3rd Arts & Humanities Conference, Barcelona

RETROSPECTIVE AND FEEDBACK OF ORIENTALISM IN THE WORK OF RUSSIAN COMPOSERS

OLGA HASANOGLU

Abstract:

Eastern music has always attracted the attention of Russian composers, as Russia is of course geographically located between the West and the East. The orientalist movement opened the way to an extraordinary musical development which helped to define Russian music as something different from European music. This new influence also enriched Russian music's sense of rhythm, melody, harmony, and orchestral language. Russian Orientalism can trace its development all the way back to the works M.Glinka. In his opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila", Glinka used the original melodies of the Caucasian countries. The "Russian Five", which are the continuation and students of Glinka in this regard, have been able to give new examples to the history of music by improving the Orientalism movement in their works. Russian composers were able to enrich the harmonic system with new chords learned from Oriental music. These chords differed from the usual triple intervals in that they often have four and five intervals. Remarkably, the effect of Orientalism on the compositional tradition of Russia is so significant that it eventually became accepted as a fixed part of Russian folk music and culture. We find confirmation of this in the works of Russian composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Rachmaninov, Myaskovskiy, Glier, Stravinsky, Asafyev, Gubaydullina, and Chalaev, and, at the same time, in the contemporary style of popular folk music in the southern and eastern regions of Russia. A lot of famous folklore ensembles of Caucasus and middle Asia regions of Russia continue the scenic traditions laid by Russian composers of the 19th century.

Keywords: Music, orientalism, russian composers

PDF: Download