The Russian musical art of the early XX century: INFANTE

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Abstract. The essay considers the phenomenon designated by the notion “youthful themes”, which flourished in Russian musical art in the early XX century. This phenomenon is revealed as a depiction of various age gradations (infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, early adulthood), which has gone beyond the limits of the material focused on the needs of a specific age audience and has a generally significant character. The work traces the evolution of youthful themes starting with the turn of the XIX-XX centuries (the opera “Iolanta” (1891), the ballet “The Nutcracker” (1982) by P. Tchaikovsky, “The Music Box” (1893) by A. Lyadov, the opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” (1900) by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, Piano Concerto No. 1 by S. Rachmaninov (1890-1891), Piano Sonata No. 5 by A. Scriabin (1907)) and up to the 1920s. Special attention is paid to the main line of development of youthful themes in the 1910s (10 Pieces for Piano Op. 12 (1913) and the cycle “Visions Fugitives” (1915-1917) by S. Prokofiev, the orchestral piece “Fireworks” (1908), the symphonic poem “The Song of the Nightingale” (1917) by I. Stravinsky). As a result, the author highlights the nuances of content and meaning inherent in the youthful themes (birth and affirmation of new forces, enjoyment of life, carelessness, playful attitude to the world; fervor, seething energy, thirst for youthful self-affirmation; integrity, clarity, simplicity, infantilism with its inherent fragility and purity) and also notes the presence of a wide range of aesthetic and stylistic facets in this area. The appearance of youthful themes marked the advancement of new forces into the arena of life, as well as the freshness and spontaneity of world perception, freedom from canons and stereotypes.