Sergei Prokofiev is among the ranks of early-twentieth century composers whose music endures in the concert hall and whose life has attracted much musicological research. Fewer studies, however, have undertaken an analytical investigation into his music, and the body of scholarly work on the musical theoretical issues raised by his compositions does not rival that exploring the music of such major contemporaries as Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók. Existing Anglo-American contributions to the field of Prokofiev theory have mostly employed the tools of common-practice musical analysis, many of them using Schenkerian methods, with the more recent accounts of Richard Bass and Deborah Rifkin expanding these to incorporate the chromatic features of Prokofiev’s music in more sophisticated ways. A notable exception is Neil Minturn, who proposes an analytical approach informed by pitch-class set theory; his methodology, however, has not been developed in any further research. This thesis aims to make a contribution to Prokofiev analysis by applying recent developments in neo-Riemannian theories and the work of the noted Russian musicologist, Yuri Kholopov, whose early monograph on Prokofiev’s harmony has not been engaged with in English language accounts to date. Neo-Riemannian theories are well suited to this task due to the correspondence between their remit and the diatonic chromatic aspect of Prokofiev’s music. This thesis also introduces and explores the potential of Kholopov’s theoretical concepts regarding the nature of twentieth-century music, and in particular processes such as polyharmony, in original analytical applications. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 and Piano Sonata No. 8 have been selected as focal works as they are acknowledged masterworks on an ambitious scale and arguably represent a shift in Prokofiev’s compositional thinking towards more abstract music in his later period. Existing analyses of extracts from these two works also offer the opportunity of making comparative observations. By focusing on harmony and large scale tonal design in these two works, this thesis hopes to demonstrate that a dialogue between the theoretical perspectives of Kholopov and those of neo-Riemannian theories may contribute valuable insights into Prokofiev’s music, at both surface and deep structural levels.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:634855 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Sologub, Olga |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/sergei-prokofievs-piano-sonata-no-8-op-84-and-symphony-no-5-op-100-neoriemannian-and-kholopovian-perspectives(1e3b29e4-2086-4f12-bd5b-ea02635bbccd).html |
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