Innovations — Intution — Meaning: Vladimir Tarnopolsky’s «Foucault’s Pendulum»

Foucault’s Pendulum for large ensemble (2004) by Vladimir Tarnopolsky was named after the novel by Umberto Eco. Although the composer does not favor excessively relying on plots in his music, nonetheless, the music has incorporated the novel’s ideas of cosmism and of a confused account of time. Turning to the spectral technique of the French late 20th century composers, Tarnopolsky interprets it in his own personal way: by basing his composition on a complex central harmony incorporating intervals of fifths and tritons. The work has a unique compositional idea with its modulation from the leading harmony into the leading rhythm. The bare rhythm, having been shorn of most of the other musical elements, is emphasized by the introduction of uniform beats of a metronome, which is followed by a most complex polyrhythmy of up to 16 voices. In the culmination of the work a melodic ostinato is presented. The paper examines the work’s compositional structure in great detail, indicating the recapitulatory and framing moments. A conclusion is reached about the full value of the main musical elements in the composition — harmony, rhythm and melody and, from the position of musical content, — of the presence of all three sides of musical content: emotion, depiction and symbolism. Due to the allusions to Scriabin and Stravinsky, the presence in this composition of qualities inherent in Russian music are established and proven.