Deciphering the Musical Language of Nicolas Obouhow

Abstract

Various styles and techniques of composition were experimented with and developed by avant-garde composers during the first decades of the 20th century. Nicolas Obouhow (1892-1954) plays a significant role as a composer who experimented, very early, with a 12-tone system and electronic sounds. His innovative ideas were not only a response to the Russian avant-garde movement, but were also part of the wider international quest for new means and techniques of composition. For Obouhow, art was a means to facilitate his mystical search, and his views on music place him in a broader international cultural context associated with the occult and a belief in the transcendental power of sound. Drawing from a wide range of primary sources, in particular the Obouhow Archive at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, and contemporary newspapers and journals, I will firstly demonstrate how Obouhow's idiosyncratic ideas were formed and influenced by his spiritual beliefs and significant historical events such as the Russian Revolution and the First World War. Secondly, through examining his circle and important relationships, I will discuss how Obouhow's views were also in accord with the esoteric beliefs held by many others and how these views were part of a broader worldwide search for man's spiritual destiny. Finally, through detailed analysis of form, harmonic language, synthetic scale systems and orchestration, I will show how Obouhow contributed to the early decades of modernism and 12-tone writing.