Piano etude and traditions of Russian Modern

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify the poetic-intonational and genre specifics of the piano etude at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries in the context of the style searches of Russian modern. The methodology of the work is the intonational concept of music in the perspective of intonational-stylistic, etymological analysis, inherited from B. Asafiev and his followers. The following approaches were also significant for this work: analytical and musicological; genre-style; interdisciplinary, giving the opportunity to attract concepts from other areas of knowledge – philosophy, art history, cultural studies, etc.; historical and cultural, allowing to identify those factors that contribute to the identification of the spiritual, semantic and stylistic specificity of the piano etude as an important component of European instrumentalism XIX-XX centuries. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by its analytical perspective, taking into account not only the identification of the genre and style specifics of the piano etude in Russian music of the late XIX – first half of the twentieth centuries but also its inclusion in the context of the genre and style searches of Russian musical modernity. Conclusions. The stylistic qualities of Russian Art Nouveau, which were born at the turn of the century, determined the genre-style «turn» of the piano etude from the «orchestral» pianism of the F. Liszt’s type (Etudes-paintings by S. Rachmaninov) in the direction of the revival of the clavier and polyclavier quality (etudes A. Scriabin). The «Toccata» orientation of modern pianism is represented by the sketches of S. Prokofiev (Op. 2), while V. Rebikov in the series «3 Etudes» appeals to the search for updating the harmonic language of this genre. The piano work of A. Cherepnin (including the cycle of Etudes op. 52), which was born at the intersection of the discoveries of European Art Nouveau and the musical culture of China (with which his creative biography was connected), is an example of a national etude that laid the foundations of Chinese piano music and simultaneously implemented in musical creativity, the idea of «Eurasian unity».