In Gnawa music, the three-stringed lute called guembri plays a central role. According to Sum (2012, p. 52), “the guembri attracts the mluk (supernatural entities summoned in gnawa ceremonies) by sounding their musical identities, effectively sounding their names (...), (as well as) calling on the adept (...). Upon arrival of the spirit, the guembri, as the adept, becomes possessed.” The guembri is equipped with a detachable idiophone consisting of metal loops or rings fixed around the edges of a metal sheet, inserted into the neck. This device, called the sersera, is mostly audible during solo moments. It has been often noticed, or briefly described (Baldassarre 1999), but never analyzed in detail. However, it seems important for us to include the sersera in the analysis of the status, meaning and roles of the guembri timbre. Taking it into consideration will provide a new approach leading to better understanding of many facets of the instrument, including its cultural value. The sersera was used before and it is still made and carried by musicians, but nowadays it is barely employed either in Morocco or in Belgium. Through confrontation of the acoustical analysis and the information found in literature with the musicians’ experience, this paper tries to find the reasons of this obsolescence.

The pioneer of abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky (Васи́лий Васи́льевич Канди́нский, 1866–1944), used musical terms as titles for his paintings with intention to release them from the themes, considering that music is “the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist’s soul, in musical sound”. Through his paintings Kandinsky rethought the principles of music. Not a painting, but an another artistic creation, through which we are given a chance to cognize Kandinsky’s comprehension of music, is The Yellow Sound (Der gelbe Klang, 1912), a “composition” for stage. It is the paradigm of Kandinsky’s “true stage-composition”, his totally new view of theatre that consists of three elements – musical movement, pictorial movement, and physical movement, but interwoven together in harmony that will trigger inner harmony in a spectator. Music for his scenario was provided by the composer Thomas von Hartmann (Фома́ Алекса́ндрович Га́ртман, 1886–1956), and another musical version was written by Alfred Schnittke (Альфре́д Га́рриевич Шни́тке, 1934–1998 / Der gelbe Klang, 1974). In Concerning the Spiritual in Art Kandinsky presented his theory of colour through which he explained his own (synesthetic) view of yellow colour / sound, particularly in comparison with blue colour, that was “musicalized” through The Yellow Sound. What kind of yellow and blue tone Kandinsky had in mind, and what nuances of these colours did von Hartmann / Schnittke see / hear? What musical instrument(s) can produce yellow, i.e. blue colour? Which music scale / tone / interval has yellow / blue tone(s)? Are we able to perceive all the shades of yellow / blue sound?

This paper examines the relationship between Bachelard’s (Gaston Bachelard, 1884–1962) philosophical comprehension of the water element, Debussy’s (Claude Debussy, 1862–1918) musical interpretation of the water phenomenon and Thaulow’s (Frits Thaulow, 1847–1906) intellection of the same element in painting. More precisely, having in mind the snow as one of aggregate states of water, I will explore via examples of Bachelard’s study on water and dreams – L’eau et les reves: essai sur l’imagination de la matière(Water and Dreams. An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, 1942), Debussy’s composition Des pas sur la neige (Footprints in the snow, Book I, 1909–1910) and Thaulow’s piece La Riviere Simoa en hiver (Winter at Simoa river – from a series of images of the Simoa river, unknown date), the reciprocal relationship of their artistic perception, as well as their interpretation of the water phenomenon.

These three authors have devoted a significant “expanse” of their oeuvres to their interpretation of the phenomenon of water. In the mentioned “expanse”, their creative interpretations encounter, intertwine, and interrelate. In other words, in this “expanse” of interpretation of the water psyche, we can detect the correspondence between Bachelard’s, Debussy’s and Thaluow’s poetics of the water vastness. Therefore, through the analytical and comparative approaches, my aim is to emphasize the correspondence among Bachelard’s (philosophical), Debussy’s (musical) and Thaulow’s (painterly) representations of the water element and to demonstrate which compositional and expressive methods Debussy employs to embody his understanding of the phenomenon in question.

Clara and Robert Schumann were connected very closely to the culture of the musical salons serving young and ambitious musicians and composers. Clara Schumann’s life is documented very well, but there is only a very small amount of literature dealing with her activities in the musical salon. This paper aims at providing an insight into the different circles Clara as well as her husband organised. The existent and non-existent source material is discussed and, by doing that, the current state of research on this subject is elaborated. Furthermore, this paper endeavours to point out the difficulties of research on this topic. That part is followed by a closer look at the characteristics of the private circles of the Schumanns during their years of marriage and the years after Robert Schumann’s death from 1856 to 1896.

The culture of Georgian chant is variable and particular schools are different from each other. The vital schools are Gelati, Shemoqmedi (West Georgian chant traditions) and Karbelashvilebi (East Georgian chant traditions). The paper presents musical analysis of West Georgian chant traditions, using Gelati school as an example. Scores are taken from Georgian musical manuscripts from the 19th century, which are saved in National Centre of Manuscripts and were written by St. Pilimon the Chanter (Koridze) and St. Ekvtime the Confessor (Kereselidze). The article’s aim is to show how some of the Great Feasts in Georgia were celebrated. The first part contains the examination of some individual aspects of Georgian liturgical practice. The second part synthetises what is important in the process of researching Georgian chant. The analysis shows individuality of the chant material. Diversity and abundance of existing materials gives the opportunity to conduct further research on the topic.

The Minotaur is the opera composed by Harrison Birtwistle to libretto by David Harsent. It was premiered in 2008 in Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Birtwistle’s musical language is basically modernist: atonal, centralised, based on interval or number patterns, pre-compositional operations, scales invented by the composer himself. His music is recognised as generally intellectual and connected with great avantgarde of 20th century. On the other hand, Birtwistle has never denied expression in his pieces. Titles and extra-musical inspirations are common (i.e. Melencolia 1). Birtwistle is inspired by music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and, less often, Baroque.

The score of The Minotaur is full of rhetorical figures: both hypothyposis and emphasis. They are evident and immediately recognised inspite of contemporary, atonal language of the opera. Mostly, they areinspired by Baroque musical-rhetorical figures but there are examplesof individual, contemporary means. Figures are local and connectedwith only one or few words. General atmosphere of fear and isolationcan be created with ‘rhetorical strategies’, which are active much longerthan figures. Birtwistle uses musical symbols as well. There are twomain symbols in The Minotaur: the iambic ‘glissando gesture’ whichopens the opera and appears in its key moments, and the ‘motif offate’ – repetition connected with powers of fate and with tragic irony.

The question is, why Birtwistle used so traditional and instantly recognisable means, as he is known for his highly intellectual music. Answer given in this text is that they stay in service of narration. They are audible and visible signs of telling the story.

The link between silence and death has been a recurring theme of human thought and can often be found in reflections on music. Among many attempts to approach this problem, the author of this paper focuses on those done by GisèleBrelet and Tōru Takemitsu. The “faithful companion” of music which “perpetually is born, dies and is born again” – this is one of the ways in which French musicologist describes silence. “For a human being, there is always the duality of life and death. Music as an art form always has to connect vehemently with both” – notices Japanese composer, who in another statement combines silence with “the dark world of death”. Interestingly, both Brelet and Takemitsu arrive at the conclusion that such connotations may well be the source of the fear of silence that affects some composers or performers. Despite different contexts, some analogies to their thought – like connecting silence with nothingness and loneliness – may be also found in the Canadian composer Raymond Murray Schafer’s writings, presented fragmentarily in the last subsection. The differences in the notion of the problem between the authors are, moreover, discussed in this paper.