Modern Music Research Articles

Piano etude and traditions of Russian Modern

The purpose of the article is to identify the poetic-intonational and genre specifics of the piano etude at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries in the context of the style searches of Russian modern. The methodology of the work is the intonational concept of music in the perspective of intonational-stylistic, etymological analysis, inherited from B. Asafiev and his followers. The following approaches were also significant for this work: analytical and musicological; genre-style; interdisciplinary, giving the opportunity to attract concepts from other areas of knowledge – philosophy, art history, cultural studies, etc.; historical and cultural, allowing to identify those factors that contribute to the identification of the spiritual, semantic and stylistic specificity of the piano etude as an important component of European instrumentalism XIX-XX centuries. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by its analytical perspective, taking into account not only the identification of the genre and style specifics of the piano etude in Russian music of the late XIX – first half of the twentieth centuries but also its inclusion in the context of the genre and style searches of Russian musical modernity. Conclusions. The stylistic qualities of Russian Art Nouveau, which were born at the turn of the century, determined the genre-style «turn» of the piano etude from the «orchestral» pianism of the F. Liszt’s type (Etudes-paintings by S. Rachmaninov) in the direction of the revival of the clavier and polyclavier quality (etudes A. Scriabin). The «Toccata» orientation of modern pianism is represented by the sketches of S. Prokofiev (Op. 2), while V. Rebikov in the series «3 Etudes» appeals to the search for updating the harmonic language of this genre. The piano work of A. Cherepnin (including the cycle of Etudes op. 52), which was born at the intersection of the discoveries of European Art Nouveau and the musical culture of China (with which his creative biography was connected), is an example of a national etude that laid the foundations of Chinese piano music and simultaneously implemented in musical creativity, the idea of «Eurasian unity».

The Phenomenon of Musical Modernism in the European Culture of the 20th Century: Prerequisites, Patterns, Stages

The relevance of the study and scientific novelty of the research are determined by its main objective and consist in revealing the phenomenon of musical modernism by discovering its specific characteristics in terms of definition, temporal attribution and internal periodization, as well as in the introduction of appropriate conceptual and terminological discourse.Methodology of the research: historical method reveals the general content and artistic specificity of the selected segment of European musical history; culturological method focuses research on the category of type of culture, which allows to raise it to a much higher level of musical-historical generalization; systemic method embodies the most effective approach to the analysis of disparate, but extremely rich cultural facts, as well as introduces a relevant view of the musical history of the twentieth century; phenomenological method provides the study of certain conceptual contours and promotes the semantic differentiation involved in the analysis of multilevel cultural and artistic phenomena.Conclusions. The main results and conclusions of the study of musical modernism proposed in the article allow us to consider this phenomenon as an epoch-making period in European culture of the first half of the last century; to reveal its transitional essence in the movement of European art from the classical to the postclassical type of culture; to affirm the fundamental role of intra-stylistic processes of development of modernist musical culture as multiple, decentralized and pluralistic in nature; to introduce the concept of “stylistic complex”, which marks the early, central and late stages of the evolution of musical modernism; to outline the circle of cardinal changes in the field of academic musical vocabulary of the first half of the 20 th century and to define cross-cutting lines of further cultural development.Significance of the research. The scientific novelty of the article is due to the presentation in general terms of the author's concept of musical modernism, consistent with the well-established approaches of Western musicology, but independent in a number of specific positions.

Copland’s Styles

This article examines the relationship between Aaron Copland’s activities as composer and as pedagogue in order to illuminate the fraught midcentury relationship between musical modernism and middlebrow culture. I situate his unpublished lecture notes and music appreciation books within the middlebrow context and trace their connections with the works he composed during this period. At the center of my investigation is the contentious midcentury category of “style,” which implicated both Copland’s music and his pedagogy in ways that illuminate middlebrow cultural appreciation at large. Challenging long-standing modernist depictions of the middlebrow as the straightforward commercialization of high culture, I excavate characteristic middlebrow commitments to compromise, novelty, and breadth that proved even more unsettling to midcentury hierarchies than mass culture’s supposedly shameless pandering. By emphasizing Copland’s commitment to a canon of modern “styles,” in composition as in music appreciation, I draw out underlying tensions between his “middlebrow” approach to modern music and a “higher,” purer form imagined by Arnold Schoenberg and Theodor W. Adorno. At the same time, I show how these distinctions often threatened to collapse. On a broader methodological level, I chart a middle course between “social” conceptions of the middlebrow—as a means of marketing, distributing, and teaching high art to a mass audience—and “aesthetic” discussions of it as a compositional style. By examining the reciprocity between Copland’s pedagogy and music, I ultimately suggest that the problem which middlebrow culture posed to high modernism lay not just in its ability to mediate between high and low, modernism and mass culture, but also in the challenges it posed to fantasies of aesthetic immediacy and autonomy.

Waldemar Henrique e Gentil Puget: “Folk-lore” amazônico e modernismo musical

O presente texto discute os aspectos referentes ao debate folclorista no âmbito do modernismo brasileiro e os aspectos regionais. Neste caso será abordada a relação entre as concepções de modernismo musical elaborada por Mário de Andrade e Heitor Villa-Lobos e como estiveram presentes em uma vertente amazônica. Para este objetivo nos deteremos na reflexão e análise das representações sobre as obras dos artistas paraenses Waldemar Henrique e de Gentil Puget. As estilizações folclóricas compostas e popularizadas por esses artistas foram importantes para as representações sobre a Amazônia. Não podemos desconsiderar a presença de Waldemar Henrique e Gentil Puget em meios de comunicação como o rádio, em apresentações em diferentes estados brasileiros ou no diálogo com outros folcloristas, a quem se revelavam fontes para suas representações, ou mesmo informantes. Foram significativos para a configuração do imaginário sobre a Amazônia e, consequentemente, sobre o Brasil.

The Vocal Cycle of Vitalii Hubarenko “Hold Out The Palms” in a Modern Musical Project

An individual performing project dedicated to the anniversaries of the CherkashinHubarenko family, which is consisted of a series of concerts, a program “Family Album” and a studio recording of an audio CD called “Poetry and Music” (performed by Valeria Tulis (vocals) and Olena Shchoholieva (piano)), was considered. A detailed report was made on the approbation of this concert program, which had included bright examples of chamber and vocal music by Vitaliy Hubarenko and Iryna Hubarenko, as well as Mykhailo Shukh (based on poems by Iryna Hubarenko). Particular attention was drawn to a new wave of interest in the work of father and daughter. In this regard, other concert programs in Ukraine and abroad with the participation of various performers were mentioned. Attention was focused on the vocal cycle of V. Hubarenko “Hold on the palms” to the words of V. Sosiura op. 26 which is one of the works of the presented concert program. The latest research on the life and work of V. Hubarenko in general, and the selected work in particular, were analysed. The vocal cycle “Hold out the palms” already has its own performance history, so the multiple performances of the past years were mentioned, where it was performed as part of the anniversary author's concerts during the composer's life. Oleksandr Vostryakov became the most famous interpreter of the cycle and the performer whom V. Hubarenko especially appreciated. The most important features of his performance version accompanied by an orchestra are emphasized, in particular the attraction to the opera style of singing, scale, dramatics of expression. The vocal cycle “Hold on the palms” by V. Hubarenko, written in the original for tenor and piano, was analysed in the new performance aspect. The poetic text was edited, which made it possible to perform a tenor cycle in the female version and determined its individual creative understanding. New approaches in the interpretation of this cycle were identified, namely: the creation of a touching female image, the emphasis on the song-chamber, intimate-lyrical tone of this music. Attention was paid to the subordination of all means of musical expression to the composer's own perception and understanding of the poetic source. Emphasis was placed on the importance of the piano part in revealing a wide range of feelings and emotional states, in giving more metrorhythmic freedom to the soloist. The role of ensemble interrelation, “creative tandem” of performers in the formation of the general figurative impression was determined

Improvised ensemble counterpoint: on the notation of the bass in Agostino Agazzari’s Eumelio (1606)

Abstract Unfigured basslines serve as the starting points for collective improvisation in several sections of Agostino Agazzari’s Eumelio (1606). Agazzari makes clear that musicians used such basslines for effective ensemble improvisations in his well-known treatise Del sonare sopra’l basso con tutti li stromenti (1607) and in other contemporaneous documents. Gloria Rose has identified isolated examples of written ‘tablatures of the bass’, or contrapuntal templates from which ensembles improvised. However, analysis of the harmonic and modal parameters of the vocal monody in Eumelio shows how constrained the possibilities for improvisation actually were, indicating that the training of musicians c.1600 prepared them to improvise collectively from a bassline, even without such written tablatures. Some aspects of historical musicianship could lead to successful and enjoyable collective improvisation today, suggesting ways to bridge the gap between the contrapuntal training of modern and past musicians.

Listening to Builders

ABSTRACT The most superficially apparent feature of the Historically–Informed Performance movement is the use of “historically-appropriate” instruments. Interest in such instruments has grown alongside the dedication and expertise of instrumental builders and restorers who have performed extensive research on antique instruments. Thanks to their efforts, modern musicians have access to high-quality copies and restored antiques that offer inspiring musical insight. Despite these opportunities, the relationship between players and instrument-builders has not fundamentally changed: the vast majority of musicians lack basic organological knowledge and—in a perhaps telling irony—the close relationship that musicians of the common practice period had with instrument-makers remains anomalous, even amongst HIP-sters. Interviews with six of the world’s foremost fortepiano builders demonstrate the musical and interpretive relevance of organological knowledge by transmitting piano-technical information for the performer, while arguing that builders are an integral part of music-making, as they wrestle with musical and historical topics just as musicians do. With the impressive wealth of knowledge that builders have acquired in the past decades, the time may be ripe for the serious consideration of instruments to become a meaningful and indispensable part of the contemporary interpretive process.

Mapping Sound

Each playthrough of Ed Key and David Kanaga's Proteus (2013) presents players with a new, randomly generated island to explore. This unstructured exploration is accompanied by a procedurally generated ambient soundtrack that incorporates both harmonic textures and melodic motives, and abstract musical representations of environmental sounds. In the absence of clearly defined goals—except to progress through four distinct “seasons” of the game—the player's relationship to the soundtrack becomes a core gameplay element, and a playthrough of Proteus becomes, among other things, a kind of improvised performance art. Viewed from this perspective, Proteus's combination of free exploration and chance strongly evokes ideas from mid-twentieth-century musical modernism, including the graphic scores of Cardew and Cage and the “mobile form” works of Stockhausen and Ligeti. Proteus further complicates analysis by concealing the mechanisms that produce particular musical fragments and by eliding the roles of listener and player/performer. This article examines the tensions inherent in the complementary actions of playing/performing Proteus and listening to/analyzing it, and argues that the game challenges the distinctions between creator, performer, and observer by vividly embodying the most deeply ingrained metaphors of music analysis.

The Routledge Research Companion to Modernism in Music

Urediti zbornik na takó izmuzljivo temo, kot je »modernizem v glasbi«, je precej zahtevna naloga, ki sta ji bila urednika Björn Heile in Charles Wilson več kot kos z delom The Routledge Research Companion to Modernism in Music. Še zmeraj pertinenten pojem, o katerem se v muzikoloških praksah pogosto razpravlja, sta urednika predstavila kot kompleksno tonsko lestvico perspektiv in vprašanj, ki »nenehno terja teoretsko podlago za svoj obstoj.« (str. 3) Avtorja spretno nakažeta na plejado glasov, zbranih v tem zborniku, pri čemer pojasnjujeta razlike med »modernizmom v glasbi« kot »splošnim kulturnim in umetniškim pojavom«, »modernistično glasbo« z »modernističnimi atributi ali modernističnimi vidiki v glasbi, pri katerih pa se vendarle zaustavimo, predem bi jih označili kot modernistične« in označbo »glasbeni modernizem« za vse pojave, ki sodijo nekako med oba termina.« (str. 4) Koristna diferenciacija teoretičnega okvira sopostavlja prakse, ki se nanašajo na pojav z dvoumnimi pomeni in časovnimi spremenljivkami (npr. »nedavno« ali »pravkar«), kot tudi z metodološkimi (npr. »modus«). Na hitro bi lahko dejali, da avtorja avtoritativno obravnavata koncept, ki »nenehno terja teoretsko podlago za svoj obstoj.« (str. 3)

Colloquy: Musicology and the Middlebrow

Colloquy: Musicology and the Middlebrow

A Cross-Border Life and Legacy: Zheng Lücheng

Zheng Lücheng (1914–1976) is famed in China as the composer of “March of the People’s Liberation Army” (C. Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jinxingqu). Less well known, but of more interest to readers of this paper, is his “March of the [North Korean] People’s Army” (K. Inmin’gun haengjin kok), the official army march of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea until the late 1950s. Zheng was a transnational musician, crossing the shifting borders of Korea, Manchuria and China during turbulent years of war. Zheng’s is a fascinating story of revolution, migration, music, romance and diplomacy at a crux in East Asian history. In the 1930s, Zheng left southern Korea to join anti-Japanese forces in China; he studied and then worked in the Lu Xun Arts School in Yan’an—the crucible of Maoist cultural policy; he married a Han Chinese cadre; returned to North Korea to compose for the army, establish orchestras and conservatoires; was repatriated to China and almost immediately returned to Pyongyang with the Chinese forces. Finally, he returned for good to China as an army composer. A literate and wellconnected musician, he was adept at negotiating the power of nation states. Since Zheng’s death in 1976, his legacy has continued to cross borders. He is celebrated in a North Korean biographical film, The Musician Zheng Lücheng (K. Ŭmakka Chŏng Ryulsŏng; 1992) and in a Chinese film Going towards the Sun (C. Zouxiang taiyang; 2005). He is commemorated in exhibition halls, memorials and festivals in both China and in his birthplace in Kwangju, South Korea. Zheng’s story and music evoke nationalist sentiment, and at the same time are used in cultural diplomacy between these states. Drawing on interviews, archival documents and more recent materials, this examination of Zheng, who played such a central part in the creation of East Asian musical modernity in the mid-twentieth century, illustrates a fascinating interaction of nationalism, internationalism and, now, soft power.

Chasing Dreams, Finding Nightmares: Exploring the Creative Limits of the Music Career

Chasing Dreams, Finding Nightmares: Exploring the Creative Limits of the Music Career

언더우드의 『찬양가』와 한국 근대음악

언더우드의 『찬양가』와 한국 근대음악

С. ЯКОВЕНКО И ЕГО МАСТЕРСТВО В КОНТЕКСТЕ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИИ МОНООПЕРЫ Ю. БУЦКО «ЗАПИСКИ СУМАСШЕДШЕГО»

Sergey Borisovich Yakovenko is the People's Artist of Russia, a famous musician, vocal teacher and Doctor of Art History. He entered a bright page in the history of Russian vocal art of the XXth century. Starting from the 1950s, as a vocalist, he was in great demand for chamber vocal performances, with some of them being composed by modern musicians. Yakovenko was able to operate freely with a whole stock of expressive means, inherent for avant-garde music, allowing him to take part in the most difficult performances of the latest vocal and vocal-instrumental compositions, which manifested his inclination to the theater, to the disclosure of the dramaturgy of works. S. B. Yakovenko’s stage talent declared itself in its fullness during the performance of mono- operas, among them "Diary of a Madman" by Yuriy Butsko (1968), which received a great resonance in the theatrical life of Russia. The general content of this article is the analysis of S. B. Yakovenko’s performing skill, which gave birth to a wide range of character images, generated by the protagonist’s imagination. After the analysis of audio and video recordings of the vocalist’s performances, as well as his numerous scientific works and conversations, the author discovers several important features typical for the performing interpretation by S. B. Yakovenko. These are his vocal-dramaturgical principles and vocal-theatrical direction. In Y. Boutsko’s opera "Diary of a Madman" the unique performance palette of S. B. Yakovenko allows the singer to create eight various, rapidly interchanging images, using exclusively the resources of his voice, while being on an empty stage without props and with little or no gesture or mime.

Belarusian-Russian mixed speech in modern stage performances

This article analyses the typical features of the influence of the Russian language on Belarusian stage speech. Contemporary theatre, concerts, and other cultural events have played an important role in the popularization in the Belarusian language of misbalanced bilingualism. According to the transcripts of modern actors, emcees, and musicians recorded in theatres, music clubs, literature museums, and culture centres between 2012 and 2019, different fragments and types of mixing of Belarusian and Russian are revealed. Firstly, we notice switching of language code, which is used for famous phrases from literature, cinema, etc., or shows someone else’s speech. Secondly, we have examples of Russian language interference in Belarusian at the lexical, grammatical, and phonetic levels. So-called trasianka-distorted Russian language according to the special features of the Belarusian orthoepyis observed as a specific kind of interfered speech. In addition, various variants of hard mixing of systems and subsystems, functional styles of two languages (especially including of dialect words and forms), jargon lexis, and special units of alternative norms of the Belarusian language tarashkevitsa are shown. This research notes that mixed speech is a result not only of bilingual interaction, but the decline in the standard of stage speech. It is noted that trasianka helps to create a comic or negative character image on stage.

Новая культура трансляции знаний в условиях цифровой образовательной среды творческого вуза (об опыте работы в системах Moodle и Moodle Music)

The work raises the problem of forming a new culture of knowledge transmission. The current state of the system of higher education in a digital educational environment is examined. In this regard, an extended analysis of educational and methodological support of disciplines related to the use of music computer technologies (MCT) in artistic universities is carried out, the quality and methods of teaching, the awareness of the role of new digital educational technologies and MCT as a promising tool for expanding the information space of the artistic university in the context of the functioning of a high-tech digital educational environment. Based on the new capabilities of modern computer methods of working with sound, the potential of modern computer music editors, computer programs related to sound recording and sound reproduction, student musicians develop skills to utilize the capabilities of modern computer methods of working with sound in the process of musical and artistic activity, the potential of a modern musician develops — whether a performer, a composer, a music theorist, or teacher — by using music and computer programs in various fi elds of professional activities. The author of the article also analyzes the capabilities of the Moodle and Moodle Music systems in a creative university.

Challenging the Modern: Conservative Revolution in German Music, 1918–33 by Nicholas Attfield

Reviewed by: Challenging the Modern: Conservative Revolution in German Music, 1918–33 by Nicholas Attfield Daniel F. Boomhower Challenging the Modern: Conservative Revolution in German Music, 1918–33. By Nicholas Attfield. (British Academy Monographs.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, for the British Academy, 2017. [222 p. ISBN 9780197266137 (hardcover), $105.] Illustrations, index. The Weimar Republic, the dynamic but ill-fated social experiment couched between the bitter end of World War I in 1918 and the overthrow of democratic institutions by the Nazi Party in 1933, continues to fascinate many imaginations in many realms. Emerging from the rubble of the militaristic plutocracy of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his adjutants, Weimar Germany convulsed with populist yearnings for security and self-determination from all corners of the political spectrum. In the midst of nearly constant political and economic upheaval, a seemingly unbridled wave of creativity surged through Germany, made manifest on a collective scale by the achievements of the Bauhaus and on an individual level in masterworks by Max Ernst, Hannah Höch, Otto Dix, Käthe Kollwitz, Alfred Döblin, Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, and many others. Peter Gay brilliantly summarized not only artistic but also political currents in his Weimar Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1968) by characterizing the social phenomenon of "the outsider as insider" that resulted from the toppling of the Wilhelmine order. Suddenly, individuals who previously had no voice in society now wielded tremendous influence. Even though artistic innovations that would become synonymous with Weimar culture had already emerged before World War I, the liberalism of Weimar society allowed for an unprecedented popular affirmation of the creative arts in a multitude of genres. The possibility of access to an expanded audience extended not only to innovators but also to those steeped in artistic traditions. Nevertheless, the aptness of Gay's characterization of the cultural situation stems from the reality that outsiders remained outsiders, even in those instances where they found themselves, often only temporarily, as insiders. Michael H. Kater looms nearly as large as Peter Gay in studies of German music during the 1920s and 1930s. Fittingly, Kater appropriated Gay's contrast of the "revolt of the son" and the "revenge of the father," as the two final chapters of Gay's Weimar Culture are titled, in a brief article contrasting progressive and conservative composers of the 1920s ("The Revenge of the Fathers: The Demise of Modern Music at the End of the Weimar Republic," German Studies Review 15, no. 2 [May 1992]: 295–315). Nicholas Attfield, in Challenging the Modern: Conservative Revolution in German Music, 1918–33, takes what he considers Kater's reductionist interpretation of musical conservatives as a point of departure for his introduction, "Weimar Culture and Its Others," arguing the need for a more nuanced evaluation of the full breadth of musical life in an era primarily associated with innovations. In his first chapter, "Music and the Idea of a Conservative Revolution," Attfield strives to relate musical conservatisms with broader considerations of a "conservative revolution" occurring in the years following World War I (p. 17). [End Page 436] The core of Attfield's book consists of four case studies through which he seeks to exhibit a diversity of conservatisms during the period. He writes: "In part, I have chosen these specific examples because, though in some ways characterized by what might be called 'cultural pessimism' or 'anti-modernism,' 'irrationalism' or 'traditionalism,' they also resist the stereotype discussed above by simultaneously placing a powerful accent on rebirth, regrowth, and rejuvenation; this is an accent, indeed, often couched in the most revolutionary rhetoric" (p. 10). The first case study, "'Sympathie mit dem Tode': Thomas Mann, Hans Pfitzner, and the Further Reflections of a Non-Political Man," concerns Pfitzner's turn from opera and his aspiration to reach a wider audience through populist oratorio. The second case study, "'Innerer Betrachtung gewidmet': Alfred Heuss, the Zeitschrift für Musik, and the Music Journal as Community," considers Heuss's series of editorials "dedicated to inner reflection" that ran over a nearly two-year period and in which the views of his mentor Hermann Kretzschmar are extolled and extended (p. 78). Much like Pfitzner, Heuss had established...

New Forms of Artistic Synthesis in Modern Musical Theatre

The article is devoted to the development processes of modern musical theatre, rendered activate due to the influence of new technologies, which significantly expand the possibilities of synthesizing the arts that are originally characteristic of musical and theatrical genres. Tested in the framework of various cultural practices (performances, installations, shows, etc.), computer capabilities for sound synthesis and new technical tools and 3D technologies unlimitedly expand the possibilities of working with sound, light, color, word and plastic, involving not only a composer in the process of creating a musical and theatrical work, but also designers and engineers as well. The problem authorship arises, which is no longer the exclusive right of a composer, but of the whole creative team. The consequence of these processes is a number of significant changes in the ratio of the artistic components of the performance: the rejection of the primacy of music, the equal semantic significance of all the expressive components of the whole, forming a polyphonic multichannel semantic field that allows us to talk about the “theatre of mixed means”. The mismatch between the logical movement and the semantic content of the verbal, visual, and auditory principles leads to a limitation of narrative and an increase in suggestion, forcing the viewer, starting from the author’s message and personal life experience, to seek his understanding, which implies a plurality of interpretations. The search for new aesthetics results in a design approach when creating a musical theatrical composition, which in each case has a number of deeply individual spatiotemporal features, as well as to a significant transformation of the overall communicative situation in which the spectator becomes a participant in what is happening. The article contains the analytical observations on the works by contemporary authors: H. Hebbels, M. Squillante, as well as works by the creative team “LemieuxPilon 4Dart”.

Fall 2020 Supplement to Brauneis & Schechter, Copyright: A Contemporary Approach

This Fall 2020 Supplement is the product of our effort to capture important developments in copyright law since the publication of the second edition of Copyright: A Contemporary Approach. It includes one new principal case, the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Georgia v. Public.Resources.Org. It also includes notes on many other cases, and a few new features that we thought would enhance study of U.S. copyright law. In light of the passage of the Music Modernization Act in October 2018, we have completely revised Chapter 12.E., on digital audio transmission rights, and Chapter 12.F., on rights in pre-1972 sound recordings. The new Chapter 12.E. in this supplement, “Digital Streaming of Music After the Musical Works Modernization Act,” now consists of a general introduction to copyright and the streaming of music, covering both rights in sound recordings and rights in musical works, and all of the relevant exclusive rights.

Синтез искусств в контексте формирования французского музыкального модернизма периода 20-х годов XX века

The purpose of the work is to consider the concept of “modernism” in the historical aspect of its formation, to analyze the key artistic tendencies of the formation period of French modernism according to the example not only of the musical works of modernist composers, but also the works of representatives of other types of arts who lived and worked during the 20s in the XX-th century in France. Also, the task of the research is to identify those innovative ideas and creative methods that contributed to the renewal of musical art. The methodology is based on historical-contextual, comparative and system-analytical methods. The scientific novelty of the research is in the fact that the formation of French musical modernism is considered in the context of general artistic ideas that were formed in the unique society of representatives of the artistic Parisian bohemia, who lived and worked in the Montmarnas region of Paris. This perspective allows to study deeper the innovative trends in musical works in the period of the 20s of the XX-th century, which arose on the basis of creative interchange. There were analyzed such works of French modernist composers as chamber-vocal cycle by J. Auric “Eight Poems by Jean Cocteau”, chamber-vocal cycle “Bestiary or Orpheus Cortege” by F. Poulenc and chamber-vocal cycle with the same name by L. Durey, ballet by E. Satie “Parade”, rondo ballet “The Bull on the Roof” by D. Millau. The analysis of the artistic, literary and musical works of this period gave the possibility to identify common themes, ideas and concepts, as well as the creative methods and cross-cutting images and symbols inherent in works of different types of art. Conclusions. The article examines the concept of “modernism” in historical, philosophical and artistic senses. As a result of this historical period studying, as well as the analysis of the works of different representatives of the art, that were selected by the author, the general ideas and artistic trends which were identified in the works of the period of the 20s of the XX-th century. The interchange of innovative “inventions” between representatives of different kinds of arts is justified by a common desire to renew art and to friendly co-creation. An analysis of the musical works of the 20s showed that composers embodied the ideals, trends and artistic methods which were inherent in the general avant-garde movement of that period. There are the associative and allusive method, the ready-make method, the metaphorical writing, the idea of “new simplicity”, the idea of “purifying art”, personnel drama among them. These definitions fit such streams as modernism, surrealism, cubism, orphism. As a result, the synthesis of the arts and the interpenetration of artistic principles and methods in works with genre specificity are identified as key characteristics of French modernism.