You can listen to this suite on the streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube Music, Qobuz, Amazon Music, and many others.

The suite can also be downloaded as FLAC audio files from Google Drive, Dropbox, and Yandex.Disk cloud storages.

As for the scores, they can be found in the videos on my YouTube channel.

Overview

The suite is an attempt to introduce solemnity and clarity of Renaissance music to the colorful and harsh sound of expressionism. To some it may seem that these two periods are incompatible with each other, but they have much in common. During the Renaissance, all the arts were influenced to a greater or lesser extent by humanism and were all interested in the human being, and this correlates with the focus of expressionism on the inner states of an individual. With guiding principles of the Renaissance, it is possible to move from scattered sketches of momentary feelings to something more general. It is expected to get authentic enough result that is not similar neither to the works of the counterpoint masters, nor to the pieces by Schoenberg and his followers.

The aesthetic goal described above is achieved by the following musical means. All parts of the suite are based upon the principles of the twelve-tone technique, but, additionally, it is required to follow the rules of strict counterpoint as much as possible (although, violations are inevitable). From the strict style, the suite inherited preference for consonances over dissonances and a pronounced meter with its uniform pulsations being almost uninterrupted. Meanwhile, from the dodecaphony, the suite received a serial structure and an abundance of arbitrary dissonant sonorities.

As a primary tone row, this sequence of pitch classes has been selected: C, C#, D, F#, E, A, G#, B, A#, G, D#, F. This tone row has a remarkable property that all upward and downward intervals ranging in size from one semitone to five semitones are present between it’s adjacent pitch classes. The series could have been called all-interval if there were a tritone (six semitones) among the intervals. However, I deliberately selected the tone row so that there is no tritone, but the upward semitone and the downward semitone occur twice each. This can be seen as a curtsy to the strict style of counterpoint, because semitones provide smooth voice leading, while the tritone was avoided in the Renaissance music. In the twelve-tone technique, however, the tritone is not even treated as dissonance, and it is considered a neutral interval. So, I did not impose any other restrictions on it, which is why it occurs in the suite as freely as many other intervals.

Besides standard transformations of tone row that were widely used by the composers of Second Viennese School, cyclic permutation (rotation) is also applied. It attenuates contribution of serial technique to the overall integrity of works, but this is a reasonable price for extra degrees of freedom.

The suite consists of the five independent parts and they are described below.

Part 1

This is the most lightweight part, because most of the time it has only two voices. Hence, both voices are discernible. In addition, the majority of sonorities are formed by exactly one interval and this reduces the fraction of sonorities that include any dissonances.

Nevertheless, there are two passages where the composition becomes more involved. At the first of them, two additional inner voices are added. The upper of them has the rhythm of the upper original voice and the lower of them has the rhythm of the lower original voice. Then, both inner voices become completely independent. The second more complex episode has polymetric texture. The upper voice has the standard 4/4 meter, whereas the lower voice switches to 3/4 meter. Associated with it tension is maintained for a while, but, after all, it is totally dissipated by the repetition of the main theme.

As for form building, attention is paid to motivic development. The selected sequence of melodic intervals is repeated by both voices multiple times, but it evolves becoming shorter and replacing some intervals with others.

Part 2

From a subjective point of view, this part is characterized by an inspiring dynamism, while, from the objective point of view, it is the only part built in ternary form. More precisely, it has multiple layers of nested ternary forms. The general outline looks like this:

\[(A_1 - B_1 - A_1^\prime) - (C_1 - D_1 - E_1) - (A_1^{\prime\prime} - B_2 - A_1^{\prime})\] \[(F_1 - G_1 - H_1) - (I_1 - J_1 - K_1) - (F_1^\prime - G_2 - H_2)\] \[(A_1^{\prime\prime\prime} - B_3 - A_1^\prime) - (C_1 - D_1^\prime) - (A_1^{\prime\prime\prime\prime} - B_4 - A_2).\]

In this notation, letters stand for musical fragments, subscript changes stand for variations, primes stand for less noticeable variations, and parentheses and line breaks group logically related components.

Although it does not create any audible effects, it looks like this part is built around number 3. There are three voices and three large components each of which can be decomposed into other three components that, in turn, can be decomposed into three fragments (except the one component consisting of only two fragments).

It is also worth to be mentioned that some fragments have pairs of voices forming something that can be likened to doubly convertible counterpoint (i.e., convertible counterpoint featuring both shift of vertical intervals and delay in time). One voice has a tone row instance $K_1$ immediately followed by its variation $K_2$ with altered durations of notes and transposed pitch classes. Similarly, the second voice has tone row instances $L_1$ and $L_2$ with another interval of transposition. Of course, it is not classical doubly convertible counterpoint, since the rhythm of $K_2$ differs from that of $K_1$ and the rhythm of $L_2$ differs from that of $L_1$. However, there is no need for convertible counterpoint, because it is applied between fragments, but, here, all imitations are located within the same fragment. Actually, the above technique is used to create heterogeneous ‘echo’ and not to solve the trade-off between unity and diversity, as convertible counterpoint is usually used.

Part 3

This part is the most lyrical one. It is built in the form of a theme and variations. For the first time, the theme sounds solemn, but then it constantly changes its character becoming pensive, suffering, or self-contemplative.

Compared to the previous part, the number of voices is increased by one more, but this is compensated by the greater homogeneity of rhythmic patterns. In each voice, the span of a measure is often split into spans of individual notes in one of the standard ways. Since the number of such options is small, occasionally some voices share rhythm.

To structure the piece and to separate components, interludes are used. In these, tone row instances are distributed amongst all four voices, allowing for a renewal of the upper voice’s melodic material (outside the interludes, the upper voice has horizontally distributed tone row instances). There are three interludes in total and, thus, the work is divided into four components.

Part 4

Here, rhythm plays a more important role than in the other parts. It is the same for all voices during the majority of measures, meaning that this part has the lowest degree of polyphony even so there are still four voices.

The presence of polyphony is reduced to episodes where one of the lower voices (most often, the bass) takes on its own faster rhythm. There are also a couple of places where the lower voices move monotonously in quarters or halves, while the rhythm of the upper voice is less trivial. It makes an impression that is somehow reminiscent of the polymetric section from the first part.

As for the musical form, it is the theme and variations again. Pauses are crucial for separation of independent components.

Part 5

This part is characterized by more intense and rich sound. To get it, registration involves all available stops and distinctive mix-cutting stops like bassoon are sometimes unrestrained. There are three voices and so the middle voice is much more aubible than the inner voices in the previous two parts.

Compared to the other parts, this one is also the only one built in sonata form.

In the exposition, the two main themes are presented simultaneously. The first theme is played by the upper voice and the second one is played by the middle voice. Immediately after that, both of them are presented one more time in the same voices, but their notes durations and the melody of the lower voice are changed. At the end of this fragment, the bass starts stretto imitation of the first theme. Then, the second theme is imitated by all voices one by one and, after some time, the first theme is imitated too.

The development is split into three sections each of which has a new theme compiled from tone row instances used in the two original themes. These tone row instances might be transformed and their rhythm can vary arbitrarily. If a voice does not introduce a new theme, it can imitate it later. Also, a pair of voices that do not introduce a new theme may have something resembling horizontally convertible counterpoint up to altered durations in imitation.

The recapitulation starts with exact repetition of the opening, but with another registration. After that, both original themes pass through voices given new surrounding material.

In the coda, tone row is distributed among all three voices which means that the main themes are left behind. Even before the coda begins, stops other than flutes are gradually excluded, so the overall sound becomes milder.