Mode Harmonic Concept of Oleksandr Cherepnin’s Composer Creativity
Authors: Chen Hayun 
Published: October 2021

The relevance of the topic is determined by the existing contradiction between the great importance of Olexandr Cherepnin’s compositional works, which are widely recognized in the modern cultural world and contain many innovative artistic and theoretical ideas, and the lack of proper coverage in the scientific literature. The analysis of the array of musicological literature devoted to the peculiarities of the musical culture of the XX century proves the fact that the artistic personality of O. Cherepnin and his life and creative path still generally remain beyond the attention of researchers.
The purpose of the article is to reveal the meaningful and terminological features of the mode harmonic concept of O. Cherepnin’s compositional works.
The methodology. The main methods applied in this study are systematic approach and methods of comparative and musicological (mainly mode harmonic) analysis.
The results. O. Cherepnin’s musical language has overcome a long way before it was formed into a single mode harmonic concept. This mode harmonic concept of the artist’s works was first embodied in many of his works, and then was theoretically comprehended by him and given in the article “Basic Elements of My Musical Language” (1962). Therefore, from the beginning, the features of the composer’s mode harmonic language were formed under the influence of artistic necessity and were not subjected to theoretical conceptual principles. The mode harmonic concept of the artist, which became a generalization of his creative activity and artistic ideas, is based mainly on the theory of ambivalence of major and minor. At the same time, the composer does not use the major­minor as the mode basis for his works, basing (as the author himself and researchers of his work emphasize) primarily on the theory of modality.

Cherepnin’s mode harmonic concept of musical language is based on a nine­stage scale, which is considered by the composer as universal and is found in most of his works. The most separate and independent components of the nine­stage scale are the three major­minor tetrachords and the two hexachords. The presence of different pitch positions of the scale allows to determine the tonal center at the level of separate fragments of the musical fabric of the work.

The harmonic vertical (harmonic structure) of the majority of O. Cherepnin’s works is also formed on the basis of the vertical segments of the specified nine­stage scale. Such mode segments, which in separate works of the composer or their parts play the role of mode harmonic basis, are defined by us as “submodes” (my term — Ch. H.). The most common are tritone consonances, and each “submode” has its own chord that performs the function of the tonic one. The most important among them, according to the composer’s point of view, is a major­minor tetrachord, i.e. vertical four­tone chord. All these consonances are very diverse in their interval structure and intensity of sound. Five­ and six­tone chords are used by the artist much less due to their intense phonism and the need for at least an acoustic solution. Pentatone scales, which are constantly presented in an incomplete form (with the omission of one or two tones), and symmetrical modes are also widely used in O. Cherepnin’s works. Bright ethnic elements of the composer’s mode harmonic concept, which are widely used in his works, are the specific tritone consonances, called by O. Cherepnin as “Georgian trisounds”.
The topicality of the study lies in the disclosure of one of the main conceptual foundations of the multifaceted musical language of O. Cherepnin — his mode harmonic component, which has not yet been sufficiently studied.
The practical significance. The obtained results of the research allow to reveal the world importance of O. Cherepnin’s artistic figure and composer’s works, to highlight his innovative musical­theoretical ideas and to determine the special place of the artist in the constellation of contemporary composers who actively experimented with tonal­harmonic systems. The obtained conclusions generally expand the view on the nature and structure of mode harmonic thinking of composers of the XX century.