Atonal Music in Russia, ca. 1914

Abstract

The abiding presence of the Schonberg School caused alternative attempts to overcome tonality to fall into oblivion. Beginning in the 1930s, Russian cultural policy, which actively opposed composers of so-called “New Music,” significantly contributed to a historical distortion that still exists today; conversely, Russian composers often set accents for Western developments, as seen in the Russian Futurists. Originally inspired by Skrjabin, the comparatively little-known Moscow composer Nikolai Roslawez became a leading figure of the Russian musical avant-garde of the 1920s. An analysis of the second of his Trois Etudes (1914) shows that a harmonic system already existed before the twelve-tone row, one that can claim no less radical consequences for the construction and realization of music.