This article is devoted to the study of thematic processes in the early romances of S. V. Rachmaninov. The main attention is paid to three compositions: “At the Gates of the Holy Abode”, “Don’t Sing, Beauty, in My Presence” and “The Flower Has Withered”, which are distinguished by their thematic concentration, intonational versatility and internal eventfulness. As it turned out in the end of the study, the originality of the romance “At the Gates of the Holy Abode” lies in the presence in the piano introduction of thematic seeds with a certain semantics, which later sprout in both the vocal and instrumental parts, contributing to the embodiment of the multidimensional image of the suffering Lyrical Hero. The romance “Don’t Sing, Beauty, in My Presence” is considered as a dramatic scene where various figurative and intonational spheres interact. The miniature “The Withered Flower”, in which the musical fabric is organized on the basis of short, intonationally prominent and semantically independent motifs, approaching musical symbols, is regarded as an artistic discovery of the young author.

The article provides the first detailed analysis of the article by the outstanding 20th century pianist M. V. Yudina «Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky» (1969). Previously unpublished archival materials from the Yudina collection of the Russian State Library were used in the study. The idea is put forward that Yudina’s study was the first attempt to interpret the music of the cycle from a Christian perspective. This fact is noted as unique for Soviet musicology and art history in general. The article substantiates the methodological approach used by Yudina in interpreting a musical work, which we conditionally designate as the method of Christian semiology. It is based on the understanding of music as the embodied Logos of being, divine thought. It is revealed that when interpreting the symbolic plan of a musical work, Yudina relies on three main methods: the method of artistic synthesis, the method of typological exegesis and the Gospel commentary. The way in which each of them is implemented by Yudina in interpreting the pieces of the cycle is considered. An analysis of Yudin’s comments allows us to conclude that the compositional concept of Pictures at an Exhibition, as interpreted by the outstanding pianist and thinker, represents «death and resurrection» and covers the history of the world from the fall to the general resurrection. Yudina’s discovery of the gospel subtext of the cycle gives Mussorgsky’s work a new dimension and allows us to consider it as an integral part of the composer’s creative legacy, inextricably linked with the embodiment of fundamental Christian ideas.

The problem of the interaction of music and word in vocal works has always attracted many researchers, since the synthesis of two autonomous types of arts-music and poetry, in which each of these types exerts a figurative-emotional, intonational and compositional influence on each other, is of great interest. In this regard, an article dedicated to the choral cycle of the outstanding St. Petersburg composer, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Yuri Falik, is very relevant. In it, the author examines this composition from the point of view of the ratio of the musical and verbal series, analyzing the content, metrorhythmic organization, the form of the poetic text and identifying how these means of expression are embodied in music. In addition, the work emphasizes the idea of the originality of the artistic concept of the opus in question. Composer, turning to poems by different poets written in different years and even eras, taking into account textual features and connections, creates a cycle characterized by integrity and structural completeness, in which all parts are united by a common idea and have a through line of dramatic development. Such a creative approach to the literary and poetic source, his musical decision testifies to the skill and talent of its creator.

The object of research in the article is the dodecaphonic-sonoristic fantasy “Agnus Dei” by the St. Petersburg composer Sergey Ekimov. The piece was written in 2023 on the eve of Arnold Schoenberg’s 150th birthday. The authors focus on the genre-stylistic, linguistic, and compositional-technical features of the work, considered in the context of a dialogue with an Austrian master. The concept of the piece is interpreted as a transition from disharmony to harmony, from dodecaphony to tonality enriched with sonorous elements. The sound transformation caused by the movement from paraphony to euphony acquires a symbolic meaning within the framework of the memorial liturgical genre, while the metamorphosis of composition technique outlines the evolution of Schoenberg’s artistic thinking, who aspires to synthesize tonality and seriality in his later works. Conclusions are drawn about Ekimov’s non-dogmatic approach to dodecaphony, inspired by Schoenberg’s own free interpretation of the method.