ICONI

The First Modern Era (The Early 20th Century). The Chaos of Confrontations

2023-08-02T17:09:41+03:00

The substance of the series of essays published by the journal lies in the fact that with utmost conciseness of presentation, it provides a summary
of the main phenomena of world artistic culture, covered in whole both from the point of view of the overall historical process, and in relation to various arts
(literature, the visual arts, architecture, music, theater and cinema). At the same time, the customary categorization according to the different national schools
and the division into the separate arts with the specification of genre intrinsic to each of them is surmounted, which meets
the positive tendencies of globalization and provides a holistic view of various artistic phenomena. An overview of the following artistic and historical periods
is conducted on a phased basis: the Ancient world, Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque Era, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Post-
Romanticism, the First Modern Era, the Second Modern Era, the Third Modern Era, the Postmodern Era, and as an afterword —
“The Golden age of Russian Artistic Culture.”

Some Aspects of the Landscape Genre in the Art of Bashkortostan on the Example of the Works of Rinat Minnebaev

2023-08-02T17:09:41+03:00

The viability of a society is determined by its ability to respond adequately to potential threats, including the creation of convincing images of the future. In this process, especially significant the role of the artist-creator endowed with abstract thinking, sensual and intellectual intuition. The work of Ufa-based artist Rinat Minnebaev attests the tireless search for his own interpretation of the present and future world. The domain of the artist’s heightened attention is the anthropogenic factor, which has exerted an immense amount of influence on history, the fate of ethnic groups, natural resources, and cities. Particularly modern megacities with their layout and architecture, which form the centers of dense human habitation, the place of concentration of their creative activity, provide the sources
of essential material for artistic and aesthetic understanding. The basis for the artist’s experiments is provided by satellite maps in the Google Maps program. On their basis the master creates monumental paintings from
paper pulp, which present a hybrid version of graphics, painting, relief and architectural model. In the context of the
traditions of Bashkir and Russian art, this provides a unique experience that allows us to assert a new stage in the
development of the landscape genre and its evolution.

The Modernist Deviation in Finnish Karelianism at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries

2023-08-02T20:07:39+03:00

In the artistic culture of Finland at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries Karelianism was an influential trend in
the development of the Finnish national musical art. In Sibelius’ music Karelianism connected together archaicism and
modernity in such a way that the world of the ancient runes opened up for the composer the path towards the direction of modernism. Lönnrot’s epic poem Kalevala, created on the basis of the ancient Karelian runes, became the central event of the Karelian trend and the reference point for the disclosure of the artistic individualities of Sibelius and his associates in the various arts. The Swedish cultural-lingual sphere developing in Finland (also presented in Sibelius’ musical output) provided close connections between the cultural milieu of the Grand Duchy of Finland and the modernist trends of Europe. As a result, both in Russia and in Finland almost simultaneously there began an interest in theosophy and numerous theosophical societies appeared. Sibelius’ and Leino’s important artistic intentions turned out
to be connected with theosophical views. From Sibelius’ music mention must be made of his string quartet Voces intimae and the poem Luonnotar, while in Leino’s case, it is the mystery based on the rules of Lönnrot’s Kalevala. Sibelius frequently came to England to the premieres of his compositions. Particularly in England his name turned out to be connected with Scriabin’s name. Subsequently, in Finnish, Estonian and Russian historiography scholars searched for points of connection between Sibelius’ music and modernism, including the music of Scriabin.

The Composition of Ernest Chausson’s Poème in the Art of the Fin de Siècle

2023-08-02T17:09:41+03:00

The present article proposes examining Ernest Chausson’s Poème for violin as a composition permeated with the atmosphere of the art of the end of the century — the fin de siècle. Stemming from a special stylistic color and originality of the musical form, the author of the work sets forth the hypothesis of the narrative element in the theatrical play which influenced its composition. At the center of the research lies the structural-semantic analysis of the
Poème accords with the storyline motives of Oscar Wilde’s drama Salome. The angle of interpretation of Ernest Chausson’s play is determined by a number of factors that provide with significant foundations to consider the hypothesis to be significant. One of them is chronological, and according to it the Poème was created literally “following” the premiere production of Wilde’s play in Paris. The other is aesthetic-stylistic, and it connects together in a remarkable way the semantic elements of the literary and musical texts. What is meant here is the genre-related episode of the Poème, significant in the symbolic sense, which demonstrates most distinctively the connection between the two works — Salome’s dance.

Charles Ives — Microtonalist. Part II: The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives — Answered

2023-08-02T17:09:41+03:00

The article is the second in a series of articles dealing with Charles Ives as a microtonal composer. While Ives’ intention to compose in the Pythagorean tuning of spiraling fifths was virtually unknown during his lifetime, it has become widely appreciated in recent decades. The article examines Ives’ famous composition, The Unanswered Question, in terms of the inherent application of the Pythagorean tuning based on perfect fifths, which is proven by the peculiar use of the
sharps and the flats in the piece, as well as the fact of the continual variation of the main theme played by the trumpet upon each successive statement of it. According to the author of the article, the composer attempted to make use of two different tunings of minor thirds in this piece, hence, the “unanswered question” refers to the compatibility of the different tunings implicitly present in the piece. The author substantiates his claim by presenting detailed analysis of certain fragments of Ives’ piece.

The Factor of Spatiality and its Meaning for the Visual Interpretation of Music (on the Example of Two Melodramas in Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire)

2023-08-02T17:09:41+03:00

The article examines the category of space in the aspect of its manifestations in the art of music and the comprehension of its specific features by researchers. A correlation is brought out between the phenomenon of spatial figurativeness, which appears during music perception and analysis, which is essentially close to the nature of synesthesia, and the corresponding visual images that are realized in contemporary solutions related to musical performance and production. The attempt is made to establish the objective foundations of “re-expressing” music in the language of the spatial-temporal visual arts.

Lifestyles and Repertoires of the Qiaotou Eastern Farmers’ Symphonic Wind Orchestra of Yongjia County, Zhejiang Province, the People’s Republic of China

2023-08-02T17:09:42+03:00

The Qiaotou Eastern Farmers’ Symphonic Wind Orchestra is a “concert band,” a Western wind and percussion ensemble, established in Yongjia County, Zhejiang Province in the People’s Republic of China. The band was founded by Commander Ye Guangming in 1975. The Orchestra performs concert works from this era. The Orchestra additionally provides services for funerals and family venerations, performing Chinese dirges. After China’s Opening to the Outside World in 1980, Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province became the largest urban Christian center in China, becoming popularly known as “China’s Jerusalem” (Zhongguo de Yelusaleng). By providing funeral music for the Christian clients of Yongjia and Wenzhou, the Orchestra developed a repertoire of Christian hymns, mainly of Western origins, but also indigenous Chinese hymns. The author of the article, an American trumpet player, collected ethnomusicological materials in Qiaotou in the early winter of 2020, when he was appointed as a visiting professor of ethnomusicology at Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing. While in Qiaotou, the author performed a number of songs with the Orchestra, himself being a specialist in Chinese brass and wind bands and having published a number of articles on the subject.

The Thorny Path of Tatar Musicology

2023-08-02T17:09:42+03:00

The beginning of the 20th century is marked by an active process of formation of Tatar professional music and scholarly thought. The initial stage of Tatar musicology is associated with the activities of Sultan Gabyashi (1891–1942). This present article elaborates on the almost 80-year-long development of scholarly thought on Tatar music, starting from the first days of the functioning of the Kazan State Conservatory (1945) headed by Nazhib Zhiganov, and also highlights the initial stage of studying the history of Tatar music, associated with the activities of Khalima Teregulova, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory in 1938. An analysis is made of the subsequent years of the development of Tatar ethnomusicology up to the present day, an assessment is made of the activities of the profiling department at the Kazan State Conservatory.

The Musical Image: General and Particular Features

2023-08-02T17:09:42+03:00

The previous article from the cycle “The Musical Image” was devoted to the conception of the musical image and the panorama of the “objective sides” manifested by images, which are grouped into the spheres of the Human Being, the World and Music, or — as Motion and Play — freely permeate into any of the spheres.
The second, conclusive article invites us to concentrate on the general and particular features of the musical image. The features of the musical image that are general, or universal, we discover to be sound being, the mobility of the inner structure of the image, its polyvalence, broad spectrum of mirrored “objective sides,” a certain aloofness from the realities of life, the immense significance of the temporal process of development, the difficulty of verbal characterization of the image, the diversity of the scales, the stadial character of formation, the unity of the objective and the subjective elements in it. Along with the general features, the musical image is also endowed with specific traits which are analytically disclosed with the aid of the dichotomies of “reality/nonreality,” “adult/children’s,” “static/dynamic,” “alinement/spiral motion.”