"Ex oriente...": Ten Composers from the former USSR. Verlag
Ernst Kuhn, Berlin, 2002. Margarita Katunyan VLADIMIR MARTYNOV'S PARALLEL TIME Vladimir
Martynov is a remarkable phenomenon of contemporary culture. The universalism
of his artistic thinking is sharply in keeping with the events of the last
third of the 20th century, the overtones of which he very sensitively
perceives. Not only are the stylistic orientations of his artistic language
universal but, more broadly speaking, his fusion of the religious traditions of
East and West, of the sacred and the secular, and of professional and folk art
is highly organic. His historical and genealogical consciousness is also
universal, allowing him to interpret the meanings and linguistic categories of
the past, which are equally topical for our own time, like the realities of
today. Martynov belongs to a circle of composers who see music as a merging of
extra-musical sources, as a path towards what could be defined as a “new
syncretism”. He himself embodies the syncretic culture: he is a composer, a
pianist, a person of unusual education, particularly in the spheres of
literature, art, philosophy, the history of world religions and theology. He
teaches, is involved in publishing, and has written several books and a large
number of articles[1]. It
has now become clear that the twists in the path of Martynov's creative
evolution are a logical result of his personality. He began as a representative
of the avant-garde, a composer who displayed brilliant individuality,
independent ideas and a refined technique. With such radical ideas, however, he
very quickly stood out amongst the acknowledged Soviet leaders of this movement
- Schnittke, Denisov and Gubaidulina - as an avant-garde ideologist of the next
generation. And this is indeed what he became, but in the sphere of underground
music. At the same time, he was passionately enthusiastic about folklore, about
Eastern cultures, mediaeval music, electronics, the rock aesthetic and, later,
minimalism. It was on this general foundation that he built his own method and
style which define his up-to-the-minute view of composition. The
formation of Martynov's artistic consciousness was greatly influenced by his
teacher Nikolai Sidelnikov, particularly between the ages of 14 and 16. This was the period when he
studied most intensively with Sidelnikov, experiencing not only the magical
influence of his teacher's personality, his “uniqueness” and his “grandiose
hum”, but also the indirect influence of Sidelnikov's
circle of acquaintance - people like
Heinrich Neuhaus, Valentin Asmus, Boris Pasternak and Andrei Volkonsky.
“Sidelnikov was my guru. I had a real teacher. Many people do not know what
that is. If I have achieved anything then it is thanks to the fact that I was in a unique position and was given the
opportunity to experience true Studentship”[2]. Martynov
also names Yury Kholopov, with whom
he studied a whole range of theoretical disciplines both at the College and at
the Conservatoire, as one of the
teachers who played an important role in his formation: “Kholopov had a very
strong influence on me even at College [where Martynov studied piano -
M. K.]. He taught all of our
theoretical disciplines - analysis, harmony, solfeggio - right through to the Conservatoire. It was he who
recommended me to study composition, although I was already studying with
Sidelnikov at the time. If someone else had taken our theory lessons then I
would not have received such a thorough schooling and such a taste for theorizing. I will always be grateful
to him”. As
is often the case, the choice of musical
reference points occurred spontaneously and intuitively, but surprisingly
precisely. For Martynov, the key figure was Igor Stravinsky who opened up both
20th-century music and early European music for him. “Everything began with The rite of spring. I wore this record
out - I must have listened to it five
hundred times. It seemed to me that of all
contemporary composers he was the most intellectually and historically
orientated. He is constantly engaged in a dialogue with the past. In every
interview - no matter how brief - he always referred to early music. Therefore
I considered that I, too, must enter into some kind of dialogue with the past. Later my enthusiasm for Stravinsky burned
out, but this idea remained”.
Stravinsky's influence was strengthened by the experience of the “magical” moment when the
16-year-old man met the venerable maestro during Stravinsky's visit to the USSR in 1962. “He arrived at the very height
of my passion for him. He was a god to me - higher than a god. My father was
appointed as his escort which gave me the chance to meet Stravinsky himself. I
presented him with archive photographs of
his father. For me, it was simply an unforgettable meeting”. It
was from Stravinsky that Martynov inherited an interest in history - in Lully,
the English virginalists, John Bull and Gesualdo. “At first it was the
extravagant side of early music, such as the chromaticism of Gesualdo, which
interested me. But later it was no longer just the chromaticisms”. The
direction had been set. Later came Ockeghem, Obrecht, Machaut, Monteverdi, the
Notre-Dame school, Leonin, Perotin and other old masters from his father's
record collection, Yudina's concert programmes propagandizing contemporary and
pre-classical music, the repertoire of Volkonsky's ensemble “Madrigal” and his Suite of Mirrors, and tours by foreign
musicians - some performing Renaissance music, others - the works of Boulez and
Messiaen. “It was clear that for me only music written in the 20th century or
before the 18th century exists”. Looking ahead, we might note that his
discovery of 18th and 19th-century music took place much later and from a
completely different standpoint. At this time his avant-garde and historical
aspirations were equally extreme - far beyond the standards and the worn-out
classics; however, they shared a single source and were developed not
separately, but in conjunction with one another. In
retrospect it is easy to trace many of the very individual aspects of his work
which are clearly being developed today right back to the composer's youth.
Everything that grabbed his attention was thoroughly studied and found its own
place in his creative space. He still retains that intense interest in folklore
which was fostered in his student years. In the words of Martynov himself, the
folklore expeditions undertaken in his first years at the Conservatoire to
different regions of Russia, to the Northern Caucausus and later to Pamir and
the mountains of Tadzhikistan, “changed all my ideas about life, including my
whole view of professional music”. The
first fruit of this new-found passion was the diploma work Overture in honour of Sapelkin (1970), dedicated to the Belgorod
singer Efim Tarasovich Sapelkin. However, this interest in folk music has left
a deep track throughout all his music right up to the present day. The
acknowledgement of the priority of the “traditional channels” of art over the
tradition of academic composition, which is ever more inclined towards subjective
creativity and a crisis of self-expression, was the cardinal source of the
study of folklore. Folklore pushed back the boundaries of the usual notions
about music. Academic
music - i. e. music belonging to the professional written tradition -
seemed just a separate channel, running alongside the mighty and ancient
channel of folklore, with an independent structure and a completely different
ontological nature. And folklore is not the only other channel: the “youth”
culture of the cities and the rock music of the 60s-70s forms another. This
“grass roots” culture constantly demonstrates fresh ideas, an informal spirit
and permeable boundaries. Rock-culture deals with many of the topical issues in
contemporary life, such as the realization of one's roots, demonstrating an
openness towards the non-European world and a move towards non-personal,
objective thinking. For a young composer who had been introduced to the many
temptations of the avant-garde, his own views and alternatives to that
avant-garde were also significant. These were formed later, but for the time
being... Martynov passionately and creatively passed on his enthusiasm for
rock-music to a circle of like-minded individuals. “We were Beatles-maniacs. In 1967 we organized a
'Sergeant Pepper' club with its own coat of arms, flag and other paraphenalia.
We had regular meetings and stood ceremonially as our hymn - 'Sergeant Pepper'
- was played. It was an artistic and poetic environment. We got together at
each other's houses, organized art exhibitions and poetry evenings, wrote
verses and published collections ourselves. We listened to records by the Beatles and later Pink Floyd”. The refined young intellectual wrote poetry, drew,
played the recorder, and gravitated towards the avant-garde in his own
compositions. But his most tender attachments were to the English Renaissance,
John Dowland and the Beatles. The
compositions from the late 60s and early 70s belong to the avant-garde
aesthetic. Even in his student years Martynov had written several works
intended “not for the Conservatoire but for myself”, although he did show them
to Sidelnikov nevertheless. The five-movement Quartet (1966) which Martynov wrote at the end of his first year is
one such work. This piece, which at the time caused a lot of noise, is least
like a student composition. It is clear from the fluent and confident way in
which the 20-year-old composer controls the contemporary musical language -
particularly the twelve-tone material - and works with historical idioms that
he had long since crossed the line of purely intuitive construction: a refined
musicality is combined with a clear, complex meaning and an accurate embodiment
of it. It is interesting to note that in the spring of 1966 Nadya Boulanger visited Moscow as a
member of the jury for the Third Tchaikovsky Competition. During this visit she
also gave a master-class at the Union of Composers and heard this piece by the
first-year student along with other student works. The musicologist Mark
Podberezsky, who escorted the world-renowned and authoritative teacher around
Moscow and acted as translator, later recalled that: “Volodya exhibited only
one composition. She regarded it with great interest. At the end they asked her
to sum up her impressions and she mentioned this composition, saying that she
liked it most of all. Two days later I met her again somewhere else and
returned to the conversation about Volodya, and she added that he was a talent
of international class”[3].
The
compositions from Martynov's student period include the Serenades for mixed
chamber ensemble, two orchestral concertos - for flute and for oboe, the Overture
in honour of Sapelkin, and a
series of others. This run was sufficient to enable Martynov to announce
himself as an established composer, capable of occupying his own ecological
niche in contemporary music when, in the early 70s, he laid his first
post-Conservatoire works before the public. The works in question were Epistole amorose (1970), Hexagram (1971), Variants (1972) and the Sonata for violin and piano (1973). All of
these are written using dodecaphonic technique. Having studied the works of the
great masters of dodecaphony, particularly Webern whom Martynov rated
especially highly, and become fully conversant with the music of the composers
of the second avant-garde - Boulez, Stockhausen and his compatriots - he very
quickly found his own method of interpreting serial technique which he applied
to twelve-tone material. The fore-mentioned works demonstrate a series of
common characteristics. The young composer subordinated the serial writing to
his own artistic ideas, interpreting it in an unorthodox but consistent manner.
The series takes on the significance of the regulating rule of the game, whose
conditions are dictated by the concept of the piece. The absence of stereotypes
is a characteristic which may be regarded as a constant throughout all his
music. Epistole
amorose (Love letters, 1970) is a chamber sonata for a mixed ensemble of nine
instruments. It is arranged as a polyphonic five-movement cycle: Preludio -
Epistola prima - Interludio - Epistola secunda - Postludio. The design of the
love dialogue determined the choice of polyserial material. Two sets - “them
both” and “him and her” - form the basis of the poly-canonic polyphonic structure,
in which both sets are developed like the Netherlandish cantus using all possible transformations, including micro-canonic
work with individual segments which creates a sonorous highlight like a layer
of commentary. The composer's performance note in the score, insisting that
“all movements should be played at the same tempo (crotchet = 56) and the same
dynamic level (mp)” is very symptomatic. In this way the
composer advises the performers not to
play about love, as though the music of Berg's Lyric suite was on the music-stand in front of them, but to meditate on love. In this way Epistole amorose conceptually
anticipates Martynov's post-avant-garde works - for example, Come in! or the Magnificat - with its
non-contrasting flow of music which intensively but imperceptibly recurs
without changing state. In Hexagram for piano (1971) Martynov
radically changes the way in which he works with the series. This large-scale
one-movement work is intended as a “logical illustration” of the
fortune-telling book I-Ching - “The
Book of Changes”. The 64 hexagrams symbolize the 64 situations “which embrace
the whole cosmic process”. Primordially the chosen series is accompanied by a
division into two groups of six. Example
1. Hexagram Its
later non-transposed occurrences in straight-forward and crabwise variants
continuously renew the order of notes in any sector of the set without
returning it to its initial form. The heightened semiotics of Hexagram is expressed in the treatment
of individual parameters other than pitch - through the dynamic, the
articulation and the rhythm: although the multi-parameter sets were formed
without these, a definite line of change may still be traced through them. It
is constructed on the basis of binary opposition, for example yin/yang,
masculine/feminine, light/shade and so on, and may be seen in dynamic contrasts
(soft/loud), rhythmic contrasts (short notes/long notes or pedals), and in
contrasts in the articulation (point/line, staccato/legato). All of these
multi-parameter pairs are superimposed onto the constantly-renewing pitch set
in various combinations, symbolizing the principle of alea - the idea of non-repeating situations. Subsequent
works from the first half of the 70s - Variants,
Canzoni and the Violin Sonata -
continue the strict structuring of twelve-tone material. Martynov has even
worked out his own version of serial technique. The firm characteristics of
this version include a narrowing of the circle of transposition of sets to the
point of non-transposition, the use of segmentation, the stability of
individual segments, a certain freedom (although it is also controlled), and
the rearrangement and “intersection” of segments. The Violin Sonata
(1973), in which the composer works with a non-transposed set, is especially
remarkable: “I do not feel the need for transposition. I have always found
modulation in general to be undesirable. Even when still at school, I was
fascinated by Machaut's hocketing, his minimalism, and the fact that something
happens while at the same time nothing happens”. A kind of elemental minimalism
is also found in the Violin Sonata. Here the composer realized his intention
“to reduce the serial element to such clarity that it may be comprehended by
the ear, in contrast to Webern or Boulez”. The set is divided into six pairs of
stable semitone-segments, the order of which is varied in each of the three
movements of the sonata. The serial “minimalism” is presented most clearly in
the second movement where the set is developed horizontally in the two-voice
texture in the form of a crabwise canon. The spatial idea is capricious: the
canon is interjected like an echo. The game of palindromes is very inventive:
the tritone transposition of the crabwise movement does not change the pitches
of the semitone-segments, only the echo announces the interjection in its
mirrored reflection. Example
2. Violin Sonata In
the compositions from the avant-garde period one already begins to sense a
gradual tendency towards the separation of material. The poly-canonic and
highly polyphonic Epistole amorose and
the cantilena style are in the past. In their place is a rarefied texture made
up of points, lines and pauses. In the composition Asana for double bass, for example, the material is reduced to a
single sound which is illuminated in different ways by sonorous effects. This
minimization of material is accompanied by a compression of its significance
and conceptual idea and a maximum emphasis on structure in accordance with the
avant-garde style. The structural tension is the result of a subtle and
inventive game of ideas. Another
innovative characteristic is the para-musical aspect. The attempt to exceed the
boundaries of the purely musical sphere becomes ever clearer in Martynov's
compositions. The momentum of theoretical activity intensifies step by step.
Initially the games follow a set plan, as in Variants for violin and piano. In later pieces, such as Music for piano and percussion (1974)
and Music for piano, two violins and
percussion (1974), the actions of the performers introduce elements of
improvization into the content of the
piece, like the instrumental theatre of Kagel. It was at just this time
(1972-1974) that Martynov, together with Aleksei Lyubimov and Mark Pekarsky,
organized and performed in the first musical “happening” in the USSR. The
composer humorously recalls that several of these “happenings” provoked
scandals and stormy reactions, such as the refusal to let them enter the city
of Riga. However, everything began in an entirely respectable fashion, with the
mounting of a musical evening in memory of Nikolai Roerich in the Moscow House
of Friendship. An
event which followed shortly after the “happening” resulted in the creation of
the composition entitled Protection from the comet Kohoutek for two pianos in eight hands (1973).
This work was conceived as an appeal to the highest cosmic forces. According to
a press communication, the world's astronomers predicted a global catastrophe
resulting from the Earth's passage through the tail of the comet Kohoutek
(named after the scientist who discovered it). The composer planned to create a
collective work recalling the ancient shaman's ritual of exorcism - “I decided
to save humanity”. The piece was performed in the summer of 1973 in the chamber
music forum of the Union of Composers (“I recall that Schnittke was present”).
It was performed by Valery Afanasiev, Evgeny Korolev, the composer himself and
Tatiana Grindenko. “The result was that the comet changed its trajectory. It
had been anticipated that the danger would occur in the winter of 1974, but in
December it became clear that, because the comet had remained close to Jupiter,
its trajectory had changed. It was a sonorous minimalist piece”. When
questioned about the score the composer answered: “The score did not survive;
there was no more need of it. It executed itself”. Ritual as ritual. Consistent
to the end. There is even a certain logic in the fact that the score of Protection from the comet Kohoutek disappeared
without trace once it had saved mankind, as though it had fulfilled its
purpose. However,
we are concerned with the logical realization of the idea of syncretism. From
the mid 70s and on through the 80s and 90s, all of Martynov's creative work is
imbued with this fundamental idea - a symbol of contemporary European culture.
To quote his words about the poet Velimir Khlebnikov, who exerted a fundamental
influence on him: “Art cannot be an end in itself. It is simply a kind of
vehicle which can deliver you to the truth for which you are seeking. And when
you have found that truth then the vehicle can be abandoned - there is no need
to attract attention to it. It is very characteristic that when reading his own
verse Khlebnikov often said: 'And so on'. He came up against such a barrier of
existence, reached such deep layers, that neither poetry nor music - nothing
human, nothing comprehended by the mind or perceived by the senses - could
penetrate. Music, poetry and philosophy are all aspects of a craft. Khlebnikov
smashed the shells of individual activities. It is probable that we find the
truth at the boundaries between activities. Syncretism is both philosophy and
poetry, music and magic. The time has now come when this can be said. Man must
be syncretic. He does not have to be a philosopher, he does not have to be a
poet, he does not have to be a musician. He must be all of these things at the
same time. This is exactly what I am referring to when I speak of the Shaman.
The Shaman stands for action and for a much closer cosmic unity than the philosopher,
the poet or the musician. Whereas the artist or philosopher simply expresses or
interprets the idea of unity, the Shaman actually embodies it - he truly
realizes it”[4]. A definitive change in aesthetic, ethical and
spiritual orientation occurred in 1974 when Martynov and Aleksei Lyubimov
travelled to Pamir to study Tadzhik folklore. “The people there preserved the
old way of life and the ancient spiritual order. We have tried to reconstruct
this spiritual order in our own disorderly environment, but this cannot be
achieved if we simply transplant such borrowed spiritual structures”[5].
Music begins to take on a subsidiary role in the whole way of life, not just
the creative life; it becomes even more syncretically linked with ceremony and
with the para-musical idea of ritual order. And therefore its language must
direct it away from the subjective creative will to that objective reality and
cosmic harmony which is expressed in ritual and in the ceremony of ritual. The
composer later said of that time: “In 1974 I broke away from the avant-garde”. The
appeal to the hierarchical order through ritual and magical activity is the
idea which forms the basis of Martynov's compositions from the mid 70s onwards.
These include a series of works written for Mark Pekarsky and his percussion
ensemble: The hierarchy of logical
values (1976) and The
order of the day (1978). They
are also affiliated with later compositions - The triumph of aerobics (1989) and The discovery of an absolutely beautiful sound (1993). In Martynov's
opinion, the brilliant Pekarsky ensemble was the very best performing group of
its time, and could not have realized his ideas regarding ritual in music any
more fully. “Percussion instruments are the very oldest instruments - they are
almost relics. They are the least affected by European culture. The violin,
piano and flute all carry the ballast of civilization. They cannot reach that
deep level which percussion instruments can achieve. They are magical
instruments. They somehow participate in the structures of spells and in
magical rhythmic formulas. They alone possess an elemental hierarchical power[6]. The hierarchy of logical values is the first of a series of compositions for percussion. It is a
six-movement cycle based on verses by Velimir Khlebnikov - fragments from the
play Zangesi and the poem Real [Nastojaschee]. The percussionists
themselves declaim the texts. The movements are entitled: “People”, “Birds”,
“Gods”, “Reason”, “The whole” and “Presentiment of the unseen”. The sequence of
movements reflects a sequence of hierarchical steps from lower to higher. On
the lowest step stands mutinous and revolutionary man, who violates the laws of
cosmic harmony: Tsars, Tsars trembled, Tsars, Tsars tremble. To the To the axe men... [Tsari, tsari drozhali, Tsari, tsari drozhat. Na o Na obuh gospod…”] Birds
occupy a higher position: “They are more in harmony with the cosmos; each of
their songs is a ritual”[7].
And so on to the pinnacle of the cosmic hierarchy. This
work represents an unusual combination of the avant-garde aesthetic and shaman
activity. For Martynov, it is logical. He disputes its traditional element as
though engaged in polemics with a diverging postulate on the destructiveness of
the avant-garde: “The avant-garde appeals to deeper traditions. Khlebnikov and
Joyce, for example, regarded tradition more seriously than is generally
considered”. It is clear that the minimalism which is so primordially
anticipated in the rhythms of Khlebnikov and accurately answered in the timbral
and rhythmic structures of Martynov is rooted somewhere in the depths of ritual
tradition. Other
compositions for percussion ensemble are also imbued with the idea of ritual
order. The order of the day is
associated with the ceremonial traditions of the East. A list of the percussion
instruments for which this four-movement cycle is scored will give some idea of
the sound colouring. The outer movements - “Morning meditation” and “Evening
song” - which are based on pentatonic scales, are scored for vibraphone, marimba,
glockenspiel, antique cymbals, Indian bells, bells, hanging cymbals, triangle,
mini-chimes and gong. The second movement - “Meditation” - is a solo piece for
Mark Pekarsky: an improvizational raga of
sorts, seemingly removed from time, which is performed on tiplipitom, darabuka
and Guinean tam-tam. The penultimate third movement - the climactic “Action” -
is a very powerful movement thanks to the energy produced by the increasing
volume of the ostinato. It is performed by five groups of percussion: three
different drums, six tom-toms, six bongos, three kettle-drums and a large drum.
It is so gripping that the public usually demands an encore. In
1973 Martynov began to work in the Electronic Studio of E. Murzin. In those
years the Studio was the focus for the most extreme experiments and the most
brilliant composers. Sofia Gubaidulina, Eduard Artemyev, Edison Denisov,
Aleksandr Nemtin, Alfred Schnittke, the theoretician Pyotr Meshchaninov and
others all worked there. By this time Martynov was known as a composer who
belonged to the so-called extreme left wing, and he was invited to the Studio
by Artemyev to try his hand at electronic music. In the mid 70s the Electronic
Studio was a rather colourful specimen of the Soviet underground. Its
non-conformist spirit attracted the most interesting representatives of
Moscow's intellectual elite - creative people of very different persuasions.
Besides composers there were philosophers, specialists in Hinduism and the
East, rock musicians, people from religious orders, artists, film directors and
students... Celebrities from abroad such as Michel Legrand, Michelangelo
Antonioni and Francis Ford Coppola also visited. New works by these composers
were given unofficial first performances at the Studio, along with then unknown
works by Stockhausen, Cage, Ligeti and other Western composers. Traditional
Eastern music was played, as well as electronic art-rock by groups such as Genesis, Yes, Makhavishna, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Tangerine
Dream. Experiments with colour-music took place, and religious meetings
were even held there. As Martynov recalls, the studio subsequently produced
several clergymen and senior monastic priests; many of the rockers turned to
Christianity, and took part in the ensemble which Martynov formed to sing early
Russian church music. Martynov
produced several compositions in the Electronic Studio. However, they no longer
bore any relation to the avant-garde. For him electronic music was somehow
directly linked with rock-music. The electronic “sound”, the meditative
quality, the hypnotism of the East, and the religious mentality all exerted an
irresistible influence on him. His passion for rock-music found a resonance in
the passion for Eastern cults (the trip to Pamir took place just at this time).
Martynov's work in the Electronic Studio may be defined as non-European,
non-secular, non-academic, and not traditionally acoustic. His electronic
compositions include: Aum - forms of radiance (1976), psychedelic
meditative electronic rock with clear elements of minimalism in the tradition
of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze; Invitation
to travel (1976), electronic interpretations of works by past composers (Summer canon by an anonymous English
composer, a song by John Bull, a solo madrigal by Monteverdi, movements from
Bach's Goldberg Variations and
Debussy’s Canope (1976); Francis of Assisi (1978), a rock-opera
for soloists, chorus, rock-group and string ensemble; Hymns (1978), a cycle of religious songs based on verses by
17th-century English poets for voice, guitar solo, violin and rock-group, whose
style is based on traditional Indian and Chinese music and the English
Renaissance; and Autumn song for
harpsichord and electronic phonogram (1978). Martynov's
electronic compositions turned out to have a very successful performance
future. They were included, along with the music of Artemyev, Terry Riley, Cage
and Stockhausen, in the repertoire of the Moscow rock-ensemble Bumerang which was formed as a result of
the Electronic Studio. Later Martynov formed his own rock-group called Forpost (1977-1978) with which he
performed both Hymns and the opera The angelic visions of St Francis of Assisi.
His electronic reworkings of the classics, together with analogous
compositions by Artemyev, are released on a joint recording entitled Metamorphoses (1980). From
the mid 70s Martynov's work has developed along the lines of minimalism. He is
generally accepted as the most consistent representative of this style. Between
1974 and 1976 a radical departure from the structural refinement of dodecaphony
and the elements of serialism and a move towards a “new simplicity” occurred
simultaneously in the music of Pärt, Martynov and Silvestrov. “At exactly
the same time, but independently of one another, we discovered tonality”.
However, whereas many composers denied the past in a rather similar way -
through a dissatisfaction with the excessive role of the rational element and a
renunciation of the avant-garde elite for the sake of a more democratic,
emotional expression - the discovery of a “new simplicity” was expressed in a
different way by each composer. No collective metaphor could define the “new
simplicity” of Martynov's music, Pärt's “tintinnabuli” style, and the
“quiet music” of Silvestrov. His own Partita for solo violin, Leaf from an album, Christmas music (Weihnachtsmusik) and Aum - forms of radiance are very dissimilar in style even though they
were written in the same year. They differ both in the degree to which the
material is organized into a pattern - from the micro-elements in Leaf from an album to the developing
song structures - and in the character of the repetition which affects the
character of the musical process - dynamic but retarded in Leaf from an album and static in Christmas music. They are distinguished by the way in which the
very idea of minimalism is treated. It is as though Martynov studies the
method, experiments with its various possibilities on different stylistic
foundations and applies it to various artistic tasks. Leaf
from an album bears several traces of the influence of
American minimal music: the simplicity and brevity of the pattern and the sense
of distillation from some stylistic allusions (Example 3A). In the Partita for violin solo the title alone
already conjures up associations with the Bach violin cycles and these do, in
fact, materialize: the six movements of this large-scale work (duration 28
minutes) are constructed as a process of gradual renewal of the pattern[8],
but the silhouette of the baroque partita shines through (Example 3B). The
refined style of the electronic zen-rock harks back to the pentatonic pattern
of Autumn song (Example 3C). In
comparison with the two works already discussed, Martynov's Christmas
music is a phenomenon of a
completely different nature. It is primordially orientated towards a historical
style. Whereas the Partita and Leaf from
an album had been accepted as an extreme splash of the avant-garde (thanks
to the purity of the experiment with diatonic primary elements: the major chord
in the first composition and the perfect fifth in the second) and were met with
understanding, the Christmas music
provoked a reaction closer to shock. The public had grown accustomed to
surprises from this composer who never repeats himself; they eagerly await the
premieres of Martynov's works, anticipating a sensation. However this surprise
took many people aback. First and foremost it presented a new problem: the
turning towards historical material was unusual. And it is not treated in the
tradition of the neoclassicists, i. e. in a dialogue with the composer's
own material. In general, the symbiosis of various styles which are interwoven
to form a mosaic does not reveal the explicit presence of the composer's own
material, for the basic minimalist pattern is already presented as something
which the composer has intentionally borrowed (Example 3D). Example
3 A, B, C & D The
eleven-movement cycle (which lasts around an hour) consists of both
instrumental and vocal movements. The first movement - “Book for instruments” -
consists of three preludes: 1. Prelude for star and wise men, 2. Prelude for
angels and shepherds, and 3. Prelude for children. The second movement - “Book
of songs” - is based on texts taken from the 1912 publication “The word of Life
in sacred verses for the common people”. It is scored for strings with solo
violin and cello, flute, oboe, bassoons, organ, chimes and boys' chorus with
soloists. The composer's performance note, insisting that “it is compulsory
that the piece be performed by a children's chorus” - concurs with the
commentary in the concert programme, which explains that the purpose is “to
combine the wisdom of the magi with the simplicity of the shepherds, and this
combination is naturally conferred to each person during childhood”. And so it
is said: “If you do not revert and be like little children, you will not enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven”. A complex post-modernist text is laid out before us. These are Christmas songs for children with naive religious couplets, from which the aroma of primordial primitivism arises. It does not matter whether these voices belong to children from the House of Pioneers or a church Sunday school - the essence is the same: a pure childish consciousness is invested in these simple-hearted chants. This mass culture, raised to the level of kitch, is only one layer. The profusion of Christmas music from all over Europe from the end of the 16th century until the present day (in accordance with the principle “a lot and for all”) forms another layer. Counterpoints and variations are superimposed onto the simplest chord pattern and alternated as in an English ground, providing echoes of different times and styles: the strains of virginal dances, the textural patterns of the Baroque, intonations of the Lutheran lied from the time of Hans Leo Hassler, allusions to Pergolesi, Schubert, Schumann and Mahler, and children's musical lexicons from the time of Kabalevsky and Prokofiev can all be recognised. An ecstatic tutti apotheosis in Christian rock style crowns the whole mosaic. Thus
is created a grandiose culturological utopia. It undoubtedly contains traces of
Martynov's recent “happenings” and echoes of the then-popular rock music - a
manifestation of Christian youth. The traditions of sacred Christmas rites are
also kept alive. It is as though the composer walks, like an Umberto Eco hero,
through the labyrinth of a library which contains all the music in the world
and where composers from every age, whose names stand side by side on folio
spines, exist as though outside the realms of history. From his standpoint
outside history and time he sees them clearly in a single time and space, in a
kind of mythological “always” which also implies a mythological “now”. And in
this sacred Utopia all of them - contemporaries and fellow-composers surrounded
by angels, children, magi and shepherds - turn to the listeners with the words
of the last couplet “Brothers, we will hurry to accept the Lord, we will hurry
to welcome him with bread and salt...” set to music in which one can no longer
distinguish Schubert from the anonymous rock-composer. The
idea of the anonymous author is by no means of minor importance in Martynov's
work. Its source lies in a global problem faced by every composer: the
correlation of the individual and the non-individual, the original and the
borrowed in 20th-century art. Martynov formulated his own view on this dilemma
in the title of his book The end of the
time of composers (1996). In referring to the way in which the composer
expresses himself by the terms “creative work” and “art” and in speaking of
their end, he implies an exhaustion of their possibilities. Martynov's “new
simplicity” took various individual forms: the primary elements of music,
intentionally borrowed from the Americans Steve Reich and Terry Riley, as in Leaf from an album; the melodic archetypes of Eastern music, passed through the
psychedelic rock style, as in the electronic composition with solo harpsichord Autumn song, and the use of authorized
quotation or “quote-metaphor”, i. e. something less than a quote but more
than an allusion to a source which may be accurately recognized by the listener
but is never quoted directly. These types of material are all characteristic of
the role of the extra-personal source in Martynov's compositions from the mid
70s. In
1978 a period to which he himself refers as “a withdrawal from music” began in
Martynov's creative work. For several years he devoted himself entirely to
religious service. For some time he served as a chorister and since 1979 he has
taught in a precentors' school and in the Academy of the Troitse-Sergiev
Monastery near Moscow. His words - “I stopped being a composer” - must be
understood from the point of view of the difference between music and
liturgical singing, between the composer and the church-singer, the artist and
the icon-painter: in other words, between the original and the borrowed, and
even anonymous canonic creation as a form of sacred artistic work. With his
inherent inclination towards research, Martynov immersed himself in the study
of Orthodox liturgical singing, its history and its treasures. Later he
published a series of articles and a monograph entitled The history of liturgical singing, in which he analyzes and
interprets the history of both Western and Eastern Christian liturgical singing
from the point of view of the composer[9].
He worked on the reconstruction of early Russian choral manuscripts in the
archives of a series of monasteries, and has restored a 16th-century znamenny liturgy and a 17th-century strochny liturgy. These have both been
performed during worship in the Uspensky Cathedral of the Troitse-Sergiev
Monastery. One must imagine the significance and scale of this event, when the
Orthodox service was performed for the first time in 400 years with the ancient
ceremony of chant resurrected without any trace of contemporary influence. With
the support of Metropolitan Pitirim he formed a choir attached to the
publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate to sing early Russian church
music and perform the reconstructed treasures. At the same time he continued to
work on a series of publications of early Western-European music which was
begun in 1976. Under Martynov's editorship various collections of instrumental
ensembles by Heinrich Isaac (1976), Guillaume de Machaut (1977), Andrea
Gabrieli (1977), John Dunstable (1978) and Guillaume Dufay (1979) were
published. Martynov
speaks laconically about his music from this period: “I wrote compositions
exclusively intended for liturgical use”. This is a detail of no small
importance! Not many composers of recent years whose interests have moved
towards Christian liturgical genres have heard their compositions performed in
a church during worship rather than in a concert hall. And here was a whole
body of liturgical chant, including the All-Night Vigil and the Liturgy,
recreated and performed during services in the Uspensky Cathedral and the
Pokrovsky Church of the Troitse-Sergiev Monastery, and in the Church of the
Resurrection in Moscow. Judging by the few specimens which were performed in
festivals of Orthodox music in 1990 and 1991, Martynov had already realized
both the idea of the anonymous work - in spirit and in letter - and the move
towards canon in these “non-composing” years. A
return to composition followed in 1984. It was enriched with the experience of
six years silence. In his music from the 80s and 90s many aspects of Martynov's
work merged together to form a new kind of unity. All the components of the
past “pre-church” period can still be recognized: the magic of ritual; the
appeal to an objective source of spiritual order; culturology and the
associated topical interpretation of historical linguistic paradigms; the
interest in boundary stylistic and genre situations, and work at the juncture of
academic music and “traditional streams”. But now the spectrum of components
had widened to include folklore, art-rock and liturgical singing. Other new
facets were also added: the use of liturgical genres, as in the Stabat mater
(1994), Magnificat (1993) and Requiem (1995); and para-liturgical genres, as in
Apocalypse (1991), The lamentations of Jeremiah (1992) and Canticum fratris Solis (1996), which
replace the “musics” and “songs” of the 70s. Another innovation is the
replenishment of the stylistic catalogue with the znamenny chant, strochny and
partesny singing found in Russian
sacred music, sacred concertos, Western-European music from the Carolinian era,
organum, post-Renaissance elements, classicism, and 19th-century romanticism.
This is demonstrated in such compositions as Opus posth I (1984), Come in!
(1985), Opus posth II (1993), Requiem, Magnificat, Folk dance (1997), and Canticum fratris Solis. The
minimalist method continued to provide the foundation for the compositions of
the 80s and 90s. The works Opus posth I for
piano, percussion and treble, Opus posth
II for two pianos and treble (1993), The
esoteric dances of Kali-Yuga for piano and The exoteric dances of Kali-Yuga for instrumental ensemble (both
1995), Autumn song for chamber
ensemble and treble (1984), The twelve
victories of King Arthur for seven pianos (1990), Night in Galicia (1996), and Koan
for fIute solo (1996) are all written within this framework. These works
combine various characteristics primordially inherent to the minimalist style,
such as the use of short structures (in Night
in Galicia and in Koan the
fundamental core is reduced to a single sound), repetition, and the static
quality of the harmonic process which is regulated by a diatonic sound-series.
But here the similarity with the classical forms of minimalism ends. Even in
70s Martynov had very quickly moved away from the American minimalists. On the
whole their stylistic hermetism remained alien to him - a composer of
Western-European roots, possessing a sensitive genealogical consciousness. For
him the names of Ockeghem, Obrecht, Dunstable, Pierre de la Rue, Monteverdi,
Purcell, Schubert and Mahler were sacred. The piece for seven pianos entitled The
twelve victories of King Arthur may
serve as a model of his own version of minimalism. It was written for the
collective multi-piano cycle Seven
pianos. According to the plan drawn up by the organizers of the festival Alternative-90, the concert programme
would consist of seven pieces written for an increasing number of pianos: Waiting by John Cage (for one piano);
Nikolai Korndorf Lullaby (for two
pianos); The eternal something else by
Sergei Zagnii (for three pianos); La
belle musique by Aleksandr Rabinovich (for four pianos); Morton Feldman's Five pianos; Six pianos by Steve Reich, and Martynov's The twelve victories of King Arthur for seven pianos. It represents
a combination of English folklore - “an allusion to the musical epos of the
Celts or, to be more precise, an echo of the playing of Celtic harpists” - with
the techniques of minimalism and repetition. Martynov
accepted post-modernism with its culturological accents as a sign of the times.
Of the characteristic traits inherent in this trend - irony and allegory - the
composer chose the latter since irony contains a destructive impulse. Martynov
explains his own post-modernist works of the 80s and 90s as “an attempt to
deprive post-modernism of its destructive character and to make something
positive using this method”. The principle of “double material” or “the indirect
use of material”, which is seen in the treatment of the stylistic formulae,
structural model and genre as metaphors, gravitates towards allegory. The
composer sees this as a transference to mythological thinking which “is used
together with fragments of former beliefs”. Thus the composer ceases to be a
composer and becomes an interpreter of cultural myth. In Come
in! for violin and orchestra
the style of the Romantic Adagio is reproduced as a symbol of contemporary
beauty. It gathers together the whole 19th-century violin idyll: the idioms and
clichés of the romantic lyric - of Schumann, Mendelsohn, Saint-Saens,
Brahms, Wagner and Tchaikovsky - are easily recognized. Example
4. Come in! However,
they are not placed in their characteristic surroundings: the free flow of
melody is interrupted by the knock of the ritual hammer and the sounds of the
glockenspiel which represent another stylistic medium (repetitive “heavenly”
music), a general stop ensues, and then everything begins again. There are six circles
and in each new circle the “theme” acquires new expressive details, becoming
more protracted. The development and repetition of events in a strict order
forms its own structure over and above the undivided musical flow. In these
circumstances the romantic idiom reveals a second and even a third meaning... The
text of the poetic programme with which the composer prefaces his work concurs:
“An ancient zealot said to his pupil: Strive to enter into the inner store of
your being and you will see the heavenly store. The former and the latter are
one: by a single entrance you will enter into both. The Ladder to the Heavenly
Kingdom is found within yourself: it exists secretly in your soul'. Some day we
must knock on the secret door of our heart in the hope that this door will
open, for it is said: Knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. The words of the
ancient zealot contain the same metaphor. Ascetic simplicity and sensual luxury
exist side by side, but they do not meet. There is a vertical link, a common
structure between these worlds. The six-fold repetition of the music is seen as
an ever more persistent call to ascend the ladder of one's heart once again,
and to knock on Heaven's door (the ritual hammer). The path becomes more
difficult with each new attempt, but in the end the door is opened: the
conductor turns to the listeners and says: “Come in!”. The piece is interrupted
at the moment in which the most important event begins and music is no longer
necessary: it remains on the outside. The piece acts as a preliminary to
something which extends beyond its boundaries. Conceptual action is contained
in this design. A certain nostalgia for a past era, in which it was possible to
pour one's feelings onto the page without allegory, forms yet another layer. A
striving for an illusory “place” was inherent to the Romantics. For Martynov,
like Silvestrov, Peletsis and Rabinovich, this “place” is the real cultural
past. Music becomes a myth, and the composer its interpreter. This “attempt to
turn back time, to live again, to force the music not to end but to play for
evermore” may be perceived in the uninterrupted Postludia. Come in! is written both passionately and with a certain aloofness.
Martynov has the capacity to delicately lead the playing while engrossed in an
ecstasy of fervoured playing; to be absorbed in the music, to structure the
cosmos with music and yet, at the same time, to be nostalgic about it. Hence
the intense link between the three “texts” - the music itself, the conceptual
action and the philosophical contemplation of the music - and the various ways
in which it is perceived: as “very beautiful”, “a spiritual work”, “a requiem
in music” or “a loving contemplation in forgiving tones”. The present exists in
parallel with the conceptual future and the post-modernist past, giving rise to
the genre symbiosis: prelude - postlude. Martynov
realizes his own idea of the canon on the basis of minimalism or, to be more
precise, on its ability to communicate the ontological essence of time, and to
provide a symbol of equality between the moment and eternity. In essence,
canonic creativity forms a commentary -
a method which is very different from composition. This may be understood as
the use of a certain borrowed constant - a cantus
prius factus. Through the development of this device every artist may
express his own interpretation and, by his choice of source, his own time. By
developing the cantus, the mediaeval
masters constructed their own world: a work from a work. Today, compositions
are still based on a borrowed cantus, but
only in the very widest sense - now the whole of musical culture may form this cantus. And the result is very different
- a work about a work. The idea of
the canon dates back to the ancient mediaeval mentality but, given a topical
slant by the entire evolution of contemporary culture, it becomes a key element
in Martynov's work: music about music in Come
in!; an opera about opera in The exercises and dances of Guido (1997);
and a liturgy about the liturgy in Apocalypse.
Analogies may be found both in the metaphorical style of Silvestrov's Messenger (1996) and the piano dialogue Correspondence by Peletsis and Martynov.
The canonic method is also related to other phenomena in contemporary art: for
example, the culturology of Borghese - books about books; the illusionism of
Peter Greenaway who makes films about particular works and uses formulae of
17th-century thinking in The draughtsman's contract, Prospero's books and The baby of Macon; or the
cosmology of Umberto Eco, who arranges the artistic space of The name of the rose - a novel about a
book - according to the canons of the Middle Ages. In Apocalypse it is the cantus
firmus of the ancient Russian znamenny
chant, reworked by Martynov in the styles of “all periods and schools”, which
serves as the canon. The composer treats meta-historical consciousness as the
new canon in the same way that he understands “canon” in its widest possible
sense, as historical layers and stylistic paradigms. The old understanding of
“canon” - church canon - does not lose its topicality, but it is now linked
with the concept of “new sacred space” or “new church culture”: “we cannot
limit ourselves to a single reproduction of the old church canons, if only
because we do not have the right to ignore that cry of pain which the whole
essence of 20th-century culture has tom up. We will never create anything truly
spiritual in the cultural sphere if we do not experience The black square within ourselves”[10]. Martynov
explains his concept of “new sacred space” as “the connection of archaic
melodic formulas and structures with the contemporary methods of
post-modernism”. This idea is brilliantly embodied in his Canticum fratris Solis. Octo tonorum (“Hymn to Brother Sun, or
Praise to all creation”) based on the poetic text of the prayer of St Francis
of Assisi - an attempt to return to the melodic forms of the liturgy. The eight
hymns to God's creatures, to whom the words of St Francis are addressed, are
sung according to the system of eight psalm tones used in Gregorian monody. The
stylistic complex is supplemented by Venetian arabesques in the style of St
Mark's Cathedral (in the authentic performance given by Mark Tucker, Martynov's
post-Renaissance Alliluias recalled the Monteverdi Vespers) and ritual dance, whose intonations capture the spirit of
the Mediterranean. The beautiful structural idea of a numerical progression
which unites the cosmic order with sound is perceived as a reference to the
traditions of the Pythagoras school and to a time when music, arithmetic,
astronomy and geometry were conceived as a single system[11].
In
the Stabat mater (1994) it is the stylistic complex of 17th-century music - of
Monteverdi and Purcell - which is taken as a generalized formula or code of the
whole culture-historical layer and used as a cantus. The composer treats it
just as the old masters did: preparing a modal and melodic context for it;
commenting on it, and extracting meanings and symbols appropriate for his own
time. Example
5 A & B. Stabat mater In
terms of stylization Martynov's talent is unique: not only are his attributable
quotations authentic but they also possess the energy of the original.
Moreover, they always contain some extra element which turns them into a
product of today's culture. The film director Andrei Khrzhanovsky, an artist
who has expressed a great interest in culturology, once said: “Martynov is very
delicate stylist and knows how to 'shoot' his own work in such a way that it is
viewed in a temporal projection. It allows us to feel as though we are
witnesses of, and even participants in the atmosphere of the original, whilst
unobtrusively building a bridge to the present day”[12].
Apocalypse (1991) demonstrates the richness and consistency of Martynov's
realization of the canonic method. This grandiose multi-movement composition
for two unaccompanied choruses and
soloists (with the soprano and alto parts sung by boys) was commissioned by the
city of Mainz for the choir of Mainz
Cathedral. It was originally entitled Missa
rossica, and this title together with the dedication - “Russian sacred
music for a Gothic basilica” -
explains the work's complex and divergent genealogy. Apocalypse unites the traditions of liturgical singing of both
eastern and western Christianity. Although it is a para-liturgical composition,
it contains the canonic sound forms of
the eastern and western liturgies - unison-octave and polyphonic singing,
psalmody, responses and antiphony - and thus the semantics of the sacred rite
are both meditative and extraordinarily weighty. For Martynov each work
represents a step on the journey through life. As the first large-scale work to
be written after several years of silence, Apocalypse
is therefore a particularly significant landmark on the composer's creative
path: it is essentially a concentrated inner work. It is a new work in every
sense: in terms of genre, spirit and the scale of what is expressed in the
composition there is simply nothing with which to compare it. It followed many
years of study of the early Russian choral manuscripts which, as the composer
discovered, provide a testimony to the spiritual greatness of past centuries.
Coming after Martynov's work on the restoration of ancient memorials and his
composition of chants for the Orthodox liturgy, this composition - which is
undoubtedly a “composed” work - still bears the imprint of the restorer and
chorister, i. e. of that anonymous selfless service which the composer
himself describes as the lost ideal of the artist's work, and which he strove
to resurrect. The
concept of Apocalypse is unique.
Martynov's neo-canonic method is primarily expressed in the reliance on
borrowed material. In this sense the method is executed with the same
consistency as the general Christian idea on which it is founded, and to which
it is organically linked. On the smaller scale, there are two factors which
contribute to the unique quality of this work. Firstly, it is based on a cantus firmus, as the revival of the
traditional techniques of reworking the cantus
in Western sacred music from the Middle Ages to the 20th century is
defined. Secondly, the composer uses the melody of one of the most archaic
Russian znamenny chants - “Dome
Efrafov grade svyatyi”, a podoben from
the Oktoikh, written in the second glas - as the cantus, and with it is introduced
a series of the canonic forms of reworking a source found in Orthodox music.
The entire composition has grown out of the chant like a contemporary
commentary to it. In
the composer's own words, “there is not a single free note in this work”. He could
have been referring to the serial works of the second avant-garde or the
Netherlandish masses of Obrecht or Josquin. In fact, Apocalypse possesses such a high structural tension that these are
not just analogies: these are the real precursors of this work - the early
generations of a single ancient line. However, there is also a third component
which colours the whole composition with a sharply contemporary hue: the
reunification of different traditions is underpinned by a minimalist foundation
into which the ideas of canonic creation (particularly formulaic writing with
its use of variation, combination and ostinato - the earliest predecessor of
the repetitive minimalist method) are easily inserted. The style of Apocalypse is a logical derivative of this
rare fusion. The monodic znamenny chant
exists side by side with the polyphony and antiphonal writing for double chorus
(of which it forms the basis); the use of formulaic popevki is related to the technique of segmentation. The composer
simultaneously works in three hypostases: he is the contemporary minimalist,
the anonymous Russian chorister, and the contrapuntists, the descendent of the
Netherlandish, English, Venetian and German schools. In Apocalypse Martynov resurrects the ancient Russian tradition of
singing the sacred text on the basis of a modal formula while, at the same
time, he revives that technique of reworking the cantus and developing the modal formulae within a polycanonic
counterpoint which he used in the Summer
canon. The use of ison is almost
indistinguishable from the prolonged cantus
firmus which is sung in the background, just as the ancient Russian podoben with its melismatic insertions
is virtually indistinguishable from the technique of colouration. Antiphonal
choral exchanges in the Venetian style, reworkings of the Protestant chorale
from German cantatas, and subtle allusions to the rock aesthetic may also be
recognized. Example
6 A, B & C. Apocalypse United
in a single person, the ancient Russian singer and the mediaeval Western
contrapuntist each adds their own contribution to the creation of a common
sacred space: from the former comes the ecstatic and forceful passion of
prayer; from the latter - that refinement of structure which is used as a means
of meditation and narrative. The approach to the text from the Book
of Revelation - which is theological and not purely musical - is also
canonic. The text of St John the Divine is read (as a psalm), sung and
commented upon. However, this is not only a musical work - which in itself
would have been a unique achievement for a composer - but a theological reading
which contains an intensity and agitation inspired by the mystical visions of
John: a reading with the help of musical resources. It would seem that the aim
of the music is not to paint the apocalyptic pictures but, in some mystical
way, to experience them. Thus the composition could be defined as a musical
theological choir book. This interpretation is evident in the delicate
treatment of the significance of the text (and not in its expression, although the composition is not lacking in individual
elements of musical rhetoric). This is primarily achieved with the help of the cantus. The introduction of the podoben - “The house of Euphraph” - is
already a commentary, as is its removal (the figure of silence): through its
interruption and restoration the composer highlights the associations in
meaning between the movements, elucidating these references in his own way. It
is only in the final movement - “The Heavenly Jerusalem” - that the chant of
the podoben is presented in full with
its original text, but it permeates virtually the whole composition as a symbol
of the foretelling and expectation of the future. In the finale Martynov
compares and contrasts the reading of parallel passages. Using a textual
collage, he interprets the symbol of the Heavenly city through a dialogue
between the two choirs: each phrase of the chant is commented on using a verse
from Revelation (Revelation, 21:3).
Numbers
play an important role in Apocalypse. For
Martynov the number is both a symbol and a structural rule. The number seven
has a particular significance in the sacred symbolism of the Revelation of St
John the Divine. It is also projected onto Apocalypse
where it regulates the various levels of the pitch hierarchy from the
simplest elements - intervals (from the first to the seventh within the seven popevki) and melodic formulae (the seven degrees of the diatonic scale -
Martynov interprets this as the symbol of
the ladder of prayer) - to the
large-scale cyclic structure, including the overall view of the composition in
its entirety. The large-scale polyphonic construction - a fourteen-voice
perpetual canon with seven proposti which
forms a vast mass of choral sound - symbolizes the “seven lamps of fire” and
“the rainbow around the throne” (Revelation 4:5). The primary objective of the
numerical structural rule is the chant melody itself, i. e. the cantus firmus, which is divided into
seven sections, sung successively from the first to the seventh, which unite
the vast structures within the text of Revelation, such as “The address to the
seven churches”. The
number seven also forms the basis of the movement “The seventh seal”. This is
an independent large-scale movement, organized as a cycle of seven canons with
an increasing interval between entries. The canons are designated in the text:
Canone all' Unisono, Canone alla Seconda and so on. Each canon is preceded by
the last trump of the angel - in the words of John “The first angel trumpeted”,
“The second angel trumpeted” and so on - and is further designated by a signal
formula with an ever increasing melodic alteration from the unison to the
seventh. In passing, it may be noted that the idea of a group of canons united
into a single cycle by means of a numerical progression is borrowed, by
Martynov's own admission, from Ockeghem's “Prolationum” Mass which is
celebrated as the first canonic mass (it is a cycle of fourteen canons). As
though passed down from hand to hand, the structural idea of this most honoured
master has become a model for contemporary neo-canonic composers, and is now
applied to minimalist material, particularly the diatonic modal formulae of the
20th-century neo-modal system. Each of the seven canons concludes with a choral
recitation describing one of the apocalyptic pictures, and in each successive
recitation one of the seven segments of the Orthodox cantus is introduced in the soprano part. All seven descriptions
end in the same way - with the ekteniya “Lord
have mercy”. Thus, we have seven angels, seven angelic trumps, seven canons at
seven intervals, seven segments, seven pictures and seven repetitions of the ekteniya “Lord have mercy”. The musical
construction therefore becomes a continuation of the sacred structures found in
the text of Revelation. Martynov's
Apocalypse was successfully performed
in Mainz by the male-voice choir conducted by Viktor Popov and the city's
Cathedral choir. Missa rossica was
performed not only in the gothic basilica of Mainz, but also in Strasbourg,
Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and Paris. The basic elements of Matynov's neo-canonic
style which may be observed in many of the characteristics of Apocalypse - the technique of combining
formulae, the modal basis of the harmonic thinking, the symbiosis of the
different traditions of Christian liturgical singing, the role of ritual, the
influence of numerical symbolism which imparts a sacred significance to the
sound structures, the departure from orthodox minimalism, and the attempt to
transfer the ontological temporal model into the culturological plane - are all
developed further in subsequent compositions. The
lamentations of Jeremiah (1992) is a direct continuation of the concept
of Apocalypse. In this work Martynov
creates an atmosphere which is archaic in the sacred esoteric sense, but is by
no means unexciting. The Old Testament text is given in its entirety here and,
moreover, in the Church-Slavonic translation, which nowadays is an esoteric
text in itself. Martynov categorically states: “Church- Slavonic is a sacred
language. If we take even Pushkin's translation of the prayer of Efrem Sirin
and compare it with the prayer of Efrem Sirin itself, then we can see the
difference. The literary language of Pushkin was not created for the
communication of spiritual truths. It is a secular language. It describes
feelings, ideas, and philosophical concepts beautifully, but it is little
fitted for the expression of theological tenets. This becomes clear when we
compare the Synod translation of the prayer 'Our Father' with the
Church-Slavonic prayer”[13].
The
concept of The lamentations of Jeremiah was
influenced by the ensemble Sirin,
which first performed at the Festival of Orthodox music in Moscow in 1989.
Performing the canonic Orthodox chants in a manner more commonly associated
with folklore, Sirin contrasted
sharply with the many other choirs taking part. From this unexpected
combination was produced the scorching impression of living relic. There is a
kind of ancient, timeless sense of reality in its lively communication, here
and now. The lamentations of Jeremiah was
written especially for this unique ensemble. The Biblical text in
Church-Slavonic is therefore sung with open voices, hard articulation and
dialectical Russian pronunciation. It is a paradox but this sound seems
authentic in the existential sense: through its uneven authenticity and
archaism the ancient text becomes tangible, as though removed from time. This
more than anything else corresponds with the composer's intention to express
the problems of the present day. Martynov describes his turning to the Old
Testament in this way: “The world, as we have inherited it, is a ruin in every
sense - ecological, moral, aesthetic and creative. The ruined Jerusalem, which
is mourned by the prophet Jeremiah, provides a historical analogy. Only the
ritual repetition of the prophet's lamentation may be a real and constructive
action in our world, for it is only when we have penitentially mourned our own
perfidy that we can hope one day to succeed in restoring the world which we
have destroyed”[14]. The genre of this work is syncretic. The title “The book of The lamentations of Jeremiah, arranged for singing” appears on the front page of the programme for the theatrical show staged by director Anatoly Vasiliev in his theatre “The school of dramatic art” as a spatially-plastic version of Martynov's grandiose musical work. In the composer's commentary the word “action” is highlighted and his definition of the work as a para-liturgy i. e. an extra-liturgical work, also appears there. But at its heart lies primordial lamentation. Thus we have: the book, the para-liturgy, the lamentation, the action. The book. Disputing the
tradition of sacred music from the “new period” - the 17th-20th centuries -
from Monteverdi, Bach and Mozart to Ligeti, Schnittke and Artyomov, i. e.
the tradition in which sacred texts are given an emotional and psychological
treatment, Martynov instead treats the text in a canonic manner. To set the
book to music or to sing in accordance with the book means to reproduce its
sacred significance through its structure. The structure of the “Lamentations
of Jeremiah” in the Old Testament is unique: its five chapters contain 22
verses - the number of letters in the Jewish alphabet - and every verse begins
with a letter-word. The structural idea is that of a repeating circular
acrostic using the letters of the alphabet but without any repetition of the
verses. The alphabet and the subjects spelled out in the acrostic express the
world-order - they are all united by the lamentation: out of the many appears a
single whole. The total lamentation is revealed through the fullness and order
of everyday life. Hence, we have Martynov's “lamentation over Jerusalem, as
over the universe”. The
music of The lamentations of Jeremiah repeats
the structure of the ancient book. The composer transfers the alphabet as a
symbol of the plenitude of the world into a numerical equivalent in Christian
symbolism this is the number seven. In each of the five chapters the 22 verses
are grouped into three cycles of seven verses plus one (as in Chapters 1 and 3)
or into seven cycles of three verses plus one (as in Chapters 2, 4 and 5). The
sound equivalent of the symbol and of the number seven is the diatonic scale
with its seven degrees. The numerical and musical analogies are developed in The lamentations of Jeremiah as a
transparent structural principle: the whole musical texture is permeated by
this sacred numerical symbolism. Numbers determine the interval, the diapason
of the melody, the number of voices, and the degree of the scale. The word
which reveals the letter and the number is sung before each verse, and the note
on which it is sung provides the pitch for the chant, the interval, the
diapason, the quantity of degrees contained in the verse melody and, in the
second chapter, the number of voices. Example
7. The lamentations of Jeremiah The para-liturgy. By
this means space takes on a sacred significance. The static quality, the
symbolism of each moment, and the structure as a whole already predetermine the
atmosphere of sacrament. Independently of whether or not the listener perceives
the symbolism, the tension created by the steady realization of the structure,
the process of arranging the borders of the universe itself, exerts a subconscious
influence just as the ritual movement regulates the space around the singers.
The concept of the ritual round-dance (khorovod) forms the basis of the dramaturgy. As
though removed from time, the music submits not to a musical rhythm, if by this
we mean a physical rhythm, but to a sacred rhythm - the rhythm of change in the
acrostic: Aleph, Beth, Gimel, and so on. The lamentation. The lamentations of Jeremiah is like a
mosaic; it contains elements of early Russian chant, Gregorian monody,
three-voice polyphony, Byzantine osmoglasie,
and Bulgarian and Serbian liturgical singing. The composition underlines
that element which unites them - modal melodic formulaic writing. It is based
on seven diatonic modes, like seven dialects, and an eighth mixed mode, the
lydo-mixolydian mode, which is the principal mode of the work. The chant is
built up of modal formulae - short melodic popevki,
threaded together using repetition and variation: crabwise movement,
inversions, transpositions, sequences, rhythmic variation and combination. Both
in the prologue and in the final chapter the recognized formulae of Western and
Eastern monody are surrounded by popevki in
the lydo-mixolydian mode, which is archaic with a very rich folk semantic. The
influence of minimalism is still felt in the formulaic technique of Martynov's
writing although it is now overshadowed. In essence this is the discovery of a
new method of composition which is rich in possibilities and has its ancient
roots in mediaeval music and in folklore. With the help of this formulaic
method Martynov is able to construct a large-scale, monumental form. Its
principal components are the text, the modal formulae and continuous time. The action. Of
all his works, Martynov's The
lamentations of Jeremiah least resembles a composition written for the
concert hall. Neither its scale, nor the composer's intention suit it for
concert performance. It has been performed in Anatoly Vasiliev’s theatre by
just the fourteen singers of the ensemble Sirin,
but its monumental scale is like that of an Egyptian pyramid. The singing of
this music is a ritual; as a musical composition it neither represents nor
expresses, but taps in to that “energy flow” which, in the words of the
composer, represents ancient prophetic lamentation. After
The lamentations of Jeremiah Martynov
created a whole series of compositions whose conceptual character gravitates
towards canon: Magnificat, Requiem and Stabat mater. Bordering on this is the
work Night
in Galicia (1996), based on a
text by Velimir Khlebnikov and the songs of mermaids from Ivan Sakharov’s Tales of the Russian people, in which
the composer turns to the folk tradition. Like the Lamentations, this unusual work was not written for academic
performers but for the folk ensemble of Dmitry Pokrovsky. In it elements from
the avant-garde aesthetic intersect with primitivism, the repetitive formulaic
technique, and song - the principles of folk music. Its melodical basis is made
up of capricious and changeable combinations of popevki - formulae which form very diverse mixed modes: the
lydo-mixolydian mode is used once again, along with hemiola mixtures with an
archaic Slavonic Serbian-Polish-Huzul semantic. The work is constructed on a
series of stylistic gradations from the basic minimalist elements -
sound-points through to popevki-formulae -
to songs, although these are again deployed in sound-points. A full circle is
turned. The form is dictated by the subject (day, night and dawn) and the
conceptual idea: the alphabet (the vowel phonemes in the cries of mermaids)
embodies the highest cosmic order; its destruction is symbolized by poetry and
song, and the return to the primordial cosmic order by the alphabet once again.
There are no direct quotations in the work, but one constantly senses the existence
of an original: one does not forget that the composer is a connoisseur and
collector of folklore and that he has done a lot of research on this subject,
or that it played an important role in his formation as a composer at one time.
The use of modal popevki-formulae and
the authentic way in which they are treated has produced the most important
breakthrough in folklore since the time of Stravinsky and Bartók. The
timeless quality and syncretism which are so characteristic of folklore are
also inherent in this composition: the ritual action which organizes space
itself does not separate out the elements of song, dance and instrumental
playing but has open temporal boundaries... If
we examine the points of view from which Vladimir Martynov experiments on the
stability of traditional genres in his work, treating them controversially and
breaking down the partitions between academic and non-academic forms of art,
creating a symbiosis of stage, church and concert hall, the writing desk of the
theologian and “researcher into sound” and the music-stand with scores for
future action, then it appears that the only thing which is missing is
something for the opera-house, either by the composer alone or in collaboration
with someone else. And lo! An opera appears.
Exercitamenta et saltus Guidonis (The
exercises and dances of Guido, 1997) is the most original embodiment of the
idea of new sacred space. The title is paradoxical, even provocative, and the
genre is controversial: opera; para-opera; meta-opera; someone has even
suggested “anti-opera”. According to the composer it is “an opera about opera”.
The libretto by the composer himself is a multi-layered textual structure based
on fragments taken from two mediaeval Latin treatises - “The path of the soul
to God”, a l3th-century work by St Bonaventura, and an anonymous
11th/12th-century narrative Milanese treatise in verse on organum - and on the
writings of Guido d'Arezzo, an 11th-century monk and the inventor of
contemporary musical notation. According to St Bonaventura the pathway which
leads the soul to God is a six-step ascent. In the libretto the structural game
is linked with an analogy: the composer uses the “Guido hexachord”, the six
steps of the scale ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la invented by Guido, who used acrostics
from the hymn of John the Baptist, developing the living chant on abstract
sound-series and syllables, as a musical equivalent to the ladder of St
Bonaventura. “As a result [of Guido's work] we acquired the ability to write
music but we lost the integrity of religious consciousness”, explains the
composer. The exercises and dances of
Guido is an opera about the six steps of the soul's ascent to God and the
rediscovery of that integrity; it is also about the beginning and end of opera
- about its brief but sparkling history. It is consistent in its use of the
post-modern aesthetic which so loves double and triple coding, combining that
provocativeness which is so characteristic of Martynov with an element of
anti-irony, distinguishing it from post-modernism which is ironic in principle
(particularly the work of Michael Neumann who writes the music for the films of
Peter Greenaway). The minimalist foundation, the bricolage technique, the
treatment of the stylistic complexes - here, popular operatic devices which
embody the operatic source - are all tokens of this method. So too is the
leisurely development in the prologue, where the strict minimalist ascetic of
Gregorianism is preserved for some time in order to effect another time-shift.
Then it is necessary for the composer that the listener perceive the beauties
of opera which in the flow of metaphysical time will be heard as false (“False
words from their lips” - from the hymn of St John). Only
then does the long-awaited operatic feast begin, plunging the listener (not
without an element of the absurd) into a state of blissful shock with its
intoxicating bel canto and founts of beautiful music. And how beautiful! Almost
more elevated than Handel, almost more magical than Mozart himself, more
charming than Rossini, Bellini and the whole of Italian opera. “Bravo,
maestro!” - come the cries from boxes, stalls and gallery in answer to the
lavish gestures of the composer who showers us with high-class cantilenas
jostling with operatic “hits”, leading us from style to style, from era to era.
But it is only in order that he might smash them into priceless fragments of
that wonderful idea which embodied all our divine dreams: the 500-year-old myth
that we call opera - a word which signifies the most absurd and the most
delightful creation of European culture - is in ruins. All of this sinks into
the sand and is washed away by time as something untrue, just an error, a
wonderful mistake of history once made by the monk Guido d'Arezzo. And out of
the depths we hear the eternal flow of the liturgy which returns everything to
itself, to the bosom of liturgical singing. The historical synopsis of the
one-act work is therefore: liturgy - opera -liturgy. The associations with
Wagner’s Parsifal or
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kitezh are not
accidental. Perhaps Exercitamenta et
saltus Guidonis is a contemporary attempt to correct Guido's “mistake” and
return music from the opera theatre to the church. The
tension of this dizzy game acting simultaneously on the level of text, musical
structure, genre and style, together with the linguistic inaccessibility of the
Latin text give rise to an atmosphere similar to that of a magic show, a
powerful and forceful influence. The opera is complicated to perform. And it is
equally complicated to stage: it is a tough nut to crack for any would-be
director, demanding an intellectual aristocratism identical to that of Martynov
in order that the high style be preserved without the work entering the realms
of irony or kitch. It clearly must not be represented as a traditional opera or
theatrical drama, for the characters are not individuals but cultural streams:
the luxurious operatic allusions derived from the series ut, re, mi, fa, so, la (the “Guido hexachord”); and the ascetic
monodic, organum-like troestrochny chant
of the cantus firmus - the hymn of St
John. A special space must be constructed: an operatic stage is entirely
unnecessary. It is worth noting that the opera was commissioned for the
festival “Sacro-Art-97” to be performed in the Loccum Cathedral. A perfect
match! Martynov
strives towards authentic and syncretic performance. Almost all his
compositions are written with particular musicians in mind and, unusually,
these are often non-academic players. This circle of performers, in itself,
says a great deal about the different facets and about the scale of his work.
It includes avant-garde performers: Tatiana Grindenko, Gidon Kremer, Aleksei
Lyubimov, Anton Batagov, the ritualistic percussion ensemble of Mark Pekarsky,
whose repertoire constantly includes works by Martynov, indeed one of their
concert programmes is made up of a cycle of compositions which he wrote
especially for the ensemble - the Pekarsky
Percussion Book. It includes the extraordinarily expressive sacred music
ensemble Sirin and its principal
conductor, the precentor Andrei Kotov, the folk ensemble of Dmitry Pokrovsky
which breaks all genre boundaries, working at the juncture of folklore and the
avant-garde. It includes the male-voice choir conducted by Viktor Popov - an
outstanding performer of Apocalypse,
Anatoly Grindenko's sacred music ensemble Early
Russian Chant with its original and energetic performing style. Other
interpreters of Martynov's music include the remarkable English counter-tenor
David James, for whom the Magnificat
was written, the Turin choir which canonically (in the fullest sense of the
word) performs the Stabat mater which
was written especially for it, Kronos-quartet,
the English tenor Mark Tucker, an acknowledged performer of early music who is
able to imbue the idea of sacred space with a magical power and yet to capture
the composer's most delicate intellectual game to the letter. Finally, it
includes the conductors Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Valery Gergiev, Saulus
Sondetskis, and the ensembles Academy of
Early Music and Opus posth, led
by Tatiana Grindenko, which specializes in authentic and avant-garde
performance. Thanks
to these and other performers the music of Vladimir Martynov has been heard in
many countries all over the world: England, France, ltaly, Spain, Germany,
Holland, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Finland, Hungary, Portugal,
Japan and America. PRINCIPAL
COMPOSITIONS
1963
Four poems by Velimir Khlebnikov for chorus and chamber orchestra 1964
Five Russian folk songs for voice and ensemble 1966
String quartet 1968
Serenades for chamber ensemble 1968
Oboe Concerto 1968
Flute Concerto 1970
Overture in honour of Sapelkin [Uvertjura
v chest’ Sapelkina] for symphony orchestra 1970
Epistole amorose for chamber ensemble
1971
Hexagram for piano 1972
Variants for violin and piano 1972
Canzoni for two violins 1973
Sonata for violin and piano 1973
Protection from the comet Kohoutek
[Ohrannaya ot komety Kogouteka] for two pianos, eight hands 1974 Music for piano, double bass and percussion
1974
Music for piano, two violins and
percussion 1974
Asana for double bass solo 1976
Partita for violin solo Hamburg,
Sikorski No. 883, 1981 1976
Leaf from an album [Listok iz alboma] for
violin, piano, chamber ensemble and rock-group 1976 Christmas music (Weihnachtsmusik) for mixed ensemble and children's chorus1976
The hierarchy of logical values
[Ierarhija razumnyh tsennostej] for percussion ensemble 1976
Aum - forms of radiance [Aum - obrazy sijanija]. Electronic music 1976
Invitation to travel [Priglashenie k
puteshestviju]. Electronic music 1976
Metamorphoses. Electronic
interpretations of classical and contemporary musical compositions: Summer canon - anonymous; I am young and happy - Claudio
Monteverdi; Why do you ask? - John
Bull; Goldberg Variations nos. 5&8 - J. S. Bach; Canope - Claude Debussy 1976
Spring study [Vesennij etud]. Electronic
music 1976
Morning in the mountains [Utro v gorah]. Electronic
music 1977
Song of Morning I. Electronic music 1977
Song of Morning II for electronic
organ, violin, flute and cello 1977
Passionlieder for soprano and chamber
orchestra based on verses by German poets 1977
The hierarchy of logical values for
percussion ensemble based on a text by Velimir Khlebnikov 1977
Autumn song [Osennjaya pesnja] for
electronic phonogram and harpsichord 1978
Ostermusik for children's chorus and
chamber orchestra based on verses by German poets 1978
The order of the day [Rasporjadok dnja] for
percussion ensemble 1978
The angelic visions of St Francis of
Assisi [Seraficheskie videnija Frantsiska Assizskogo]. Rock opera 1978
Hymns. Vocal-instrumental cycle based
on verses by G. Herbert and E. Marvell for soloist and rock group 1978
Spring song [Vesennjaya pesnja] for
violin and magnetic tape 1980-83
Reconstruction of a znamenny and strochny liturgy. Music for worship 1984
Opus posth for piano, percussion and
treble based on verses by Nikolai Zabolotsky 1984
Autumn song (version II) for two
violins, string orchestra, celesta, vibraphone, tubular bells and treble based
on verses by Aleksei Pleshcheev 1985
Liturgy of St John Chrysostom 1985
Come in! [Voidite!] for violin,
string orchestra and celesta Hamburg,
Sikorski 03/2001 1985
Correspondence. Piano dialogue by V.
Martynov and G. Peletsis 1985
The Liturgy of the Presanctified Host 1986
The face of Russia [Lik Rossii]. Cantata
for unaccompanied chorus based on verses by Mikhail Lomonosov 1990
The twelve victories of King Arthur:
Seven pianos [12 pobed korolja Artura] 1990
The triumph of aerobics [Triumf aerobiki]
for percussion ensemble 1990
The hierarchy of logical values. Supplementary version. For percussion
instruments and reciter based on verses by Velimir Khlebnikov 1991
Lamento for percussion. Part of the collective work The magical gift of Senior Luigi: In
memory of Luigi Nono 1991
Apocalypse for two male choruses and
soloists 1992
The lamentations of Jeremiah [Zhaloby Ieremii] for unaccompanied mixed
chorus Moscow,
Teatr Anatoly Vasiliev 1996 1993
The discovery of an absolutely beautiful sound [Obretenie absoljutno
prekrasnogo zvuka] for percussion
ensemble 1993
Magnificat quinti toni for
counter-tenor, violin and string ensemble 1993
Opus posth II for two pianos and
treble based on verses by Nikolai Zabolotsky 1994
Stabat mater for mixed chorus and string ensemble 1994
The elves’ autumn ball [Osennij bal
elfov] for string orchestra. Part of the collective cycle The Seasons of the Year 1995
Requiem for mixed chorus and string ensemble 1995
The esoteric dances of Kali-Yuga [Tanzy
Kali-Yugi ezotericheskie] for piano solo
1995
The exoteric dances of Kali-Yuga [Tanzy
Kali-Yugi ekzotericheskie] for instrumental ensemble 1995
Music for Tatiana and America for
violin solo 1996
Night in Galicia [Noch’ v Galitsii] for
folklore group and string ensemble based on a text by Velimir Khlebnikov and
songs of the mermaids from Ivan Sakharov's Tales
of the Russian people 1996
Canticum fratris Solis. Octo tonorum for
tenor and string orchestra based on a text attributed to St Francis of Assisi 1996
Koan for flute solo 1996
Subjects and figures for narrator,
violin and percussion based on a text by Daniil Kharms 1997
Folk dance for piano 1997
Russian-German Requiem for narrator and chorus based on a text by Dmitry Prigov
1997
Exercitamenta et saltus Guidonis (Exercises and dances of Guido). Opera based on texts from St
Bonaventura, an anonymous Milanese treatise in verse on organum and Guido
d'Arezzo 1998 Sequence. For the 900th anniversary of
the birth of Hildegarde von Bingen for unaccompanied vocal ensemble 1998
Bricolage for piano 1998
Correspondence by Georgy Peletsis and
Vladimir Martynov for two pianos 1998
Talk on absence of poetry [Razgovor ob
otsutstvii poezii] for narrator and percussion ensemble based on a text by
Aleksandr Vvedensky 1998
Iliada. 23d song based on a text by
Homer for chorus a cappella 1998
Commandments of Bliss for [Zapovedi
blazhenstva] for unaccompanied mixed chorus 1999
The game of angels and people [Igry
angelov i chelovekov] for chorus, soloists and chamber orchestra 1999 Litany of Mary the Virgin for 3 soprano 1999
There are some orders for narrator,
piano, marimbaphone based on a text by Vladimir Martynov 1999
The appearance of a hero [Pojavlenie
geroja] for narrator and percussion ensemble based on a text by Lew Rubinstein 1999
Antiphone for string ensemble 2000
Miracle-worker was a told size
[Chudotvorets byl vysokogo rosta] for narrators, piano, flute and clarinet
based on a text by Daniil Kharms 2000
L’apres-midi d’un Bach for chamber
orchestra 2000
The well tempered beauty for violin,
oboe and chamber orchestra 2000
Antiphone I for mixed chorus based on
a text by Lew Rubinstein 2000
Antiphone II for mixed chorus based
on a text by Lew Rubinstein 2000
Monophony for soprano, piano and
bells based on a text from Ulysses by
James Joyce 2000
Versions of 12 events for violin solo
2001 Litany of Mary the Virgin, version for 6 voices 2001
Song of Songs on Biblical text for 3
choruses 2001
Metamusic and metaspace. Notated
poetical book for reading, singing, dancing, fortune-telling, meditating,
examining, translating, ear-training, learning by heart, self-studying and
other unforeseen operations. 2001 “Wagner”
in “optic” of Ludwig [Wagner v optike Ludwiga]. Foto-, video- and sound
installation in 2 parts. 2003
Vita nova. Opera.
Based on texts from Dante
LITERARY WORKS
Books: The history of liturgical singing (1987), Moscow 1994; The mystical content of melodic structures in early
liturgical singing (1993); Singing, playing and prayer in Russian liturgical
choral singing (1993), Moscow 1997; Culture, iconsphere and liturgical singing of Moscow
Russia (1994), Moscow 2000; The end of the time of composers (1996), Moscow 2002; The epistolary exercises of a negligent gardener (1996). Articles:
“On
music in the verses of the Divine Comedy [Dante]”
(1971); “Time and space as factors of musical form”, in: Ritm, prostranstvo i vremya v literature i iskusstve, Moscow 1974;
“Several aspects of space and time in the work of Ives” (1974); “Notes on the state of liturgical singing”
(1982); “On the tripartite content of liturgical singing” (1986); “More about The Master and Margarita” (1988); “The marriage supper of the
Lamb in the revelation of St John Chrysostom and its interpretation in the
Eastern sacred tradition” (1992); “On
the various understandings of liturgical singing and music in Holy Scripture”,
in: Metody izucheniya starinnoi muzyki, Moscow,
1992; “On the problems involved in the study of form in early Russian
liturgical singing”, in: Muzykal'noe
iskusstvo i religiya, Moscow 1994; “Several observations about culture at
the end of the 20th century”, in: Sezony,
Moscow 1995; “On beauty, lamentation, liturgical singing and music”, in: Plach' Ieremiev. Teatr Shkola
dramaticheskogo iskusstva, 1995/6, Moscow;
“On the history of the creation of a performance”, in: Ibid; “Early Russian
liturgical singing within the context of world culture”, in: Vestnik, no. 174, YMCA
Press, Paris - New York - Moscow, II 1996, I 1997; “Minimalism: the inverse
perspective” (1997); “The problem of bricolage in music”, in: Iskusstvo i religija, Moscow 1998; Le
Nouveau Testament et le chant liturgique, in: Vestnik / Le Messager, no. 178, YMCA- PRESS, Paris - New York
- Moscow, III-IV 1998; “Some work's aspects on the end of the time of
composers” (1999); “New sacral space” (2001); “Problems of note writing”, in: Muzyka’lnaya
kul’tura christianskogo mira. Rostov-na-Donu, 2001 Programme notes:
Weihnachtsmusik, Come in!, The discovery of an absolutely
beautiful sound, The twelve victories of King Arthur, Opus posth I, The
lamentations of Jeremiah, Stabat mater, Magnificat quinti toni, The esoteric dances
of Kali-Yuga, Night in Galicia, Canticum fratris Solis, Subjects and figures,
Koan, Correspondence. Publishing
activities
Heinrich
Isaac: Instrumental ensembles / Compiler,
editor and author of the introductory article - Vladimir Martynov. Moscow 1976;
Andrea Gabrieli: Instrumental ensembles /
Compiler and editor - Vladimir Martynov. Moscow 1977; Guillaume de Machaut:
Instrumental ensembles / Compiler and editor - Vladimir Martynov. Moscow
1977; John Dunstable: Instrumental
ensembles / Compiler, editor and author of the introductory article -
Vladimir Martynov. Moscow 1978; Guillaume Dufay: Ensembles / Compiler, editor and author of the introductory article
- Vladimir Martynov. Moscow 1979. [1] Vladimir Ivanovich Martynov was
born in Moscow on 20 February 1946. His father is the famous musicologist Ivan
Ivanovich Martynov. He began to study composition at the age of 14 under the
direction of Nikolai Sidelnikov. He graduated from Sidelnikov's composition
class at Moscow Conservatoire in 1970 and the piano class of Mikhail Mezhlumov
in 1971. His wife is the violinist Tatiana Grindenko, who is the soloist and
leader of the ensembles “Academy of Early Music” and “Opus posth”. [2] Quotations without references are
taken from conversations between the composer and the author. [3] From the interview between Mark Podberezsky and the author. [4] From an interview given by Martynov
in the TV documentary The sound of
worlds: the poetry of Velimir Khlebnikov. [5] From a radio programme about the
composer (3.06.1992), prepared by T. Cherednichenko. [6] From the TV documentary on
Khlebnikov. [7] Ibid. [8] It refers to the recurring structure in minimal music. [9] Martynov V. The history of liturgical singing. Moscow, 1994. [10] Martynov is referring to Kazimir
Malevich's picture The Black Square, which
he describes as “an icon of the 20th century”. See: Martynov V. Several remarks about culture at the end of
the 20th century, in: Sezony, Moscow, 1995, p. 12. [11] The idea of “new sacred space” was
expressed by Martynov before the performance of Canticum fratris Solis at a concert in the British Embassy in
Moscow on 2 April 1998 where the composition was performed by Mark Tucker and
the “Academy of Early Music” under the direction of Tatiana Grindenko. [12] From conversations with A.
Khrzhanovsky (1977). Vladimir Martynov wrote music for several of
Khrzhanovsky's cartoons, including his famous works The house that Jack built and The
miracle in the sieve. [13] From an interview given on Moscow
radio 14.04.1996. [14] From the text of the foreword to
the score, Moscow, 1996. |
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World premiere of complete work February 18, 2009 London Royal Festival Hall, United Kingdom Vladimir MARTYNOV, Opera VITA NUOVA More Info The Monk Thogmey's Thirty-Seven Precepts - new disk of Anton Batagov is released More Info The 1st International Festival of Joint Projects "Amplitude" 25th, 28th of September More Info LONG ARMS FEST- 4 (2007) September 27-30, October 6-27 -- FOURTH presentation of the MAIN INTERNATIONAL VANGUARD FORUM OF TWO CAPITALS -- LONG ARMS in Moscow and APOSITION FORUM in St. Petersburg. More Info 10 April, 2007, concert In memory of Nick DMITRIEV Dom Cultural Center more info 13, 14 of November, 2006 Moscow Composers Orchestra on London Jazz Festival More Info LONG ARMS FESTIVAL - 3 September 27 - October 4, Moscow, 2006 DOM Cultural Centre More Info 8, 9, 10 of July 2006 the play "Mozart and Salieri. Requiem" by Vladimir Martynov music. 14, 16, 17 of July the play "Song XXIII. Interment of Patrokl. Games" by Vladimir Martynov music More Info 10th of April, 2006 Nick, we remember you... A film about Nick Dmitriev is now available for download. The film was shown in 2004 on Russian Channel TV Culture DivX (300 mb) download now 23d of November - 2nd of December, 2005 5 performances of "Unorthodox Chants" Project in UK and Belgium More Info 17th-19th of November, 2005 Festival in Tokyo in memory of Nick Dmitriev More Info 1st-10th of October 2005, Long Arms Festival - 2 in memory of Nick Dmitriev see website 1st of July, 2004, 19:00 OPUS POSTH Ensemble performs THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF OUR SAVIOUR ON THE CROSS by Joseph Haydn Kozitsky lane., house 5 metro Puschkinskaya, Tverskaya, Chekhovskaya information - 299-2262 LONG ARMS new music festival in memory of Nick Dmitriev from May 15 till 19 IN CONCERT STUDIO M.Nikitskaya str., 24 organized by DEVOTIO MODERNA CENTER and RADIO CULTURE GTRK composers Martynov, Batagov, Karmanov, Aigi, Zagny, Pelecis, Rabinovich, Semzo, Glass, Dresher and others performers Tatiana Grindenko, Galina Muradova, OPUS POSTH ensemble, Anton Batagov, Sergei Zagny, Alexey Aigi, 4.33 ensemble, Tibor Semzo, GORDIAN KNOT ensemble, ALKONOST choir and others book tickets |
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