Aleksey Sysoev’s “Selene”: To the Problem of Correlation of Ratio and Sensus

Abstract

The piano piece “Selene” was composed by Sysoev in 2012 specially for Yury Favorin. Unusual duration of this musical piece (2,5 hours), intensive inner development and also a conversation with musicians have urged us to speculate about the problem of ratio and sensus correlation—conscious and subconscious (intuitive) thinking processes, which are integrated within one composition. While working, Aleksey Sysoev tried to abstract himself from the influence of other composers, didn’t follow precompositional schemes, but relied exceptionally on his own intuition. He told, sometimes “Selene” interacted with him on its own and began to live its own life, so he just watched its forming. Intuitive process had become principal while searching for the harmonic foundation of the piece, irrational rhythm and register disposition. The realm of ratio came out especially clear post factum, when the composer began to analyze all the accomplished processes in the piece. Constant evolutionary regeneration of the material from the friable condition to the firm was explained by him in variation processes, and the type of development was marked as continuous-discrete time. Ratio and sensus in “Selene” also can be represented in indissoluble unity. For example, the composer was sure it was necessary to write a reprise of the three-part macroform, and the only one flageolet in the end of the first part had to be evolved from the very beginning.