“The Russian Element” in the Music on “the Russian Theme” by Composers from Outside Russian

Abstract

The article poses the question, how the “Russian element” is viewed by composers who belong
to other national cultures. We are able to judge about this by a convincing number of works written
on the “Russian theme.” The “Russian element” is realized in it by means of finely illuminative
subtitles and an arsenal of musical means and techniques. Very diverse approaches to this theme are
systematized and combine three “images” of the “Russian element.” In one of them it is interpreted
as an appellation of the state (“russky,” i.e. “Russian” in the sense of the nationality is identified with
“rossiyskiy,” i.e., “Russian” in the meaning of pertaining to the state), whose referential substance
is expressed by the geographic names (Russia, its rivers, regions, capitals and cities), the North as a
geographical dislocation, the landmarks of the historical past, the crowned heads and the events of
the life of the tsar’s family. Another aspect shows the social and private lives of people (the “Russian
element” is transformed into the “ethnographic”), which reveals by endowing musical compositions
titles with words from the Russian lexicon, Russian proper names, attributes of everyday life (“sani,”
i.e. sleds or “troika,” i.e. three horse carriage), through the sound of Russian songs and folk tunes,
dance genres, timbres of national instruments, fragments from works by Russian composers and texts
by Russian poets and writers. The third angle of reclamation of the “Russian element” accentuates
Orthodox Christianity as the religious constituent of the Russian world (the “Russian element”
manifests itself as the “confessional element”). The religious aspect of the Russian element is revealed
by the efforts of such masters as Baldassare Galuppi, Caterino Cavos, John Tavener and Arvo Pärt.
An overview of the numerous examples of manifestation of the “Russian theme” by composers
from other countries shows the flexibility and the diffuseness of the geographical and the ethnic
boundaries of the “Russian element” in their music.

Keywords: Russian theme in the music of Baldassare Galuppi, Caterino Cavos, John Tavener,
Arvo Pärt, Russian folksong.