ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship and productive tensions between various musical styles—ancient and contemporary, monophonic and polyphonic, and modal and tonal—that are present in Tigran Mansurian’s Requiem (2011). Specifically, it examines the ways in which Mansurian alters an augmented-second glas—a short melodic formula borrowed from Armenian liturgical monody—to mark moments of closure and provide centricity. By placing this smaller-scale compositional element within the overall tonal context of the work, the analysis offers a hermeneutic reading of the Requiem as a decolonial artwork.
Situating the Requiem vis-à-vis its post-Soviet political context and as an extension of the religious turn at the twilight of the Soviet era, this chapter argues that Mansurian diverges from Soviet-sanctioned nationalism, which rested solely on folk idioms. By referencing musical elements associated with religious practices, Mansurian recovers the centuries-long Christian tradition and reinstates a vital aspect of Armenian national identity that was repressed under Soviet rule.
