Ru
EnI. Vorobyov
The First (“Lugansk”) symphony by Gennady Tolstenko in context of the author’s genre interpretation
The article is devoted to a little-explored topic: the symphonic work by the Rostov composer Gennady Tolstenko (b. 1959) and the peculiarities of his interpretation of the symphony genre. Created in the 1980s and 1990s, three symphonies by G. Tolstenko reflect one of the key lines of development of Russian symphonism, as well as modern music in general, – the vector of integration. The Russian culture combines various cultural, historical, and stylistic codes, as well as various techniques of composition, to form a type of content that is connoted by the ideas of “universality” and “universal responsiveness” previously revealed in the works of prominent figures of the Russian Silver Age: V. Solovyov, N. Berdyaev, A. Scriabin, V. Kandinsky, and others. The stylistic diversity and integration context are most clearly manifested as a result of the composer’s appeal to the Oriental tradition (especially in the Second and Third Symphonies), which creates a multidimensional artistic space. At the same time, the meditative properties of the material, the poly-ostinacy of the textured organization, and the close-to-minimalist technique (as a metaphor for the oriental perception of time) come into conflict with the emotionally saturated melos and intensive thematic development. This property gives music by G. Tolstenko a vivid dramatic coloring. In his First (“Lugansk”) Symphony, the composer does not yet articulate the idea of “universality” at the aesthetic level and does not address spiritual and religious issues, like later opuses. But the method of working with thematism anticipates subsequent symphonies. The composer builds a sonata form based on a common intonation plot, in the centre of which are transformations of the quasipattern exposed in the introduction. As a result, a single-part monothematic sonata form of the poem type is crystallized.
Key words
Gennady Tolstenko, symphony genre, “universality”, stylistic diversity, monothematic sonata form.
For citation
Vorobyov I. The First (“Lugansk”) symphony by Gennady Tolstenko in context of the author’s genre interpretation. In: South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2025. No. 2. Pp. 16–25.
