This semester I am teaching a music analysis seminar on Alexander Scriabin‘s sonata conceptions at TU Dortmund University. The covered repertoire will range from the early sonatas of the 1880s to the Poème de l’extase, Op. 54, including solo piano music, the three symphonies, and the piano concerto. Since the group of participants is a bit smaller than expected, I will gladly accept some guests—please let me know in case you would like to join. The seminar is taking place every Thursday, in alternating on-site and remote sessions.
Research
Scriabin Conference in Reading
Happy to be participating in the Scriabin @ 150 conference and celebration, taking place the following weekend at Queen Anne’s School, Caversham, Reading, UK. Alongside an illustrious line-up of scholars and musicians sharing their thoughts, interpretations, and approaches towards Scriabin’s music, I will contribute my bit on the relationship and latent intercommunities between Scriabin and his Muscovite contemporary Nikolai Medtner. Thank you, Kenneth Smith, Marina Frolova-Walker, and everybody else involved, for making this happen!
NB. I am super excited about this event for two particular reasons:
- It is the prime candidate for the Sexiest Conference of the Year award.
- It is probably the only conference that offers a free DIY Scriabin facemask for downloading, printing, and colouring (according to the composer’s synaesthetic preferences, I would suggest).
Lysenko’s Soviet Legacy?
Recently I was made aware of the claim that the Soviet national anthem, written by Aleksandr Vasilyevich Aleksandrov in 1943 and adopted as the anthem of the Russian Federation in 2000, might have been inspired by a piano work by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko, Fragment épique of 1876. Indeed, the hymn’s beginning sounds very similar to a passage near the ending of Lysenko’s composition. Is this creative appropriation, as one source argues, or even plagiarism (provided that Aleksandrov knew Lysenko’s work, which might be hard to substantiate)? Or is it just a random resemblance, with the melody and harmonic progression of both examples being derived from the common Romanesca schema, also known as major-minor parallelism? What do you think?
An Unconvenient Solitaire
One of the most disputatious musicologists of all time has left the stage: Richard Taruskin (1945–2022) died a few days ago. As a music scholar and practitioner, he incited controversy wherever he raised his eloquent and often relentless voice. His merit is to have polarised and politicised musicological discourse in such a way that it became a public affair again, unquestionable in its social relevance. With his prolific writing, he took Russian music studies to a new level, continuously debunking myths and disenchanting widespread opinions in historiography. Most certainly, even those who ardently disagreed with Taruskin will regret that his voice fell silent. My own German-language obituary appeared in VAN Magazin today.