Contemporary Musicology

Dear Friends,

The year 2022 marks our first small anniversary—five years since the launch of Contemporary Musicology. As we continue to be a home for truly relevant and interesting research, we are happy to have preserved our original agenda. This year our focus is on Russian schools of thought in musicology, research avenues and distinguished scholars.

The first two issues of 2022 are dedicated to Larisa L. Gerver, Doctor of Art Studies, Professor at the Analytical Musicology Department, the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music. In 2021 Prof Gerver celebrated her personal anniversary, while 2022 is the anniversary of her professional career both in teaching and creative practice. Over 55 years of active teaching and research, Prof Gerver along with Yulia Evdokimova and Irina Snitkova developed an original course in сounterpoint for students of musicology. Gerver has also supervised numerous graduate theses and doctoral dissertations. She is the author of two seminal Russian-language monographs Music and Music Mythology in the Early 20^th Century Russian Poetry (Moscow, 2001) and Inganno and Other Secrets of Counterpoint in the Second Half of the 16^th-Early 17^th Century (Moscow, 2018). Besides, Prof Gerver authored over 100 research papers exploring early music, polyphony, history and theory of composition, and the relationship between music and poetry. She is famous for her play-based teaching guide Mozart’ and Haydn’s Musical Games:
A Simple Guide to Composing Music Without Knowing the Rules (Moscow, 2003). The teaching guide has embraced the findings made by Prof Gerver during her many year’s research in music composed by the masters of the First Viennese School.

Prof Larisa L. Gerver initiated one of the major regular research projects run by the Gnessins Russian Academy of Music: an international conference Musical Composition. Over the seven years of its existence, the project has united more than one hundred researchers from different parts of the world. The Conference speaks to those with an interest in musical forms and methods of music analysis. The 2021 conference programme included a special session to mark Prof Gerver’s anniversary—The Theory and History of Musical Composition. The special session was attended by scholars with a similar area of research expertise as well as undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students — followers and contributors to further development of Prof Gerver’s school of thought. The special session included presentations given by:

Fedosia Tabyisova, Postgraduate Student, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow; Senior Lecturer, Music History and Theory Department, V.A.Bosikov Higher School of Music, Yakutsk, Russia. Scientific adviser — Larisa Gerver, Dr. Habil (Doctor of Art Studies). – On the Register Palette of South German Renaissance Organs

Alena Verin-Galitskaya, 5th Year Student, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessin sRussian Academy of Music,Moscow, Russia. Scientific adviser — Larisa Gerver, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies). – The Pathos of Novelty in Giulio Caccini’s Le Nuove Musiche

Elena Pankina, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies), Associate Professor, Music History Department, Ural State Mussorgsky Conservatoire, Yekaterinburg, Russia. – Musical Interpretations of Amor, se vuo’ ch’i’torni al giogo anticho by Petrarch in Canzones by Bartolomeo Tromboncino, Bernardo Pisano and Sebastiano Festa

Grigory Lyzhov, PhD, Associate Professor, Music Theory Department, Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Moscow. – C. Le Jeune’s Dodecahord: Unusual Features in Working with Sources

Larisa Gerver, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies), Full Professor, Analytical Musicology Department Gnessin aRussian Academy of Music, Moscow, Russia. – On the ‘Fixedness’ of the Fixed Verse Form Becoming the Madrigal Text

Anatoly Milka, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies), Full Professor, Music Theory Department, Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia. – Canon BWV 1079/4i

Kira Yuzhak, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies), Full Professor, Music Theory Department, Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, Saint Petersburg, Russia. – Bach’s ‘Fours’

Alla Yankus, PhD, Associate Professor, Music Theory Department, Dean of the Faculty of Musicolog Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, Saint Petersburg, Russia. – Imitational and Contrapunctal Structure of J. S. Bach’s Canons BWV 1087

Sergei Lebedev, PhD, Associated professor, Leading Researcher, Research Center for Methodology of Historical Musicology, Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Moscow. – On a Musical Metamorphosis of a Pentasyllabic

Kirill Diskin, PhD, Associate Professor, Russian Music History Department, Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, Saint Petersburg, Russia. – Italian School Lessons in Maxim Berezovsky’s Choral Concerto Forsake me not in my old age

Anna Porfirieva, PhD, Head of Music Department, Russian Institute of Arts History, Saint Petersburg, Russia. – Opera Composition – Its Secret Powers and Signs

Irina Snitkova, PhD, Professor, Analytical Musicology Department Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, Russia. – The Musical Games of the Classics of the Second Viennese School: Аrs combinatoria by Arnold Schoenberg

Elena Sidorova, PhD, Associate Professor, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow. – On Expressive Possibilities of Stretto Imitation

Maya Shinkareva, PhD, Professor, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow. – Modern Polyphony Forms: on the Issue of the Stable and the Mobile in Art

Andrey Goretsky, 3rd Year Student, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, Russia. Scientific adviser — Larisa Gerver, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies). – Art of Composing a Fugue for Melodical Instrument

Elena Strizhakova, Postgraduate, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, Russia. Scientific adviser — Larisa Gerver, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies). – Gregorian Chant in Organ Sonatas by Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens

Nailya Nasibulina, 5rd Year Student, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, Russia Scientific adviser — Larisa Gerver, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies). – The Leitmotif of Laughter in Sergei Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges

Anton Lukyanov, Analytical Musicology Department, Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow. Scientific adviser — Larisa Gerver, Dr. Habil. (Doctor of Art Studies). – Sometimes You Have ‘to Skip’ a Stubborn ‘Measure’… On Some Aspects of Shostakovich`s Creative Process

Other issues of Contemporary Musicology-2022 will publish contributions focusing on two more schools of thought developed by professors of the Gnessins Russian Academy of Music: outstanding scholars, doctors of art studies Natalya S.Gulyanitskaya and Avgusta V.Malinovskaya.

                                                              Irina P. Susidko