The Problem of Tonal Disunity in Sergeäł Rachmaninoff's All-Night
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2015 The Problem of Tonal Disunity in Sergeĭ Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil, op. 37 Olga Ellen Bakulina The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/850 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE PROBLEM OF TONAL DISUNITY IN SERGEĬ RACHMANINOFF’S ALL-NIGHT VIGIL, OP. 37 by OLGA (ELLEN) BAKULINA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The City University of New York 2015 i © 2015 OLGA (ELLEN) BAKULINA All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Music in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ______ ____________________ Date L. Poundie Burstein Chair of Examining Committee ______ ____________________ Date Norman Carey Executive Officer William Rothstein, adviser Philip Ewell, first reader Poundie Burstein Blair Johnston ____________________ Supervisory Committee The City University of New York iii ABSTRACT THE PROBLEM OF TONAL DISUNITY IN SERGEĬ RACHMANINOFF’S ALL-NIGHT VIGIL, OP. 37 By Olga (Ellen) Bakulina Adviser: Professor William Rothstein Recent English-language scholarship has given considerable attention to the issue of tonal disunity, particularly the concepts of tonal pairing, directional tonality, and double-tonic complex. Relatively little attention, however, has been given to Russian music, specifically liturgical repertoires, where tonal centricity has historically been weaker than in most tonal music. This dissertation investigates tonal disunity in Russian sacred works, with special emphasis on Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil (1915). This work, though in many ways tonal, relies largely on the structural principles of Russian sacred repertoire, a reliance that is especially evident in movements that challenge traditional Western norms of monotonality. The order of the chapters is defined by a motion from theory to analysis. After a brief historical introduction to Russian liturgical music and the Vigil (Chapter 1), Chapter 2 offers a study of the Russian concept of mutability (peremennost’), which refers to tonal or modal decentralization, and provides a larger theoretical context by discussing related concepts that originate in English- and German-language sources. Chapter 3 applies all these concepts in the analysis of church music of Rachmaninoff’s time (and slightly earlier). Chapters 4 through 6 focus on three movements from the Vigil that defy monotonal reading, using Schenkerian analytical technique. Movement 12 exhibits relative mutability (pairing of relative keys) at all levels, including the background; movement 1 displays multiple centers related to a proto- iv harmonic structure (Andreĭ Miasoedov’s term); and movement 2 has a relative-mutable structure extremely decentralized by the weakness and indefiniteness of closure. Further specific contributions of this work include (1) experimentation with the Schenkerian analysis of non-monotonal works, a task that has not yet been undertaken for this specific repertoire; (2) a study of cadence in Russian church music; (3) the occasional combination of Schenkerian (linear) and Riemannian (functional) analytical approaches; (4) a theoretical development of the recent Russian notion of proto-harmony; and (5) the introduction of the term common church practice to refer to the anonymous repertoire routinely used in the Russian Orthodox Church. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation began its life as an independent study with William Rothstein, who has later served as my dissertation adviser. I thank him for his firm and inspiring guidance, for his brilliant analytical sensitivity, for the many hours he spent with me teasing out the multilayered musical fabric, and for his support at all stages of my work. I am grateful to my first reader Philip Ewell for his expertise on Russian music theory and for his help to navigate the crossroads between North American and Russian scholarly traditions. The other members of my committee, Poundie Burstein and Blair Johnston, have greatly helped me refine my arguments and make my analyses as clear as possible. I also thank Joseph Straus for his priceless mentorship that has helped me successfully complete my program and enter the professional world of music theory. Since parts of this dissertation have been published as articles before the completion of my PhD, thanks go to those who have influenced the dissertation by influencing the articles. These include Ellon Carpenter and Inessa Bazayev, who helped to improve my essay on mutability (2014), and Patrick McCreless, who guided the revision of my article on Rachmaninoff’s Vigil, movement 12 (2015). In addition, I am grateful to my colleagues Ines Thiebaut, Simon Prosser, and Bonnie McAlvin for assisting me with technical issues. I am deeply thankful to the entire department of music at the CUNY Graduate Center for its encouraging and friendly environment, the likes of which I have not yet seen. Additionally, I owe much to teachers and mentors who have formed me as a musician and thinker. William Caplin, Richard Kramer, Jonathan Wild, and Peter Schubert (both as a theorist and as a choral conductor) have all contributed to my intellectual and musical growth. The conductor Michael Zaugg’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Vigil (Montreal, August 2011), vi in which I participated as a second soprano, sparkled my interest in this work. I owe my command of Russian theoretical ideas to my teachers in Moscow, including Valeria Bazarnova (who first stimulated my love for Rachmaninoff’s music), the late Valeria Tsenova, Andreĭ Miasoedov, and the late Viktor Fraionov (who first inspired me to become a music theorist). I am indebted to several resources, which allowed me to get the scores that are not easily accessible, especially those published before 1917. These resources include the Russian Church of the Holy Trinity of Brooklyn, personal library of the choir director Zlata Mishina, who also helped with matters of liturgics, and the library of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary. Special thanks go to Musica Russica Press and its founder Vladimir Morosan for his permission to use portions of the printed score of the Vigil as musical examples. This dissertation was made possible by the generous support from the Enhanced Chancellor’s fellowship at CUNY and the doctoral fellowship of the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC). I dedicate this dissertation to my mother Evgenia Bakulina, whose love and support, as well as intelligence and musicality, have sustained me throughout my studies and life. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………… iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………...vi List of Examples…………………………………………………………………………………x Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 A note on the edition used ……………………………………………………………… 6 A note on languages …………………………………………………………………….. 7 A note on liturgical terminology ………………………………………………………… 8 The Vigil in music scholarship: A literature review …………………………………….. 9 Chapter 1. All-Night Vigil: Historical Background …………………………………………….. 16 Introduction ………………………………………………………………………...…... 16 The New Russian Choral School ………………………………………………………. 20 The Vigil: General Structure……………………………………………………………. 26 Chapter 2. The Concept of Mutability …………………………………………………………. 36 Introduction ………………………………………………………………………..…… 36 Monotonality: a Brief Historical Survey …………………………………………...…... 38 Mutability: a Survey of Conceptual Development ………………………………...……45 Boleslav Yavorsky and Sergeĭ Protopopov: Mutability and Symmetrical Modes…. 45 Leo Mazel and Viktor Berkov: Mutability and Major/Minor Tonality ……….…… 53 Igor Sposobin: Keys, Modes, Collections ……………………………………...….. 59 Yuriĭ Kholopov: Mutability and the Centricity Criterion ………………………….. 65 Andreĭ Miasoedov: Mutability and Proto-Harmony …………………………...……74 Mutability and the Problem of Tonal Disunity in Western Music Theory ...……………82 Chapter 3. An Analytical Exploration of Mutability in Russian Liturgical Music ……………...88 Introduction ………………………………………………………………………...……88 The Cadence and the Fundamental Line …………………………………………...……92 Analysis of Relative Mutability: Monotonal and Directionally Tonal Contexts …..…..108 Proto-Harmony and Schenkerian Analysis ……………………………………….……132 viii Chapter 4. Relative Mutability in Rachmaninoff’s Vigil: Movements 12 and 7 ………………145 Introduction ………………………………………………………………………....…145 Movement 12, The Great Doxology: Harmony and Voice Leading ……………..……146 The Trisagion as Climax in The Great Doxology ………………………………..…….171 Movement 7, The Six Psalms: Double-Ursatz and Plagalism …………………………182 Chapter 5. Proto-Harmony and Decentralization in the Vigil: Movement 1 …………………. 196 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….……196 Melodic Analysis ………………………………………………………………………204 Harmony in Strophes 1–3 ………………………………………………………...……208 Harmony in Strophe 4 …………………………………………………………….……223 The Background Level …………………………………………………………………232 Chapter 6. Relative Mutability and the Problem of Closure: Movement 2 ……………………237 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….……237