Conference Agenda

By examining an abundance of Russian-language primary sources, I trace the history of Stravinskian neoclassicism to pre-revolutionary Russia. Stravinsky’s turn to neoclassicism in the 1920s is typically cast as a reaction to the upheavals of the 1910s, signifying the abandonment of his Russian period in the face of Bolshevik revolution. In this paradigm, the exiled Stravinsky embraced the classical Gallic values of his adopted homeland and became the leader of a genuinely new twentieth-century modernity. Richard Taruskin asserts that in 1923 Stravinsky was the first composer to be labelled (unironically) as “neoclassical”—with its modern connotations of “purity,” “sobriety,” and “objectivity,” along with darker associations of fascism and antisemitism. This is incorrect, however, and I show how neoclassicism emerged in Russia before World War I as a reaction to the perceived excesses of Western musical modernism and from a palpable fear of the degeneration of Western society and culture—tropes that would receive their ultimate expression in Stravinsky’s own Poetics of Music (1940).

My archival research demonstrates how the term “neoclassicism” first arose in the Russian critical press as a solution to a conundrum: how to account for the leading position of Nikolay Medtner within Russian music. Medtner’s emphasis on form, counterpoint, and rhythm as parameters of musical creativity seemed remote from the traditional Russian emphasis on colorful sonorities and folk song. Critics began characterizing his music in neoclassical terms from 1906, emphasizing his “sober modernism,” “emotional restraint,” and “contemplative objectivity.” In 1912 Leonid Sabaneyev declared Medtner to be the “sole representative” of neoclassicism in Russia. Soon, however, Vyacheslav Karatygin placed the young Sergey Prokofiev alongside Medtner—a position the former enthusiastically embraced and which guided his future creative activity. Prokofiev even perceived Medtner’s influence on Stravinsky’s Serenade in A, and I highlight the similarities between Stravinsky’s Poetics and Medtner’s own published views on modernism and art. By emphasizing the deep continuities between post-war neoclassicism and its pre-war Russian manifestation, I offer a contribution to the ongoing scholarly project breaking down those national and political barriers which continue to (mis)shape historical narratives and patterns of significance.

Topic theory is associated with the historically-informed performance of eighteenth-century music, where performers use their knowledge of topics to inform decisions about tempo and articulation. In this context, topical interpretation stands in opposition to a modernist, “objective” performance style that treats the score as an autonomous, authoritative record of the composer’s intention. However, this paper argues that the conceptual roots of topic theory are actually entwined with the Second Viennese School’s performance culture. By examining unpublished writings by Arnold Schoenberg and refinements by his interpreter, violinist Rudolf Kolisch, I demonstrate that these modernists recognized a gestural lexicon akin to topics long before Ratner’s formalization after 1960.

I challenge the prevailing view of these primary texts—particularly those stemming from Kolisch’s collaboration with Theodor Adorno—as philosophy. Approaching these texts instead as literal performance practice, I demonstrate that Schoenberg and Kolisch viewed “musical character” as essential interpretive knowledge. Kolisch identifies a lexicon of gestural types that requires performers to bring social and conventional knowledge to the score—knowledge not contained “absolutely” within the notation. This reliance on social gestures creates a productive tension with Schoenberg and Kolisch’s reputation for prioritizing the objectivity of the score and the abnegation of the performer’s subjectivity over the composer’s intention. By reconnecting Kolisch’s Wiener espressivo to these earlier rhetorical traditions, I suggest that the origins of topic theory lie in a mid-century modernist environment where “topical awareness” was a vital tool for reconciling contemporary style with the inherited traditions of the First Viennese School.

This paper argues that Charles Griffes’ stylistic evolution was shaped by his artistic relationships in New York City. While scholarship often emphasizes his exposure to European modernism, particularly French Impressionism during his Berlin studies, this study reorients the narrative toward the network of performers, critics, and composers with whom Griffes interacted after his return to the United States. Drawing on correspondence, diaries, and close musical analysis, I demonstrate that Griffes’ Impressionist, Orientalist, and Abstract periods emerged not merely from aesthetic affinities but from sustained personal exchanges that encouraged, redirected, and refined his compositional voice.

Griffes’ early German Romantic works, produced during his Berlin years, provided a technical foundation but reveal limited individuality. His subsequent shift toward Impressionism, often attributed to his encounter with Ravel and Debussy in Berlin, was consolidated in New York. The publication history of Three Tone Pictures, Op. 5, illustrates this process. Initial discouragement from publishers gave way to affirmation through Ferruccio Busoni’s advocacy. Feedback from figures such as Georges Barrere and Walter Kramer further strengthened Griffes’ confidence and facilitated broader recognition. Musical features of the set, including parallel sonorities, blurred formal boundaries, ostinati, and poetic epigraphs, reflect not only French influence but also a collaborative environment that validated stylistic experimentation.

Griffes’ Orientalist period likewise developed through personal connections, particularly with Eva Gauthier. While earlier exposure to Asian materials came largely through literature and conventional exotic devices, Gauthier provided access to transcriptions, performances, and informed discussion of Asian musical traditions. In Three Javanese Songs, Griffes moves beyond generalized exotic markers toward more differentiated treatments of Sundanese and Javanese materials, even as his approach remains filtered through Western notation and aesthetics. These works reveal both the possibilities and limitations of cultural encounter in early twentieth-century American music.

Finally, the Piano Sonata exemplifies Griffes’ Abstract style as a synthesis of earlier idioms. Revisions prompted by performances for Busoni, Grainger, Milhaud, and others demonstrate the importance of dialogue in shaping the work’s final form. By situating Griffes within the artistic networks of New York, this study reframes his output as the product of collaborative modernism rather than solitary stylistic progression.