DOI: 10.36871/hon.202101006
Authors
M. A. Stepanova
Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, Russian Federation, Moscow
Abstract
The article regards two versions of the work "The Starry Wind of Cassiopeia" by composer
Viktor Ulyanich. The first is an eponymous composition, written in 1990 on a UPIC musical
computer in the Paris studio of Iannis Xenakis, the second is an audiovisual work "Cassiopeia",
which was the result of creative collaboration between Viktor Ulyanich and the artist
Olga Kumeger. Compositions are presented as fundamentally synesthetic phenomena, since
in both cases the graphical and musical components are inextricably linked. In the first case,
timbres are synthesized through the lines; in the second, they participate in the formation of
a new artistic unit.
The stage of pre-composition work is a very important phase in the creative process for
Viktor Ulyanich. This is the period of ideas defining the formation of the artistic image and the organization of the musical fabric. Here, such an idea was the recognizable w-shaped arrangement
of the five brightest stars in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It became the basis of
the work's dramaturgy, its dynamic and register plan, and was reflected in the color-graphic
matrix and graphic timbre-themed elements, thereby determining the fractal nature of the
computer composition.
Keywords
Victor Ulyanich, "The Starry Wind of Cassiopeia", The Conception of Artistic Synthesis of Sound, The Ladozvonn Integral Musical-Theoretical System, FORMUS Project, UPIC, color-graphic matrix, timbre-intonation, graphical sound synthesis, fractal composition
