Songs about Saint Petersburg by Sergei Slonimsky. On the Question of Interpretation of the Poetic Text

This article discusses a cappella choruses by Sergei Slonimsky that clearly represent the creative style of the contemporary master. The choruses written to lyrics of various poets (Bulat Okudzhava and Anatoly Chepurov) are connected with each other by commonality of the image content, the stylistic unity and the presence of a cross-cutting theme. Each of them has a St. Petersburg night scenery imbued with bright mood and embodied by the composer very deeply, emotionally and convincingly. Based on the analysis of these works the article covers in detail the issues of the relationship of a word and music, interpretation of the poetic text, reveals the nature of the relation of the composition, stanza structure and metrorhythmics of the verse with the means of musical expression, studies the melodic, rhythmic and mode-harmonic language of the choruses, their textural organization.