Identifier

etd-05202017-123705

Degree

Master of Music (MM)

Department

Music

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

This thesis analyzes Nikolay Roslavets’s Four Compositions for Voice and Piano and Ar-thur Lourié’s Azbuka and Corona Carminum Sacrorum, all works written during the height of the composers’ involvement with the Russian Futurist movement. These works represent oppo-site means of compositional experimentation. Lourié used Russian folk influences to stretch the limits of tonality through the use of peremennost’. Azbuka and Corona Carminum Sacrorum contain equal tonal centers of A minor and C major with secondary harmonic areas of E minor and G major. Roslavets, however, invented his own system of composing with synthetic chords to free himself from past artistic trends. A combination of voice-leading analysis and set–class analysis reveals three types of transpositional organization: cyclic, derivative, and varied. Each type of transpositional organization has a different function that shapes the harmonic and ortho-graphical landscape of the songs. Lourié’s works manifest his shift to “new simplicity” (Sitsky, 87) as a means of musical experimentation whereas Roslavets sought to expand the boundaries of composition with synthetic chords.

Date

2017

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Bazayev, Inessa

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.4578

Included in

Music Commons

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