The Notebook I (1980/81—1982)
1.
It is time to resume[1].2.
Colin[2] — is I[3].3.
Now — the most wide-spread way to compose music is writing in haste[4].4.
No need to be afraid of sentimentality — in the first place we are afraid of everything now[5].5.
Inside of any limited space it is possible to create a precise (and individual) sound world[6].6.
A series is a ‘support’, and so it is necessary to treat it as such[7].7.
Sometimes timbre becomes more expressive than intonation[8]. The colour can be filled or empty[9].8.
When we work with a series for long time, it suddenly begins to show more and more its new qualities[10].9.
No need for the ‘modelling’, what we need is simply to listen to the birth of music and to build it according our own laws (each time new and unique)[11].10.
Usually the twelve-tone harmony is angular and lacking of plasticity. The additional effort is required, in order to give to it that necessary plasticity. Otherwise, the “angles” will hang out from it[12].11.
I have the same attitude to the sound as Mozart and Debussy[13].12.
Debussy never revealed his soul in a such way how he did this in «Pelléas»[14].13.
It is strange that all music of Debussy is a bit cold and decorative, but in «Pelléas» there is nothing of this – this it surprisingly sincere and the opened music, the same simple and natural, and also so poetic and touching in its expressiveness.like Mozart’s music[15].14.
I always do something different to what I want. If I could do only what I want, I would become a great composer[16].15.
God forbid if someone would begin “to study” my film music[17].16.
I frequently attempt to muffle by music that pain, which I feel inside myself, but this doesn’t help[18].22.
The comprehension of the overall intervallic content[19] as well as the comprehension of the intervallic content of every element and even of the microelement is important in music. Interval is not "a motion" but a psychologically comprehended cell of a texture. Every element has to speak (i. e. has to be filled with information). In the music of Hindemith this is completely lacking. This is why his music is so poor and senseless (it its why there is a mud in everything: in the statement of his musical material and in his intervallics, and so on). Bach's intonation also, as a rule, is not filled. Mozart or Glinka are completely different[20].30.
Bach's music is too ‘robust’ for me. It lacks entirely that fragility and tenderness (mystery), which I love in music. All Bach is very prosaic and simple. The middle ground is absent almost everywhere in his music (even in his ‘Passions’)[21].32.
All the creative output of D. Shostakovich – is the most distinctive example of egocentrism[22].63.
A series — is a good organizing module, especially for the texture [23].70.
Rhythm of death in «L'écume» [24]:
109.
My compositions also contain their own symbolism[25].113.
The basic feature of Shostakovich is a continuous irritation[26].124.
The type of Bach’s thinking increases hastiness of writing[27].129.
Intervallic material, lying at the basis of a series, must always be natural. Its cells must possess the ability to live and to be developed independently, as the branches of an integrated tree[28].177.
I don’t like very much a mechanical regularity in music[29].202.
There is too much rubbish in Shostakovich's music[30].416.
In my music there are many unnoticeable changes of light and shade, animated and unpredicted, as light and shade are in nature – when there is the slightest breath of wind, the run of a cloud across the sun, the entire colouring immediately changes. But this is never a simple colour, and these both the light and shade have nothing ornamental in them, all these lights and shades have a meaning and are filled with sense, as well as the entire texture of a composition. Nature for me is not a decoration in which man lives, but it is, let us say, an external thing but part of myself, and it lives and breathes, as well as I myself do, and it is full of a large and mysterious meaning’[31].With my special thanks to Ekaterina Denisova-Bruggeman for the copy of manuscript of the Denisov’s ‘Notes’ (DS).
Notes
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35. The numeration is related to the manuscript. In the footnotes there are given the pages from the publication (in Russian) of Valeria Tsenova ‘Неизвестный Денисов’ (‘Neizvestnyi Denisov’ — ‘Unknown Denisov’), Moscow, Kompozitor, 1997.
- ↑ Colin — the main character of the opera «L'écume des jours» by Denisov after the novel by Boris Vian, 1981.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ The term ‘intonation’ or ‘intonational’ are usually used by Russian musicians for the intervallic characteristic of a piece of music. (DS)
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 35.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 36.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 36.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 36.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 36.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 36.
- ↑ Literally: "the intonational meaningfulness"
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 36.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 37.
- ↑ Omitted in ‘Unknown Denisov’.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 41.
- ↑ Rhythm of 12th Tableau of the opera «L'écume des jours» — Death of Chick.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 45.
- ↑ Omitted in ‘Unknown Denisov’.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 46.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 46.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 51.
- ↑ Omitted in ‘Unknown Denisov’.
- ↑ ‘Unknown Denisov’, p. 77.
© Edison Denisov, Text. Dmitri Smirnov, Translation. Non-commercial.
