Sergei Zagny:

  • Sonata piano, 1990 - Anton Batagov, piano
  • Electronic Music No. 5, (Piano Concerto), 1996 - 06.10.1997
  • Sonata Reconstructed from Fragments the Order of Which is Lost, electronic music, 02 - 04. 1998
  • listen to the Sonata, piece #5
    in MP3 or in MP3 format
    played by Anton Batagov

    sergei zagny's music world
    design: Anna Naumova, based on original design by Sergei Zagny
    executive producer: nikolai dmitriev


    The sonata can last for half an hour or more. It's most probable duration is from 30 to 45 minutes.

    The sonata consists of 25 parts, or sections, or pieces. Their sequence can be displayed with the following scheme:

    Figures indicate the ordinal numbers of the parts. (Pieces in parentheses can be omitted.)
    The whole can be imagined as a complex multilayered rondo, where (R) is the refrain and A, B, B, C. D, D', D', E, F and V are episodes. Groups (B C B C B) and (D E D' E D' E D') form local rondos, which, in turn, can be understood as "macro-episodes" of the main rondo, and then the sections B A B A and B can be seen as transitions.

    The general structure has obvious signs of symmetry: two refrains in the beginning, two at the end, one exactly in the middle. The first local rondo is reflected in the second. The initial A (2nd piece) is answered by V (24th piece), which is similar to A in harmonic construction, but quite different in nature... Breaks in symmetry are also obvious: "macro-episodes" are slightly shifted, and episode F, breaking the calm correlation
    (R)   A   (R)   (R)   V   (R), has no direct reflection neither before, nor after itself...

    On a psychological or energetic level, the evolution can be imagined as a smooth curve: in the beginning it ascends, coming into the field of joy or warmth; then it descends, lowering into the field of cold or sorrow; and then it ascends again, this time very intensively, flying to the sphere of the transcendental.

    The music text of the sonata is written so that the performer, while playing, can at certain points make choices following his inner feeling: to continue playing the piece or to go to the next one, to skip an episode or maybe to return a little and to pass a part of the way once again — in the same manner or a little differently, to play this note or that. Different performances, if notated conventionally, would appear as (somewhat) different compositions. The structure is as if it were striving to meet the desire of a human, as the desire exists at that present moment, and through this meeting to discover more of its own possibilities The human, in turn, strives to meet that which is capable of answering his desires, and through such meeting to understand better the nature of the latter.

    The sonata can be understood as an investigation of musical language in its different aspects, realised through musical means.

    The sonata can be considered as an investigation into the subject of symmetry and asymmetry, chaos and regularity, organic and mineral, necessity and freedom.

    The sonata can be seen as a reflection of an experience: the soul tries to be settled now in the living being, now in the stone, now somewhere else, and tries to understand and to feel, how everythng is, how everything is related, and how the soul itself can be there or here.

    English translation by Sergej Zagny with the assistance of Peter Ringwood and Edward Purkiss.



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