Limbaj, structură, semantică muzicală în Sonatele pentru pian ale compozitorilor ruși din prima jumătate a secolului al XX-lea
Language, Structure, Musical Semantics in the Piano Sonatas of Russian Composers of the First Half of the 20th Century

Mihaela-Georgiana Balan (author)

Discipline: Music Analysis

Category: Tonal music, Post-tonal music, Structural analysis, Formal analysis, Style analysis, Semiotic analysis, Other

Type: Analytical studies

The volume entitled Language, Structure, Musical Semantics in the Piano Sonatas of Russian Composers of the First Half of the 20th Century provides a general and detailed perspective on the sonata genre, in the work of composers Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. Originating in the Western European musical tradition, the sonata remains a complex genre of academic type, which is difficult to submit to modal language, programmatic genres or folk influences. However, it acquired new expressive valences in the vision of composers from Russian musical culture, through the peculiarities of musical language (melodic, rhythmic, structural, but especially harmonic and writing), as it results from the analysis of the six sonatas approached in this scientific study. The structures of form encountered are different in principle of organization, harmonic language, degree of complexity, offering a broad and diverse perspective on the categories of form encountered and the particular adaptation in the work of the four Russian composers. The volume has a synthetic overview, being structured in the chronological order of the approached composers. In order to facilitate access to certain parts of the analyzed sonatas, we have specified in the Table of Contents the types of form corresponding to each movement or work, as the case may be, so that they can be approached according to the object of interest of the readers.

Keywords: tonal-modal system, Russian music, Sonata genre and form, structural analysis, stylistic analysis

Remarks: The purpose of this research is to provide analytical support to students and young researchers within the specializations of Musicology, Composition, and Conducting, but also for those studying Musical Pedagogy, Canto, or Instrument Interpretation, as complementary and additional material to the course materials from the subjects included in the curriculum. The book can also be consulted by any musician interested in approaching music analysis with the aim of broadening their horizons of knowledge and deepening the knowledge acquired during years of study, analytical practice, and professional experience.
Starting from the premise that any musician has as a fundamental need the ability to order his thinking so as to be able to perform, conduct, research, compose, or teach certain disciplines in the field of music, we believe that musical analysis is the basis of understanding a score, in relation with the elements of musical language, historical-stylistic aspects, and the interpretive perspective. For this reason, musical analysis must be addressed in all musical education institutions, regardless of the specialization or further concerns of the graduates, having essential importance for the training of future musicians and for the understanding of this art, both from the technical, analytical, but also at the semantic level.

Publication languageRomanian
Publication place (country)Romania
Publication place (city)Bucureşci
Publication year2022
Used by (country)ROMANIA
Used by (city)IASI
Identifier ISBN 978-973-42-1237-8; ISMN 979-0-69491-241-3

Other editions or translations

Related analytical case studies

Related terms

Related articles in the HarmArchive