Total Music in the Creative Experiments of Composer Alexander Manotskov

Abstract

The article discusses the oeuvres of Russian composer and conductor Alexander Manotskov with a particular focus on the musical component of dramatic performance, which appears to play a more significant role in the formation of his works than other stage production elements. This observation refers to a musical totality, which not only sounds from within the performance, but also shapes it from the outside. Such “vertical-horizontal” saturation of a dramatic performance with music allows us to consider it as comprising an ensemble, a harmonious set of parts forming a single whole in which words, gestures, and acting serve to reveal the depth of the musical discourse. Relevant to this consideration is the composer’s own remark that theater is nothing more than a “special case of music.” The article describes a number of stage productions on which the composer worked in collaboration with such contemporary directors as Andrei Moguchy, Kirill Serebrennikov and Andrei Yakovlev. This study sets out to evaluate the composer’s creative experiments carried out within the framework of a synthesis of arts and in which the stage serves as the artist’s laboratory. The research is carried out according to an interpretative methodology based on the principles of intertextuality and art history analysis.

Keywords: Alexander Manotskov, Andrei Moguchy, Kirill Serebrennikov, Andrei Yakovlev, total music, music for dramatic performance