of the partesny style, Vasily Titov from the point of view of Diletsky’s theory. The main object of the research is provided by eight two-choir concertos by Titov, the scores of which have been compiled and edited by the author of the article and are presently being prepared for publication. In this work the techniques of expansion of composition are revealed and characterized, their similarities or differences with the examples offered in Musikiyskaya grammatika [Musical Grammar] are established. It is shown that the multitude of techniques of exposition and the development of the material in Titov’s music exceed the usual “tutorial” schemes. Thus, the composer seldom turns to precise repetition, instead, applying timbral-textural variation, including the chorale rule, i.e., antiphonal juxtaposition of the choruses, basing himself on simple or canonic imitations of the respective choruses. Melodic transformations, such as, for instance, inversions are not only given in consecutive juxtapositions with the prime versions, but also combining together the prime and inverted versions in simultaneous sounding. It is established that Titov expands the ambitus of the models of ascending motion suggested by Diletsky, and also makes broad use of the rule of mixing together the types of motion (mixta), forming his own synthetic models. In his artistic realization of the typified schemes, Titov makes use of harmonic and contrapuntal means in a masterful way, achieving great artistic results. The article is accompanied by music examples, which illustrate the theoretical positions.

The article considers the various connections between Ludwig van Beethoven’s opera Fidelio and specific elements pertaining to Spanish culture. According to the libretto, the events take place in a state prison near Seville. Beethoven’s librettists (Joseph Sonnleithner, Stephan von Breuning and Georg Friedrich Treitschke) closely followed the original source, Jean-Nicolas Bouilly’s play Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal, which had originally been set to music by Pierre Gaveaux (Paris, 1798). If Bouilly’s play is designated as a “historical fact” (fait historique), then on the title page of Gaveaux’ opera there appeared a further clarification: “a fact from Spanish history” (fait historique Espagnol). It is traditionally believed that the choice of Spain as the setting for both the French original and the German adaptations of the libretto was based on censorship considerations. Indeed, Bouilly had good reasons not to advertise any connection between the plot of Léonore and the events of the Jacobin Terror of 1793. However, the “Spanish trace” is still present in Bouilly’s play and in the libretto of Fidelio. The plot of Bouilly’s Léonore might contain references to the medieval legend of the 10th century Count Fernán González, who, according to the epic poem composed three centuries later, was freed from captivity by his bride, the Infanta Sancha. Several books on this topic published in Spain during the 18th century were accompanied by illustrations reminiscent of the mise-en-scènes from the prison scene in Fidelio. The “Spanish trace” is visible both in the names and in the characters of the opera’s heroes, especially Léonore, Pizarro and Florestan (in some 19th-century adaptations of Fidelio, Florestan was given either a Spanish aristocratic surname or the name Ferdinando). The staging and costumes for Beethoven’s opera also contained features that clearly indicated the era of the late 16th–early 17th century, i.e., the time of the reigns of Philip II and Philip III. Although Fidelio was not staged in Spain until 1893, this opera became a repertoire piece in Spanish-speaking countries in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Georges Bizet occupies an important place in the history of French musical theatre thanks to his works such as Carmen and Les pêcheurs de perles. However, the musical career of this bright and original composer includes not only his own compositional oeuvre, which is relatively modest in terms of the number of works he created, but also his work in adjacent spheres. The article discusses the editorial and correction work on the works of other authors, which Bizet began to carry out in the mid-1850s and was especially active in the 1860s and early 1870s. Bizet worked on transcriptions (piano-vocal reductions, arrangements for solo piano and duets for 4 hands, orchestration and additional compositions) of opera works by other composers for French music publishing houses — primarily Choudens and Heugel. The article also examines Bizet’s participation in the rehearsal and production process of opera performances by his colleagues and friends — in particular, Charles Gounod and Ernest Reyer. By turning to the composer’s epistolary legacy and the memoirs of his contemporaries, as well as by analysing some of the available operatic arrangements made by Bizet, we gain the opportunity to take a closer look at French musical and theatrical life of the second half of the 19th century as well as the private work of a musician of that time: work that was not always socially or legally recognised, but which nevertheless demonstrated the quality and professionalism of its producer. Moreover, a discussion of Bizet’s piano arrangements is important both in the context of the existence of this kind of music, as well as from the point of view of the educational and development functions that it fulfilled. No less significant for Bizet’s career was his assistance and participation in rehearsals of his compatriots’ performances in Parisian and other theatres: acting as an accompanist and “assistant composer”, Bizet could observe the opera “kitchen” from the inside and thus avail himself of the opportunity to prepare the ingredients for his own musical and theatrical masterpieces.

The article highlights a high-profile project by the Bern Academy of Arts to bring back into musical life one of the key works in the history of 20th-century Swiss music — Othmar Schoeck’s opera Das Schloß Dürande (1941). For many decades, despite its manifest musical merits, the performance of this composition seemed absolutely impossible due to the political overtones with which it is associated. Various “interpretive restoration” strategies were aimed at creating a new version of the opera. In the first place, the libretto, which was created by the Nazi writer Hermann Burte and based on the novella of the same name by the 19th-century German romantic author Joseph Eichendorff, underwent significant revision. The rather low literary level of the original libretto, which employed a large number of ideological clichés ad slogans, required the replacement of more than half of the text, essentially involving its rewriting based on the appropriate verse texts written by Eichendorff. The changes also affected the vocal part. In addition, a careful study of historical documents made it possible to clarify the circumstances of the opera’s premiere, which took place in Nazi Berlin in 1943. After a mere four performances, the opera was removed at the request of the Third Reich ideologist, Hermann Göring. New biographical information has also more fully revealed the position of Schoeck, who was not a supporter of National Socialism. Considering that “being Swiss” meant adopting a scrupulous attitude of “neutrality”, the composer collaborated with the Nazis for career reasons. The result of many years of work on the project was the performance of the updated opera Daß Schloß Dürande at the Meiningen Theatre in 2019. It didn’t convince everyone. However, the determining factor in assessing the opera was not so much the quality of the music and libretto, but rather the problematic history of its creation and reception in an ideological context. Thus, even in its new “denazified” version, Das Schloß Dürande remains closely connected with the past.

The main purpose of the published article is to study the role and determine the possibility of using jewelry in Giulio Caccini vocal music. The composer, the creator of the “new” style, the first among his contemporaries in the preface to the collections of arias and madrigals Le nuove musiche (1602) and Nuove musiche e nuova maniera di scriverle (1614) outlined the main positions of the school of artistic singing, where he reports on the recording of his compositions how to perform. This often leads performers into confusion about the possibility of using any jewelry. As a result, today, in some cases, Caccini music sounds monotonous, uninteresting. In the Baroque era, there was a clear discrepancy between practice and musical notation. An in-depth study and comparison of musical sources, their historical understanding, evaluation based on documentary and theoretical evidence allows us to identify the real practice and features of reproducing jewelry offered by Caccini for performance. As a result, the author of the article emphasizes the need to rethink the approach to performance, in particular, concerning the application of various ornamental effects. In this regard, it becomes important to observe their main purpose: to enhance the affect and mood of the composition through expressive transmission of the word.

In 1934 in Ankara the world premiere of Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s opera Őzsoy took place. The initiator of its creation was the first president of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Atatűrk. He came forward as a peculiar curator who accompanied the project at various stages of its preparation: from the choice of the poetical source (the Persian epos Shahnameh by Ferdowsi) and the definitions of the chief ideas in his interpretation to assigning the librettist (Münir Hayri Egeli) and the composer, whom 27-year-old Ahmed Adnan Saygun was chosen to be. The idea of the creation of national opera fit organically into the context of Atatűrk’s reformist endeavors, however the project of Őzsoy was tinged not only with cultural, but also with political tones: the premiere of the opera, timed to the official visit of Iranian leader Reza Shah Pahlavi, was called to be conducive to the strengthening of Turkish-Iranian contacts. In the opera’s plotline, the theme of the mutual relations of the Turkish and the Iranian peoples is played out. Saygun, an adherent of Atatűrk’s reformative ideas, at that time a scholarship recipient of the Turkish Republic and a recent graduate of the Schola cantorum in Paris, turns in Őzsoy to the experience of European opera, but interprets it individually. This is testified by the formal structure and the dramaturgy (a free, at times montage connection of the musical and the talking episodes, a through type of intonational development and a conditional “number” structure), and the style; at the same time, Turkish national features show themselves through the Western European foundation, which is especially perceptible in the rhythmic and the timbral aspects. Such an intercrossing of the traditions of the East and the West has become one of the characteristic tendencies in 20th century Turkish music.

The production of Evgeny Goslavsky’s magic fairy tale carried out by Aleksandr Lensky with his students and colleagues in his repertory company of the Maly Theater presented a producer’s experiment, a combination of varieties of several theatrical genres within the limits of one performance. The narrative of the play was based on the fantastic motives of folkloristic epos, which required the use of the typical means of a 19th century stage fairy play. On the other hand, the storyline and the language appealed to a poetic style of symbolist and pre-expressionist dramaturgy in the context of which the customary visual effects and machinery appeared as naïve archaic effects. Great expectations in the sphere of synthesis were exerted on Alexander Nikolayevich Schaefer, a composer who was specially invited to St. Petersburg, a graduate of the Conservatory, a chapel master of the Panayev Theater, who had already composed two of his own operas. The complexity of the musical task was in the subservience of the work to the producer’s artistic vision, simultaneously with the application of a maximal amount of professional equipment. What was especially helpful, in the first place, was a knowledge of the fairytale musical scores of Rimsky-Korsakov and Lyadov and, moreover, the ability to adapt to the modest means of the theater’s orchestra. The musical score preserved at the Russian National Museum of Music is variegated in terms of the instrumentation in each of the numbers and is not devoid of imitative qualities. While marking the musical potentials of the play and the production, the reviewers expressed their disappointment regarding the insufficient amount of freedom granted to the composer. Nonetheless, it could hardly have been otherwise. The failure of Razryv-trava [Rip-grass] symbolically marked the instance of a farewell to the old theatrical style and its harsh constraints of genre; the measure of the admissible freedom for the composer, the boundary beyond which the “performance with music” becomes closely interlocked with opera and ballet have yet to be ascertained.

The article is devoted to an issue present in the studies of music and musical terminology in the Dutch mysteries of the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Two terms are examined here in detail – namely, selete and pause, present in the comments of two manuscripts of the productions in Brussels of The Seven Joys of Mary, consisting of various episodes in the lives of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. The productions of The Seven Joys of Mary took place in Brussels from 1448 to 1566 and were timed to the annual procession in honor of the miraculous statue of the Virgin Mary. Analysis of the terms selete and pause is carried out with the consideration of the practice of production of the mystery theater, the peculiarities of the arrangement of the play space of the simultaneous scene, as well as the theatrical activities of the rhetoricians. A number of questions is raised in the article: whether or not there exists any connection between the selete and a particular stage setting, whether the functions of the terms selete and pause differ, how does the use of the term selete in the Brussels manuscripts correlate with the practice of production of the German Passion and Easter rites of the late Medieval period, and the term pause – with the productions of mysteries in France, what musical instruments were used, what chants and musical episodes signified the indicated terms, and also, where were the musicians placed during the performance. In the process of analysis of the manuscript text, various types of comments are revealed being of direct concern to the music of The Seven Joys of Mary. Among them there are side notes containing only selete and only pause, comments in which one of these terms is supplemented by the specification sanc of spel (singing or playing), as well as side notes indicating the musical accompaniment, but not containing the terms selete and pause. As the result of the undertaken research, a conclusion is arrived at about the polyfunctionality of the terms selete and pause in the productions of The Seven Joys of Mary and their correspondence to the traditional terms of mystery theater.

The comparison of different authorial redactions of operas presents one of the through themes of world Verdi studies. The opera Simon Boccanegra holds a unique position, since the second version of the opera was created by Verdi almost a quarter of a century following the first. The depth of the changes, first of all, in the final scene of the first act, for which a new interpretation of the content was found is stipulated by such a temporal distance. Also important is the fact that the edition of Simon Boccanegra became the first large-scale collaborative work of Verdi and Arrigo Boito. In the two versions of the opera, the interconnection between the storyline and the structural laws is examined in the context of the general evolution of Verdi’s pivotal final scenes. In the original version, the composer still followed the conventional traditions, having created the most conservatively structured scene of that kind of all of his works from the 1850s. In the version of 1881, the final scene was transformed into one of the boldest and most original mass scenes in Verdi’s music. While initially the introduction of the episode missing in the play by Antonio García Gutiérrez (the festivities in honor of the anniversary of Simon Boccanegra having been elected as the doge of Genoa) was stipulated by the tradition of the mass grand final scene, the typical structure of which was in many ways “prompted” the scenario, in the second redaction, already the storyline and the verbal text of the scene of the Council session predetermined its musical-dramaturgical structure. However, even in this innovative final scene, Verdi does not abandon certain attributes of the typical structure. The result was a paradoxically organic combination of tradition and innovation of the scene in the Council Hall, which has become one of the pinnacles of the combined artistic work of the outstanding musician and the playwright.

The article elucidates the history of the publication of Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov’s opera The Woman with the Dagger in the Moscow-based publishing house P. Jurgenson, spanning the years 1910–1912. The context is disclosed of the creation of the work occurring at the beginning of the late period of the composer’s creativity, and a short characterization is given of the opera’s dramatic source — a play with the same title by outstanding Austrian dramaturgist and writer of the modern period of the early 20th century. The vicissitudes of the signing of the contract between the composer and the dramaturgist for the right of making use of the play leading to the two men’s resulting agreement with the publishing house are set forth in detail. Special attention is drawn to the new Russian copyright law of that time, created in 1911 with the influence of European legislation, and the rules are described that had to be followed by composers who set their music to already published texts when their works were performed outside of the Russian Empire. Light is shed on the circumstances of the creation of a new Russian libretto for the opera that simultaneously met the requirements of the law, Schnitzler’s wishes and Rebikov’s already written text (an adaptation of Lina Esbeer), the picture for the cover of the cover of the piano-vocal score (drawn by Czech artist Rudolf Adamek), as well as the details of the publication of the piano-vocal score and the brochure with the libretto by Jurgenson’s publishing house. The materials of the article are based on the correspondence of Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov, the publisher at that time, Boris Petrovich Jurgenson and Arthur Schnitzler, the manuscripts of the opera The Woman with the Dagger (the piano-vocal score and the full orchestral score), as well as Rebikov’s biography, all of which are preserved in the archives of the Russian National Museum of Music. The epistolary is brought into scholarly use for the first time in that capacity; Schnitzler’s letters are published for the first time.

The quantity of draft autographs pertaining to Dmitri Shostakovich’s early works is relatively small. But for acquiring a perception of the creative process of the young composer, other documents of this period may be used — variants of compositions that have been preserved in large quantities. And although some of them present simple complimentary authorial copies meant to be gifts for friends and acquaintances, differing to a minimal amount from the initial musical texts, there exists a number of variants where the composer’s creative will is distinctly manifested — an improvement of the perception of form and the sound of the musical composition. The article makes use of the method of comparative analysis of autograph scores, and all the variants were classified in to 1) compositional and 2) those connected with orchestration. The existent mixed variants, for the most part characteristic for later and more large-scale compositions (the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and the Eighth Symphony) have remained beyond the sphere of this research. The compositional transformations are examined on the example of two short pieces written during the year of the composer’s enrollment in the Petrograd Conservatory (1919). They demonstrate various diametrically opposed to each other techniques of work with the material: those include the omission of measure units and groups of measures and the additional composition of new musical text, at times, of great capacity. The variants connected with orchestration are examined on the example of Prelude No. 4 from the Eight Preludes opus 2. The piece has been orchestrated twice. It can be seen in the manuscripts how the composer gradually elucidates for himself the sound contours of the composition and correlates the orchestral profile with the form. The keen understanding of the regularities of orchestrating a composition for wind orchestra is reflected in the variants of the March from the incidental music for the performance of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s The Bedbug. As the result, it becomes possible to conclude that in the early period of his music, Shostakovich’s talent developed itself dynamically. The composer not only evaluates his own works critically, but also aspires to transform some of them. These transformations touch upon both the compositional and the timbral aspects of the compositions, however, at the same time, they do not bring in any radical changes, do not affect the figurative qualities or the musical language and preserve the general structure of the pieces. At the same time, the application of discrepant principles of transcription in various cases demonstrates the composer’s attention to the material.

A new book is devoted to the work of Stravinsky follows and expands upon the tradition of Boris Asafyev’s 1929 monograph. The central analytical object of the new book is the sound fabric unfolding over time in the works of the Russian master. Content-related and semantic interpretations of this object are intended to expand upon, refine, and in some cases correct ideas about Stravinsky’s work that exist in the modern musical consciousness. The book relies on four methodological premises. The historiographical premise stems from an interpretation of Stravinsky’s artistic legacy as a musical universe resting on proto-elements formed during the early stage of his creative development. The methodological premise is based on emphasizing the differences between the dynamic-procedural creative method, which is characteristic of the classical and romantic branch of Western European music, and Stravinsky’s object-descriptive polymorphism, which is rooted in the traditions of 19th-century Russian music. The musical-imagery premise is conditioned on the expressive spheres within Stravinsky’s oeuvre which were new to the world of early-20th-century music. In these areas, the composer operates masterfully in realms of the human emotional universe which were previously unrepresented in music. Finally, the cultural and worldview-related premise originates with Stravinsky’s unique role in 20th-century musical culture as the most brilliant representative of a new, essentially dialogic, cultural type. The dialogical mental apparatus, the diverse forms of intercultural dialogue in his life and art, and the harmonization of European and non-European strategies for perceiving the world around us — a characteristic feature of Stravinsky’s life and work.

In Russia the music of André Ernest Modeste Grétry acquired its fame during the times of Empress Catherine the Great and Emperor Paul. His theatrical works were performed with great success by the artists of the French Court Troupe, the Free Russian Theater, the serfs’ theater of the Sheremetev’s, and the female wards of the Smolny Institute. Rare editions and manuscript copies of Grétry’s copies are preserved in numerous Russian libraries. Most of them contain the ballets (among them, Les marriages samnites [The Samnite Marriages], Le comte d’Albert [Count d’Albert], Panurge dans l’île des lanternes [Panurge on the Island of Lanterns], and Raoul Barbe-bleue [Raoul Bluebeard]). The opera Céphale et Procris ou l’amour conjugal [Cephale and Procris or Conjugal Love] is provided with the subtitle of ballet héroique (heroic ballet), while Zemire et Azor” is dubbed сomédie-ballet, which makes it possible to ascribe these compositions to the genre of opera-ballet. In addition, the storylines of Grétry’s operas served as a basis for the creation of two ballets produced in the imperial theaters in the court of Emperor Alexander I. It is Raoul Barbe-bleue ou le danger de curiosité [Raoul Bluebeard, or the Danger of Curiosity] (1807) staged to the music of Catterino Cavos with the choreography of Ivan Valberkh and Henzi et Tao, ou La belle et la bête [Henzi and Tao or Beauty and the Beast] (1819) produced by Charles Didelot to the music of Fernando Antonolini. The article provides information about the history of the creation and performance of ballets, demonstrates the similarities and the differences between the storylines of original operas and their new versions. The connection between the productions of the ballets in Grétry’s opera Henzi et Tao, ou La belle et la bête and the ballets Kenzi and Tao and Henzi and Tao produced by Didelot on the stages of Europe and Russia at times. For the first time Didelot’s libretto for the “grand Chinese ballet” set to the music of Cesare Bossi (premiered on May 14, 1801 at the “Haymarket” Royal Theater in London) has been translated from English into Russian by the author of the article. The problem of the ballet “doppelgangers” and the revisions of well-known theatrical works is examined in the article.

Perhaps the main particular feature of Richard Strauss as a composer is his incomparable gift for musical characterization. He was able to convey literally everything in sounds: both material and concrete things, as well as all sorts of abstract ideas and concepts. An increased attention to the details of the musical text, stage-related situations, and the behavior of various protagonist determines the special mobility and lability of musical presentation in the composer’s opera scores. In his work as a whole, this characteristic feature explains the strong stylistic contrasts between particular musical-theatrical works, depending on the plotline and the chosen mode of its implementation. Taking into account the challenges that arose in each work, Strauss each time created a specific thesaurus of musical means — the particular characteristic figures. The composer himself spoke in this regard about “sound symbols” (Tonsymbole), to which he pertained the design of the melodic line, the characteristic motive, the special rhythmic motion within the confines of a unique timbre, and other elements of musical presentation. At the same time, he could freely turn to already existing musical-historical material containing certain semantic connotations (musical quotations, particular musical styles, topoi, genres, compositional techniques, etc.). Among the characteristic means that Strauss resorted to, the following must be highlighted 1) word-painting (Tonmalerei), 2) leitmotifs, 3) the respective tonality, 4) musical quotations (borrowed from other composers’ works and from his own), 5) genre, 6) the compositional method, 7) style. The article draws an analogy between Strauss’s methods of musical characterization and the use of musical and rhetorical figures in the Baroque era. However, if the rhetorical figures refer to the area of typified content, it follows that Strauss creates an arsenal of special characteristic means for each specific work. The musical “emblems”, which previously possessed a universally significant character, acquire purely authorial traits and require individual decoding.

Wang Xilin (born 1936) is a Chinese composer currently living in Germany. In his home country, he is known as a musician of the Western trend. His works are occasionally performed in China and are widely known abroad. He has written about one hundred works in various genres, among which orchestral music plays a key role. In his symphonies and symphonic suites, Wang Xilin reinterprets in a new manner the diverse traditions of the Russian and Western European classics. On the other hand, these works vividly express the national Chinese color, manifested in the figurative and emotional sphere, melodicism and textural techniques. The composer has turned towards the orchestral genres during the course of his entire life. They have become a peculiar brand of chronicles of his style and reflect the periodization of his musical output, in which it is possible to highlight three styles. Each of them has its own priorities in his choice of textural means. Thus, his early period (1961–1977) is marked by the study of the Russian and Soviet schools of composition at the Shanghai Conservatory and of Chinese folklore during his exile in the province of Shanxi. The list of textural techniques in the orchestral works of this period — the suite Poems of Yunnan and Symphony No 1 — is not marked by any originality: the composer uses doublings, imitations and canonic expositions most frequently. Wang Xilin bears a striking resemblance to Dmitri Shostakovich in his construction of monodic lines. In his second period (1977–1990) Wang Xilin expanded his arsenal of textural means, in particular creating original “figuration canons” based on pentatonic chants based on intervals of seconds and fourths. These were first used in the suite The Impressions of Mount Taihang and were subsequently widely used by him in his symphonies and suites of his later period. Despite the ban on Western music during the Cultural Revolution, Wang Xilin studied the scores of Charles Ives and Krzysztof Penderecki. This influenced the third period of his work (starting from 1990), marked by a general chromatization of the harmonies and thematicism and the creation of different types of sonorous textures in his music. Overall, the textural basis of Wan Xilin’s works examined here is polyphonic many-voiced texture, but it also includes some homophonic-harmonic sections. Among them there are pastoral fragments with static textures and dance sections with tutti-pizzicato in the strings.

The turn of the 1920s and 1930s marks an important changes in the creative destiny of Sergei Raсhmaninoff. The problems that arose then were clearly reflected in he publications of the American press and in the reaction of Raсhmaninoff to them. During this period, several important events and circumstances came together for him. They can be combined into several groups. The first of them is associated with an attempt to boycott the composer’s work in the USSR after the publication in 1931 in the USA of a collective letter signed by Raсhmaninoff protesting against Stalin’s repressions; the second is determined by the changed relationship between Raсhmaninoff the pianist and the audiences, with potential and actual visitors to his concerts; the third is the ambiguous reaction of the US musical community to the premiers of new works created by Raсhmaninoff after a long composer’s silence. All three groups of problems are revealed based on documentary sources – articles in the American press (little known or commented for the first time) and published Raсhmaninoff’s letters. Conflicting assessments of the performing arts and composer’s works of the highlighted period can be eloquent evidence of a sharp turn in the Raсhmaninoff’s musical activities, of his emergence to a new level of thinking, unexpected and for the time being incomprehensible to his contemporaries. All the examined aspects of Raсhmaninoff’s relationship with American press of the late 1920s and early 1930s indicate an important milestone in his creative destiny. For the first time in Russia, the Appendix to the article contains the full text of the letter signed by Rachmaninov to Rabindranath Tagore.

Tchaikovsky’s musical legacy includes only two works related to Lermontov’s poetry. These are the song The Love of a Dead Man (1878), which is a part of Opus 38, and the a cappella chorus A Golden Cloud Spent the Night (1887). But there is information available about the composer’s other plans to compose music associated with Lermontov, manifested, in particular, in his intention to write the opera Bela to a libretto by Anton Chekhov. In both completed works, Tchaikovsky was not independent in his choice of texts, but the compositions were set to poems offered to him by other people. The song and the chorus are not equal to each other in their artistic significance: the song, unusual in its artistic solution, figuratively and intonationally connected with the characters of a few separate operas, becomes an special culmination in Opus 38; the chorus, on the contrary, is devoid of any expressive theme or interesting textural and harmonic features that distinguish the composer’s works, remaining merely a small example of the composer’s choral writing.

One of the first Lithuanian composers to work in the genre of ballet was Jurgis Karnavičius (1884–1941). In 1928 he introduced a choreographic scene based on his tone poem The Lithuanian Rhapsody, that engaged interest in the genre of ballet among Lithuanian composers. Afterwords Karnavičius composed four full-length ballets that were offered to a variety of European theatres. Unfortunately, due to the events of World War II, there had not been any production of the ballet organized. Fortunately, the musical material of the ballet was preserved, including The Imposter (1940). The libretto written by Elena Pavlovna France is based on historical events in Russian history of the first decade of the 17th century — the beginning of the Time of Troubles. The main characters of the ballet are the future tsar-imposter False Dmitry I and Marina Mniszech, whose fates are tied to both Russian, Polish and Lithuanian history. The ballet was influenced by the works of great Russian composers, such as Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgsky and A Life for the Tsar by Mikhail Glinka, most specifically, their “Polish acts.” At the same time, The Imposter added new plot motives that allow us to see the uprising of False Dmitry from a different perspective. Karnavičius’ ballet continues to be preserved in the Lithuanian Archive of Literature and Music up to the present day. The hope remains that these materials shall not only be published, but also performed.

The article is devoted to the Baroque theorist and composer Mikhail Berezovsky. In the scholarly literature, it is already possible to find some references to his musicological treatise consisting of two parts: A Brief Exposition of Musical Singing (elementary music theory) and Grammar. A Collection from Many (theory of composition). We have also discovered Berezovsky’s 12-voice partesny concerto Who shall ascend the Hill of the Lord? Due to filigree research as well as indirect data, the dates of the composition of both works have been established as pertaining to the 1730s. Both of the survived copies of Grammar. A Collection from Many are placed in theoretical manuscripts adjacent to Nikolay Diletsky’s The Grammar of Musical Singing. The comparative analysis of the two Grammars shows, that Berezovsky’s treatise appears to be a concise presentation of Diletsky’s ideas, slightly updated with new information. The same pertains to the terminology of the: it is freed from an excessive amount of Latin synonyms and supplemented by new terms not yet relevant during the time of Diletsky. All the musical examples are newly composed by Berezovsky, and none of them is derived from Diletsky. The comparison of the musical examples with the music of the concerto Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Has made it possible for us to identify a number of correspondences, albeit, not literal ones. The complete text of both parts of Berezovsky’s treatise supplements the article, having been adapted to contemporary Russian, as does a dictionary of terminology. The abridged revised version of Nikolay Diletsky’s The Grammar of Musical Singing, originally written in 1670s, made in 1730s for a new generation of new readers, could be appreciated only as an evidence of a stagnation that occurred in the Russian partesny singing theory. The musical style changed considerably; at the same time, the music theory was progressing at a much more slow pace.

The article is devoted to the history of the interactions between the important Soviet composer Yuri Shaporin with the State Academic Bolshoi Theater in the first half of the 1930s. The research is based on archival materials to a considerable degree brought into scholarly use for the first time. A special role for disclosing the theme was played by the documents of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (preserved in the personal archives of Yuri Shaporin, director of the Bolshoi Theater Elena Malinovskaya and, of course, the archive of the Bolshoi Theater) and the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History. In the early 1930s the directory of the Bolshoi Theater, which was headed by Malinovskaya, was actively looking for works pertaining to a new, “Soviet” repertoire; the necessity of the theater’s “renewal” was also constantly reminded both by the press and the country’s leadership. In these conditions serous hopes were set on the collaboration with Leningrad-based composer Yuri Shaporin, who committed himself to presenting a symphony and an opera. The latter, which was supposed to have written on the plotline of the insurrection of the Decembrists, was more crucial for the theater. Malinovskaya expected this composition to open with itself a grandiose musical cycle devoted to the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia: the two following operas which Shaporin was expected to write were supposed to be devoted to the members of the Narodnaya Volya [People’s Will] revolutionary movement and to the Marxists. However, the work on The Decembrists began to be delayed unacceptably, which was the result both of the irresponsible behavior of the composer, who worked only from time to time on the composition entrusted to him, as well as his disagreements with the writer Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy, who was working on the libretto based on his own novelette written by him earlier. As the result, prior to 1935 (the year Malinovskaya resigned and there was a change of the directory of the Bolshoi Theater) The Decembrists were not completed (this happened much later, in 1953, already in different historical conditions).

The article is devoted to Nikolai Sergeyevich Korndorf’s Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano Are you ready, brother? (1996). Stemming from analytical observations of the structure of the musical text and the path of hermeneutic interpretation of the content-based aspect of the composition, the author of the article formulates important principles concerning the artistic structure of this composition. The peculiar architectonic aspects of the trio serve as a point of departure for analytic examination. At the same time, diverse structural particularities, revealed for the first time by the author of the article on the level of structural, rhythmic and timbral organization come within the focus of attention of research. Being remote from the ideas of abstract construction, the structural principles of Korndorf’s composition, many of which are discussed in the article, are closely connected with the artistic assignment. Korndorf’s style and compositional technique appear in the Piano Trio from a new side, demonstrating not only a refined structural logic of the musical text, but also the high poetical meaning conveyed in it.

The article is devoted to works pertaining to small opera genres (festa teatrale, azione teatrale, componimento drammatico) created in Vienna during the 1750s and the 1760s. As a rule, they were produced in honor of some significant event in the lives of the imperial family. Most of them were endowed with a festive character corresponding to the spirit of court festivity, an uncomplicated mythological or allegorical plot, relatively short duration and only three or four characters. The article examines genre-related indications of short operas, their varieties (the chamber and the scenically representative) and their indicative examples which has served as a foothold for the approbation of a mixed style, including the components of both the French (the choral and ballet scenes, the immense weight of the orchestral recitatives) and the Italian traditions (developed arias and secco recitatives). The conclusion is arrived at about the special position of Gluck’s azione teatrale Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) among a set of analogous genres. Gluck’s rejection of the genre of the monumental aria indicated his polemics with the poetics of both the opera seria and the festa teatrale. Despite the implementation in Orfeo of a considerable amount of festa teatrale compositional techniques, such a rejection is perceived as the greatest avant-garde reforming gesture of the 1760s.The author compares two operas with Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. These are Florian Leopold Gassmann’s Amore and Psyche (1767) and Johann Adolf Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe (1768), composed later. In the first case, we can talk about a direct influence, while in the second case, it is possible to observe in Marco Coltellini’s libretto of a set of allusions to Ranieri Calzabigi’s poetical text of Orfeo and at the same time the polemic qualities of Hasse’s positions in regard to Gluck’s score.

The composers of the postwar avant-garde trend in music perceived Anton Webern’s music primarily as a brilliant expression of a break with tradition. Nonetheless, what was perceived upon first glance as a manifestation of innovatory radicalism, upon more careful examination revealed to a greater degree its obvious historical genesis. Entirely different ideas and values disclosed themselves beyond Webern’s serial precepts — a profound symbolism permeated with mysticism and elements of developed Medieval and Renaissance traditions of ‘‘parametric’’ musical thinking. This article demonstrates in a thesis manner observations tracing out the lines of connection between the new elements of structural compositional logic of certain oeuvres by Webern and the traditional ideas of the polyphonic works by the Renaissance composers, primarily the ‘‘Great Flemish Masters,’’ the most sophisticated artists of counterpoint, giving special attention in their musical compositions to the architectonic organization of form, in whose music Webern experienced an indelibly profound interest during the course of his entire life. In the opinion of many researchers, certain aspects of Webern’s music become more visible, if they become connected to his profound knowledge of and fondness for such composers from the Netherlands as Dufay, Josquin, Ockeghem, Isaac, etc. The concept of tradition in the context of this article is not exhausted by the technological aspects of polyphony, but also presumes a mystical philosophical constituent connected with a particular system of symbolic encoding which plays a substantial role in both cases.