Operatic Forms of Mikhail Glinka in the Context of Western European Theory and Practice
Abstract
The article focuses on the musical forms in Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka’s operas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila, examined from the standpoint of their relation to the theoretical views and operatic practice of the 19th century. Particular attention is paid to comparing the views on the nature of musical form held by Glinka and his teacher Siegfried Dehn, as well as Adolf Bernhard Marx, the author of fundamental works on composition theory. A detailed analysis of the rondo form in Glinka’s arias revealed a connection with its treatment in Marx’s Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktisch-theoretisch and Reicha/Czerny’s Traité de haute composition musicale, demonstrating its influence on variations with a soprano ostinato. The relation of large-scale vocal forms to the theory of the Italian la solita forma is equally thoroughly investigated; tables are provided illustrating the precise adherence to typical models of this structure in Glinka’s arias. As a result, it is concluded that Glinka assimilated and adapted European compositional experience, introducing significant individual accents: the complication of structural models, and a special role for architectural proportionality and symmetry of form. The results of the analytical study allow for new emphases in understanding Glinka’s style.
Keywords: Mikhail I. Glinka, Adolf B. Marx, Siegfried Dehn, Ruslan and Lyudmila, A Life for the Tsar, rondo form, soprano ostinato variations, la solita forma, musical form, symmetries and proportions in musical form
Acknowledgments: The author expresses gratitude to Dr. Sci. Svetlana Konstantinovna Lashchenko for the opportunity to participate in the International Conference Mikhail Glinka and Russian Artistic Culture of the 19th–21st Centuries: The Experience of Performing, Critical, and Scholarly Interpretation (October 16–17, 2024, State Institute for Art Studies), where the ideas presented in the article were tested.
For citation: Susidko, I. P. (2025). Operatic Forms of Mikhail Glinka in the Context of Western European Theory and Practice. Contemporary Musicology, 9(4), 10―48. https://doi.org/10.56620/2587-9731-2025-4-010-048References
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.56620/2587-9731-2025-4-010-048
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