The antinomy of musical work and musical form has been and remains urgent and universally significant. Musical work is complete and all-inclusive; therefore, it should be a goal of any study. However, the field of music theory had developed formal approaches to musical structures and processes that have become self-sufficient and epistemologically sovereign. Analysis of musical form proved to be more efficient in a deeper comprehension of the musical essence than the holistic approach to musical work. The latter often suffers from overgeneralization and superficiality. Obviously, such a monumental opposition as work vs. form asks for a larger and substantial discussion, which the author intended to accomplish in this book.
This book covers the events related to the binary opposition of form vs. work, that is, the interaction of formalists and integralists. It also presents the history and evolution of the Soviet music theory viewed from the standpoint of an insider. Russian and Soviet theorists approached the same urgent problems as their Western counterparts, including form vs. work. The Russian and Soviet traditions have always been very conservative. Quite paradoxically, reading the texts of the Russian music theory may allow us to restore, or at least to revisit, some valuable concepts and approaches that were abandoned during the revolutionary events in the Western music theory of the twentieth century.
Key Features:
- There were some important contributions into the field by the Western experts in Russian and Soviet music theory. Worthy of mentioning here are the publications by Ellon Carpenter, Philip Ewell, David Haas, and Daniil Zavlunov. However, none of the existing titles covers the long stretches of history of the Russian music theory and none of them presents both sides of the antinomy. For example, Zavlunov’s publications focus only on integralists, while formalists are left out.
- This book covers the history of Russian music theory from the eleventh century—from Ostromir Evangelion that contained musical notation—to the present.
- Another unique feature of this book is reliance on modern achievements of philosophy. The author studied it with Jacques Derrida. Russian studies in music theory rarely employ the philosophical categories, while the Russian music theory has always been rich in philosophical ideas, from Odoevsky to Losev, Medushevsky, and Kholopov.
- The book deals with the categories of high level of abstraction. However, the author took all possible measures to keep it practical enough for the readers of various kinds. For example, the book addresses the issues of pedagogy of music theory as the part of formalist approach. The book is also rather entertaining in terms of digressions into the fields of semiotics, theology, ancient Greek culture, and European history. It is spiced up with light references to the politics, although writing a political manifesto was not planned by the author.
