title: Reading the Epigraph-Figuration in Sergei Slonimsky’s Master and Margarita
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Dunne, Timothy Andrew
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2020-09-04T08:54:03Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2020-09-04T08:54:03Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2020-06
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Dunne, Timothy. “Reading the Epigraph-Figuration in Sergei Slonimsky’s Master and Margarita”. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts 10, no. 2 (2020): 192–209.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu15.2020.201
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/19173
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: The research here brings under scrutiny an essential compositional element found in Sergei Slonimsky’s 1972 operatic score, Master and Margarita. At issue is the “Epigraph-Figuration” — a 14-note chromatic melody presented on the score’s frontispiece and found in a myriad of variation throughout the 3-hour chamber opera. Teasingly abstract in its aspect, not limited to any one particular dramatic role, and in reflexive correspondence with the Goethe quote commencing Bulgakov’s famous novel, the Epigraph-Figuration has inspired compelling exegesis and speculation. Exactly because the attraction of extra-musical hermeneutics is so strong for scholars of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, Slonimsky’s melodic figuration has lacked an objective examination sufficient enough to explain the significance of its many kaleidoscopic incarnations. This is exemplified, but not limited to, the compelling hypotheses of multi-disciplinary scholar Siglund Bruhn who sees the figuration as a representation of spiritual “opening” — symbolically significant as she places it in the dynamic context of the Soviet history of cultural thaw and cultural repression well known to Slonimsky and his peers and colleagues. But the present author will arrive at an alternate orientation, aided in no small part by a brief paradigmatic analysis of the actual, empirical presence of the Epigraph-Figuration in ten selected score excerpts. With the recent passing of Slonimsky, the music world and contemporary Russian culture has lost not only a fabulously brilliant and dedicated composer, but a courageous civic figure who tirelessly dedicated his life to the musical development of others with unflinching moral certitude and uncompromising creative integrity. The present author, and former student of Slonimsky, arrives at an alternate conclusion, discovering in the Epigraph-Figuration a robust illustration of one of the composer’s most salient aesthetic principles — affinity for the Subject and care for its right to individual growth — demonstrated in his unique treatment of each of its multiple, morphological iterations.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: en
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Vestnik of St Petersburg University. Arts;Volume 10; Issue 2
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Sergei Slonimsky
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Mikhail Bulgakov
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: epigraph-figuration
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Siglund Bruhn
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: expanding wedge contour
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: paradigm analysis
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: permutation
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: Reading the Epigraph-Figuration in Sergei Slonimsky’s Master and Margarita
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 192-209.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/19173/1/192-209.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 1,48 MB