The article studies an example of the combined effect of avant-garde technical and stylistic means, unique to E. Denisov. Serialism, sonorism, aleatoric music and pointillism act here on polystylistic basis. In his further works the composer never used either squares technique or totally quotation-based method of composition. In Silhouettes by means of various avant-garde techniques “sketch portraits” of five female characters are depicted: Donna Anna (Mozart), Lyudmila (Glinka), Liza (Tchaikovsky), Lorelei (Liszt) and Mari (Berg). The emphasis is on the connection between "Silhouettes" and a number of Denisov’s variations on borrowed themes in which the “deformation” method is applied.
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