Vladimir Tarnopolsky’s ...Le vent des mots...: Towards a Poetics of Elusive Sensation

Marianna S. Vysotskaya

Abstract


One of the main vectors of Vladimir Tarnopolsky’s compositional strategy, which is conditioned by the composer’s constant interest in exploring the primary element of music, consists in the search for novelty in sound material. For Tarnopolsky, the creation and structuring of sound involve its plastic metamorphoses, which regulate the “growth” and “branching” of sonorous tissue to form the trajectories of acoustic flows that ensure the processuality of the “self-developing” musical form. According to Tarnopolsky’s empirical approach, in which each work involves the creation of a unique “root” system of connections in an attempt to find a “new euphony”, intellectualism and sensuality are considered to form the dual basis of genuine creativity and art. By linking the concept of the “beingness” of sound to the idea of breath in music, the spatio- temporal continuum of the composer’s works is organised according to the wave principle to strengthen the constructive-expressive function of timbre and dynamics as factors of dramaturgy. An example of a composition of this type is the piece for cello and orchestra …Le vent des mots qu’il n’a pas dits (1996). The article focuses on the study of the “internal” form of the essay as the realisation of its content-semantic structure as revealed by the entire complex of expressive means.

Keywords: Tarnopolsky, sound substance, time continuum, timbre, form-process, breath, sensation

For citation: Vysotskaya, M. S. (2025) Vladimir Tarnopolsky’s …Le vent des mots…: Towards a Poetics of Elusive Sensation. Contemporary Musicology, 9(4), 226−248. https://doi.org/10.56620/2587-9731-2025-4-226-248

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.56620/2587-9731-2025-4-226-248

Copyright (c) 2026 Marianna S. Vysotskaya

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