RUSSIAN FANTASY

Chapter:

CHAPTER 2 Getting Rid of Glue

Source:

MUSIC IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

The more radical way of interpreting the chord would be to regard it as the product of a symmetrical “interval cycle.” The common practice against which this second interpretation needs to be measured is not the “ordinary” tonal practice based on fifths, but a practice that had only arisen in the very latest Russian music, all of it written within a decade or so of Jeux d’eau. In his most recent operas, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in particular had been experimenting zealously with cycles of minor thirds as a way of conjuring up supernatural or magical worlds. As he explained in his autobiography, Rimsky-Korsakov had first observed these cycles, and the octatonic scales that could be derived from them, in Liszt’s first symphonic poem, the so-called Mountain Symphony.⁴² Beginning in the 1890s, Rimsky was himself engaged in a maximalizing quest; he could with considerable justice be called the first Russian modernist.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 2 Getting Rid of Glue." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2024. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-002010.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 2 Getting Rid of Glue. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 12 Oct. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-002010.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 2 Getting Rid of Glue." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 12 Oct. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-002010.xml