“Modernism in Russian Piano Music: Skriabin, Prokofiev, and Their Russian Contemporaries”
The point of departure for this study was the work of the Russian musicologist Varvara Demova in her dissertation, “Garmoniia Skriabina,” completed in 1973 and summarized by Faubion Bowers in The New Scriabin and later by Roy Guenther.1 Demova’s thesis did much to elucidate Skriabin’s harmonic technique as found in his later works. However, problems arose when Demova tried to use her theory of tritone-related dominants to explain certain passages, such as the opening of Op. 59 No. 2. The argument involved the assumption of a theoretical root and a bichordal relationship which is not only impossible to hear but is actually contrary to the aural experience of the passage and seemed to push the theory beyond its valid and useful application. The thesis also appeared to be of limited value in relation to the Op. 74 Preludes, where Skriabin to a large extent turned away from dominant-colored complexes and seemed to be engaging in an analytical examination and dissection of various aspects of his technique. It was also evident that there are certain linear considerations in Skriabin’s harmony which were not given sufficient attention as a result of this emphasis on vertical complexes. These analytical problems are discussed in chapters 2, 8, and 9.
An altogether different approach to Skriabin’s music is that taken in the West by writers such as Anthony Pople, James Baker, and George Perle, who applied set-theory analysis to Skriabin’s works and in some cases sought to show that Skriabin was consciously employing sets as a compositional procedure. Perle wrote: “It seems likely that significant steps in the evolution of an autonomous and coherent twelve-note tonal system were long delayed because of his early death.” This remark comes at the end of an article in which Perle claims that all the Op. 74 pieces were composed by using variable heptatonic subsets of the octatonic collection.2 Perle’s statement, it may be argued, is less a musical analysis than an attempt to reconstruct the compositional process. To describe so chromatic a piece as No. 2 of the set in these terms is insufficient to illuminate the music.
James Baker’s The Music of Skriabin attempts to provide an analysis of Skriabin’s works but runs into similar problems. The author applies set-theory analysis to Sonata No. 10 on the assumption that the piece is atonal, although the experience of listening to the music shows it to be tonal, and thus he misses many vital aspects of structure. Because set theory does little to clarify the larger structural issues, Baker has been guided by features of the score such as double bars and changes of meter. It is an example of what Nicholas Cook calls “analysing the score rather than the music.”3 The adoption of a more flexible analytical approach makes it possible to identify areas of stability and instability. The reader may wish to compare the discussion in chapter 12 of the present book with Baker’s analysis.
In view of the evident problems that still exist in connection with Skriabin’s late works, it was felt that a general consideration of Russian compositions from the post-Nationalist school period was needed to throw light on the whole of this little-known era. At this point the almost complete lack of literature on the subject became apparent. Leonid Sabaneev’s book Modem Russian Composers, of 1927, is still the standard work in English, yet it offers no analytical discussion and says little about the music beyond mere generalities. Even in the case of Prokofiev, despite a flood of biographical material, there has been little analysis or technical discussion. In the Soviet Union, books such as Bogdanova’s Russian National Traditions in Prokofiev’s Music predictably dealt only with the post-Modemist works.4
In 1966 the musicologist Detlef Gojowy produced a thesis entitled “Moderne Musik in der Sowjetunion bis 1930” (now published under the title Neue Sowjetische Musik der 20er Jahre) and in 1969 an article on Roslavets in Die Musikforschung. The thesis seems to have earned him some hostility from the music critic writing in Sovetskaia muzyka in 1970 (No. 11) and 1982 (No. 3).5 It is difficult to tell to what extent this criticism is a routine reflection of what was at that time the official Soviet policy toward Modernism and toward Art in general of the twenties. It must be said however that Gojowy appears to make some exaggerated claims for the experimental techniques being carried out in Russia before the 1917 Revolution. In his article on Roslavets in The New Grove Gojowy describes the composer’s works of 1915 as “embracing concepts of 12-note serialism,” but his compositions of that time show only a tentative involvement with unordered sets of fewer than twelve notes (see also chapter 13, below). Similarly, Giovanni Camajani in his article on Lourié mentions the composer’s interest in “dodecaphonic and serial techniques” and goes on to say: “Early ventures in these fields produced the three Sonatinas, four Préludes fragilis and Syntheses.” The Préludes fragilis are simple tonal pieces which in some ways anticipate Lourié’s later experiments in metrical freedom but are certainly not dodecaphonic or serial. Extended extracts from the other pieces are discussed in chapters 10 and 11, and the reader can judge to what extent they involve serial techniques.
For some of the background material presented in the first chapter of this study the writer is indebted to Boris Schwarz’s book Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1981, Stanley D. Krebs’s Soviet Composers, and the article “Russian Music Theory: a Conspectus” by Ellon D. Carpenter.6
Music Analysis
Some comment should be made here about the methods of analysis adopted. No attempt has been made to apply a fixed set of analytical techniques to all the works discussed or to examine them in the light of a preconceived theory of composition. To do so would be to run the risk of applying inappropriate methods of study to some works, or of forcing the analysis to fit the theory. Nineteenth-century Russian music suffered for a long time from the unscholarly criticism of commentators who insisted on studying it from the standpoint of the Western (mainly Austro/German) tonal tradition. The same thing has happened in more recent times in the application of set-theory analysis to the late works of Skriabin. This application of existing Western theory to certain pieces, without regard to their Russian background, has resulted in a failure to notice the tonal origin of some of the harmonic coloring and the important influence of folk music.
In dealing with a complex and unfamiliar musical tradition, the analyst does well to start from the audible features of the music and use them as a guide to the investigations. But what of those features which are not readily audible even after attention has been drawn to them? It is not the business of the analyst to attend only to the surface features of the music but to get if possible to the subtler matters of technique and structure. In doing this one should propose nothing that contradicts or offends the aural leading of the score. The analyst must not impose theory which, however superficially plausible, denies the evident and audible meaning of the work. Constant checking is essential.
The approach adopted in the present study has been to allow the music to suggest the form of analysis that should be applied. In the case of Roslavets, set theory has been taken into account, and pitch charts have been used. With Skriabin, techniques have been employed to reveal underlying harmonic and structural symmetries, and there is more-detailed examination of scales and intervals. In dealing with the works of Prokofiev and Shillinger, voice-leading charts have in some cases been employed to reveal the logic of otherwise enigmatic surface features. For Lourié, music reductions have been devised to draw attention to the gravitational tendency of discords, often unresolved, and the relative strengths of pitch centers. Because surface features, in the weakened tonal context of much of this music, assume increased structural importance, attention has also been given, where appropriate, to motivic analysis.
The plan of the book has been, so far as possible, to work from familiar features of style in Russian music toward the less familiar, and from the smaller details of technique toward broader aspects of structure, ending with the analysis of complete compositions. The material falls into three main sections: chapters 2-6 deal with general matters; chapters 7-10 are concerned with tonality and efforts to find structural bases other than tonality; and chapters 11-13 are taken up with the analysis of whole works, including in chapter 13 pieces of a nontonal character. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the late works of Skriabin and attempt to trace the origins of their harmonic style and its influence on later members of the Modernist movement. The next two chapters examine the second main current in Russian music, the linear style exemplified in the works of Prokofiev and the techniques associated with it. Chapter 6 takes a wider view of some general aspects of composition. Chapters 7-10 touch upon the third important stream in Russian music— the influence of folk song: chapter 7 is concerned with the tonal schemes of Russian music and its modal variability; chapters 8 and 9 deal with symmetry as a constructional alternative to traditional tonality in the works of Skriabin, Aleksandr Krein, and Roslavets, together with the symmetrical scale patterns and harmonies encountered in the music of Aleksandr Tcherepnin, Shillinger, and other Russians; and chapter 10 returns to the subject of the linear style and techniques associated with bichords and polymodality. Chapters 11 and 12 are concerned with the constructional methods of the Russian avant-garde, and in chapter 13, sets and other nontonal techniques are discussed. Chapter 14 is a general summing up.
An attempt has been made to give a reasonably complete view of a small number of representative works as well as to cover general matters of style and technique. To this end an index of music examples has been provided to help the reader trace references to each work discussed. One of the first hurdles to be overcome in studying the Russian Modernist movement is the difficulty in obtaining scores. Some of the more interesting works were never widely distributed in the West and, for political reasons, became banned in Russia. Today some of them appear to survive only in private collections. It was decided therefore to provide some information on the availability of scores in an appendix.
The concepts employed are defined in detail in the chapter where each is first introduced. Because Russian composers kept in close touch with their traditional roots, the terminology used here, so far as possible, reflects this fact. Chords which are dominant in structure, though not in function, are described as “dominant-structured.” It is not uncommon to find functional and nonfunctional dominants in a single work. However, if such a chord assumes a different function (for example, as a tonic) it seems more appropriate to give it its numerical definition as an 0,4,7,10 chord. A minor 7th chord is described by the numbers 0,3,7,10 in those cases where the symmetrical arrangement around its major 3rd is the most important feature. Motifs are given a numerical definition if they are also used in retrograde or inversion.
Hergest Croft
Kington
Herefordshire
England
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