Elisaveta Ivanova

Russian Institute of Art History

St. Petersburg, Russia
elisaveta@mail.ru
Short-term grant, 2000
November 18, 2001
Constructivism in Iosif Schillinger's works
1. The goal of my study is to accomplish the research on Joseph Schillinger as a representative of
the Russian musical avant-garde.
2. The contents of the study include:

the review of the music theory achievements in the Russian avant-garde;

the ascertaining of the relations between the Schillinger's activity, from one side, and the
music theory and composers practice in the 2nd half of the 20th century, from the other.

3. The outcome during the past year has been obtained in respect to the first chapter summarizing
the music theory achievements in the Russian avant-garde. It is a research of the virtually
unknown publications: manifestos, articles in the periodicals or special issues. As a result, I came
to the new conception about the origins and context of the Schillinger's activity that consists of
the following points:

The Schillinger's views cannot be reduced to any single stream existed in the Russian
avant-garde;
His views were resulted by the various phenomena and trends in the Russian avant-garde
since it began in 1910;
The Schillinger's innovations were a manifestation of the highly intensive theoretical
activity, which was a reaction to the destruction of the conventional standards in the
musical language within the avant-garde esthetic.

It appeared to be necessary in the course of my study to accept as a starting point the view of
Alexander Scryabin who linked together the avant-garde and symbolism esthetics. There were
the Scryabin's views that stipulated the ideas of the microintervals and overtone harmony; his
views also stipulated the new understanding of the synesthesia problem.
The search for the context of the Schillinger's ideas made me to analyze the musical views by
many art and literary avant-gardists. I succeeded to reveal that such Russian avant-gardists as
Vasily Kandinsky and Nikolai Kulbin have expressed much more bold and interesting musical
ideas rather than some professional composers.
During the study I distinguished as a separate research subject the interesting and insufficiently
explored theme about the origination and dissemination of the "ultrachromatic system" and the

unpitched sonorities in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. I have sent an application for
the participation in the Congress of International Musicological Society in 2002 with a paper on
this subject.

-,
elisaveta@mail.ru
, 2000
18 2001


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