S. V. Rachmaninov’s symphonies: Spiritual trinity as a characteristic feature of a style

Abstract

In his symphonic opuses (and not only) the researchers of S. V. Rachmaninov’s work singled out reliance on three traditional stylistic directions – secular, folklore and spiritual (in particular, church singing). The composer himself noted the importance for him of these three sources when creating music. In the process of an analytical review of a number of memoir sources, orchestral works, it was determined that Rachmaninov managed to find a way that allowed him to organically embody in sounds what he designated as “opening new paths in music”. Research methods and methodology: To identify the features of Rachmaninov’s symphonic cycles, the methods of musicological and culturological analysis were applied, suggesting an integrated approach to the study of the composer’s selected works. The main part of the article introduces the thesis about the equivalence in the work of Rachmaninov of three stylistic trends in Russian culture: folklore, secular and ecclesiastical, defined as a “trinity”. In more detail, this article discusses the last of the designated series. In this regard, it seems appropriate to introduce the term “spirituality” as a special quality of the composer’s legacy. Along with others, it becomes an important constant, and the presented analysis of Rachmaninov’s three symphonies serves as confirmation of the musical embodiment of various semantic modes of this concept. Conclusion: the methods of embodiment in the symphonies of the three indicated meaningful layers and the achieved artistic result allow us to speak about the significance of the trinity in the composer’s works.