Angela Khachayants

Interpretation of Medieval Repentance Poetry in the Choir Cycle by Alfred Schnittke “Stikhi Pokayannye”

This article is written in Russian. You can read it here.

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DOI 10.34690/117

Author Angela G. Khachayants

Affiliation Sobinov Saratov State Conservatory, Saratov, Russia

Email angela_h@bk.ru

ORCID

0000-0002-2046-7308

Abstract

Medieval repentance poems are a form of early Russian poetic lyrics, closely connected with the circle of liturgical texts. That poetry strives to a private discourse. In the musical and stylistic sense, repentance poems belong to the znamenny monody—they were recorded in singing manuscripts, most often by use of 8 modes with krukovaya (neume) notation. In 1987, composer Alfred Schnittke wrote a choral concert cycle entitled “Stikhi pokayannye” on the texts of published poems from a 16th-century manuscript. The author uses the thesaurus of 20th-century techniques in his music: chromatic and quarter-tone soundness, a dissonant vertical, techniques of sonoristic texture. Nevertheless, there are also coincidences in the compositional solution of the same verses, in the znamenny chant and composer version, despite a distance of several centuries. They are determined by the energy of the prayer of repentance and the constructive principles of the organization of the poetic text. The choral cycle numbers are lined up in a single repentance chant of the “highest order”. The author’s voice also takes on a special place in the intonation of repentance. Repentance as a constant of Christian self-consciousness is ultimately decisive for the musical interpretation of these texts, bringing the thinking of a medieval chanter and composer of the late 20th century closer together. Repentance as a constant of Christian self-consciousness is decisive for the musical interpretation of these texts, bringing together the thinking of the medieval composer and composer of the late 20th century.

Keywords repentance poems, znamennaya monody, Schnittke, text and musical composition

For citation

Khachayants, A. G. “Interpretation of medieval repentance poetry in the choir cycle by Alfred Schnittke ‘Stikhi pokayannye’.” Muzykal’naya akademiya [Music Academy], 2020, no. 4, pp. 132–151, doi:10.34690/117. (In Russ.)