Nikolai Roslavets

[greek]

Nikolai Roslavets is now thought to have been born in Konotop in 1881.

Between 1913 and 1919 he formulated a new system of tone organization which he continued to refine in his works written in the 1920s. In an autobiographical article published in 1924, he explained that his compositional method involved manipulation of what he called synthetic chords - collections of six or more notes - which, through possible transpositions to all 12 degrees of the chromatic scale, govern the pitch-structural plan of a work. In particular, a certain basic hexachord (C-B flat-E-A flat-D flat-G) can be identified as the source for his various synthetic chords.

This sonority is varied to create others through chordal rearrangement, chromatic alteration of component pitches and/or addition of pitches to the collection. Roslavets's sketches indicate that he approached totally chromatic composition through combined transpositions of his predetermined synthetic chords. These chords are associated with a strictly regulated orthography that invokes the traditional concept of chordal roots within a post-tonal context. While being at times visually cumbersome, this practice sheds light on the composer’s understanding of pitch structure in his music. Even though Roslavets claimed compositional independence from Scriabin, his synthetic chord technique has much in common with Scriabin’s late harmonic practice.

His compositions are not well preserved or catalogued, but there appear to have been five numbered string quartets:

String quartet no. 1, 1913

String quartet, 1916, unnumbered [2nd and 3rd movements only]

String quartet no. 2, in C minor, 1919, lost

String quartet no. 3, 1920

String quartet no. 4, 1939, incomplete score

String quartet no. 5, 1941


- Here is quartet no. 1 (1913), played by the Novosibirsk Philharmonica Quartet:




- And here is quartet no. 3 (1920), played by the same people: