A Synopsis of Music and Composers in 120 Senryu

BREATH, TUNE, SILENCE: A SYNOPSIS OF MUSIC AND COMPOSERS FROM ANTIQUITY TO POSTMODERNITY IN 120 SENRYU


Foreword

This synopsis gathers one hundred and twenty senryu about music and the people who made it, explained it and heard it, from the first bone flute to the machine that writes songs. In keeping with the canon of the senryu, each poem has seventeen syllables, in lines of five, seven and five, and holds a single episode, idea or figure. The poems follow one another in chronological order and fall into nine parts (marked with Roman numerals), which lead from number and breath, through chant, voices, order, form, feeling and "breaking," to sound as process and, at the end, to the listening mind.

The form was chosen on purpose. A senryu looks at human beings rather than at the seasons, and it can say very little. Here it is asked to hold only what is essential: a ratio, a tuning, a score, a gesture, a sentence that changed how music was written or heard. What a poem cannot carry is left to its title.

The selection is not a history of music and does not claim to be complete. It keeps what changed the thing itself: how sound is measured, written down, joined to a word, given a form, separated from its source, or received by an ear. Voices from China, India, the Arab world, Byzantium and Rus stand beside the Latin West, not behind it.

Where a story can be read in more than one way, the collection follows one reading: that musical language, from liturgical singing to postmodernity, has gradually become secular, and that this movement can be traced and weighed. It is a reading, not the consensus of scholars. Its measure is structural and functional. Most poems describe and do not judge. Where a poem does judge, as with the Promethean chord, the song of the youths or Handel's Messiah, it does so openly.

The poems can be read in order, as one long breath, or opened anywhere. The first begins with a breath, and the last ends with someone still holding the note.



I. Number and Breath (Antiquity)


1. Bone Flute   (c. 40,000 years ago)

Hollow vulture bone—
five holes teach a single breath
to become a tune.


2. Hurrian Hymn   (c. 1400 BC)

Clay: the oldest score—
signs name strings, not sounds. Its tune
we still reconstruct.


3. Pythagoras: Ratios   (6th c. BC)

Halve the string: octave.
Three to two: a fifth. So sound
bows to number's law.


4. The Pythagorean Comma   (Antiquity)

Twelve pure fifths ascend
past seven octaves, a gap:
temperament born.


5. Marquis Yi's Bells   (c. 433 BC)

Sixty-five bells slept
in a tomb; each holds two tones,
a third apart. Struck—


6. Plato: Music and the City   (c. 375 BC)

Change the mode, he warned,
and the laws of the city
shake. So guard the tune.


7. Aristoxenus: Speech and Song   (c. 335 BC)

Speech glides without stops;
song comes to rest on pitches—
there, intervals form.


8. Natyashastra: Shruti   (c. 2nd c. BC – 2nd c. AD)

Shruti: what is heard.
Twenty-two steps in the span
from sa up to sa.


9. Seikilos Epitaph   (1st c. AD)

Carved on a gravestone:
a whole song. While you live, shine—
time collects its due.


10. Boethius: Three Kinds of Music   (c. 500)

Three musics, he wrote:
of the spheres, of the body,
and of voice and string.



II. Chant and Line (The Middle Ages)


11. Gregorian Chant   (8th–10th c.)

One line, no bar lines:
the word carries every note,
and breath keeps the time.


12. The Eight Modes   (9th c.)

Eight modes, each a shade:
the same notes, but where they rest
changes what they say.


13. Musica enchiriadis: Organum   (9th c.)

Chant, doubled below
a fifth beneath every note:
the second voice wakes.


14. Neumes   (9th–10th c.)

Signs above the words
rise and fall: the voice's shape,
not yet its pitches.


15. Al-Farabi: Theory on the Oud   (c. 950)

Greek ratios, oud frets—
al-Farabi measures both;
the soul answers them.


16. Guido of Arezzo   (c. 1025)

Guido's staff: four lines
let a singer meet a song
he has never heard.


17. Troubadours: Song of the Court   (c. 1100)

A named voice now sings
of a lady, far away,
in the mother tongue.


18. Notre Dame: Leonin and Perotin   (c. 1160–1200)

The old chant held long—
a pillar; above, voices
arch like Gothic vaults.


19. Franco of Cologne   (c. 1280)

The shape of a note
now fixes how long it sounds:
time written in ink.


20. Ars Nova: Philippe de Vitry   (c. 1320)

Minims split the beat;
the perfect three loses rank—
two may now rule time.


21. Byzantine Chant: The Ison   (14th c.)

Ison, one held note:
above it the chant unfolds;
Tabor's light stands still.


22. Machaut: Isorhythm   (c. 1350)

One loop for pitches,
one loop for beats, unequal—
so the pattern drifts.



III. Voices and Words (The Renaissance)


23. Dunstable: Sweet Thirds   (c. 1430)

Thirds, once passing guests,
now stay in the English style—
the Continent learns.


24. Josquin: Words and Imitation   (c. 1500)

Each phrase of the text
passes through all the voices—
the word, handed on.


25. Petrucci: Printed Polyphony   (1501)

Four books, one table:
each singer sees just his line
and the song is whole.


26. Meantone: Pure Thirds   (c. 1523)

Narrowed fifths, pure thirds—
the price: one fifth that must howl
and is called the wolf.


27. Zarlino: The Senario   (1558)

One through six, he said,
holds the consonant ratios—
and the thirds belong.


28. Palestrina: Clarity   (c. 1562)

Steps, not leaps; each clash
prepared, then gently released—
the words remain clear.


29. Demestvenny Chant   (16th–17th c.)

One syllable, spun
through a long, unhurried line—
the mind rests in God.


30. Tallis: Forty Voices   (c. 1570)

Forty voices stand,
eight groups, and each one of them
says: no hope but You.


31. Galilei and the Camerata: Speech in Song   (1581)

Many voices blur
the words; let one voice speak them,
a lute underneath.


32. The Madrigal: Painting Words   (c. 1580–1600)

"Rise," and the line climbs;
"sigh," and a rest holds its breath—
the word drawn in sound.


33. Gesualdo: Chromatic Edge   (1594–1611)

Half step on half step—
the mode strains until it gives;
sorrow breaks the frame.



IV. Order and Affect (The Baroque)


34. Figured Bass   (c. 1600)

Numbers over bass
tell the player what to build:
chords left unwritten.


35. Monteverdi: The Second Practice   (1605–1607)

The text rules the sound;
harmony must follow it,
and the rules may bend.


36. Orfeo: The First Great Opera   (1607)

Song bargains with Death:
strings for fields, brass for Hades—
each place has its sound.


37. The Doctrine of Affects   (from 1650)

One piece, one affect:
joy or grief, the doctrine says,
rarely both at once.


38. Purcell: Ground Bass   (c. 1689)

The bass steps downward,
the same five bars, once again—
above it, grief grows.


39. Cristofori: The Piano   (c. 1700)

Hammer, not a quill:
the finger's weight now speaks soft
or loud. Touch is voice.


40. Tartini: The Third Tone   (1714)

Two high notes held long—
below them a third tone hums,
sounded by no one.


41. Rameau: Overtones   (1722)

A single string sounds
octave, fifth, and major third—
Rameau heard a chord.


42. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier   (1722)

Twenty-four keys, each
a prelude and then a fugue—
no wolf fifth remains.


43. Fux: Counterpoint   (1725)

Each voice walks alone;
harmony is just the place
where all their paths cross.


44. Vivaldi: Winter, First Movement   (1725)

Strings shiver in frost;
the solo violin whips
the wind; teeth chatter.


45. Bach: St Matthew Passion   (1727)

Strings halo His words—
all but the cry on the cross:
there, the voice stands bare.


46. Euler: Degree of Agreeableness   (1739)

Fewer, smaller primes
in the ratio's numbers: more
agreeable sound.


47. Handel: Messiah   (1741–1742)

Scripture leaves its house
for a hall of paying guests;
the Word draws applause.


48. Bach: The Art of Fugue   (c. 1742–1750)

One theme, worked through all
mirrors and canons; it stops
where his name appears.


49. C. P. E. Bach: Sensitive Style   (1753)

To move another,
the player must first be moved:
feeling becomes rule.



V. Form and Reason (The Classical Era)


50. Mannheim: The Crescendo   (c. 1750)

From a whisper, swell:
the bows rise as one body,
and the hall fills up.


51. Gluck: Opera Reformed   (1762–1769)

Cut the trills, the pause
for applause: let the music
serve the poet's word.


52. Haydn: The String Quartet   (1781)

Four equal voices
talk it over: one starts, one
answers, one objects.


53. Sonata Form   (c. 1780)

A theme leaves its key;
a rival answers; they clash;
both come home, one key.


54. Mozart Meets Bach   (1782)

At van Swieten's house
the old fugues sound; he is changed.
Counterpoint returns.


55. Mozart: The Ensemble Finale   (1786)

Duet to septet:
each voice enters with its want,
the plot moves in song.


56. Mozart: Requiem   (1791)

Eight bars of weeping—
then the pen falls. Others end
what he left unsung.


57. Haydn: The Creation   (1798)

Chaos, soft and slow—
"Let there be light": one chord, loud:
C major, at once.


58. Beethoven: Heiligenstadt   (1802)

Ears fail; a letter
never sent. Despair, then work:
art held him to life.


59. Beethoven: Four Notes   (1808)

Three short, one long: that's
the whole seed. Out of four notes
a symphony grows.


60. Hoffmann: The Infinite Art   (1810)

Words fall away: here
is the most romantic art,
the infinite's door.



VI. Feeling and Infinity (The Romantic Era)


61. Schubert: The Lied   (1815)

One voice, four persons;
the piano's hooves pound on—
the child dies in arms.


62. Beethoven: The Ninth   (1824)

Past themes rejected:
"not these tones!" a voice cries out—
then the Ode begins.


63. Beethoven: Late Quartets   (1825)

Lydian, old mode:
a convalescent gives thanks
to God, through four strings.


64. Mendelssohn: Bach Reawakened   (1829)

A boy of twenty
lifts the score from the dust: Bach
speaks after silence.


65. Berlioz: The Idee Fixe   (1830)

One tune: her image,
tender, then a witch's dance—
it will not let go.


66. Chopin: The Singing Piano   (1830s)

Left hand keeps the time;
the right sings as if breathing:
a voice without words.


67. Schumann: Florestan and Eusebius   (1834)

One heart, two names signed:
the fiery and the dreamer
argue in his score.


68. Clara Schumann: Composer-Pianist   (1840s)

She wrote, and she played:
Bach, Beethoven, Robert's score—
a canon takes shape.


69. Verdi: A Nation's Chorus   (1842)

Slaves by Babylon
sing of home; a people hears
its own exile's song.


70. Liszt: Thematic Transformation   (1854)

One theme wears new masks:
Faust's, then twisted by the Fiend
with none of his own.


71. Hanslick: Forms in Motion   (1854)

Music's content is
forms that move in sound, he said:
feeling, an effect.


72. Wagner: Leitmotif   (1850s)

The sword motif sounds
before the hero knows it:
the orchestra knows.


73. Wagner: The Tristan Chord   (1859)

Four notes hang, unsure:
whose chord, in what key? The ear
leans on, wanting home.


74. Helmholtz: Beats and Roughness   (1863)

Partials lie too near;
their beating we hear as rough—
far apart: it's smooth.


75. Brahms: Developing Variation   (1860s – 1890s)

One small motif turns,
each return a little changed—
a whole piece grows out.


76. Mussorgsky: Speech-Melody   (1874)

Let the tune be speech:
each rise and fall of a voice
is written as song.


77. Edison: The Phonograph   (1877)

A cylinder spins:
the voice sounds, though none is there—
sound outlives the breath.


78. Gamelan in Paris   (1889)

Gongs mark the cycle;
time turns in circles, not lines—
and Paris listens.


79. Riemann: Functions   (1893)

Not chords but functions:
rest, departure, and return,
Riemann's three-part plan.


80. Mahler: A World in a Symphony   (1896)

Birdsong, march, and hymn,
a children's choir, a far horn—
all of it, one score.



VII. Breaking and Colour (1900–1945)


81. Debussy: Modal Flow   (c. 1900–1910)

Not light caught, but flow:
modes beget, transform, break free,
and then crystallize.


82. Husserl: Retention   (1905)

The past still resounds
within the note I hear now—
a melody forms.


83. Schoenberg: Emancipated Dissonance   (1908–1909)

Dissonance, he said,
is consonance far removed
and needs no release.


84. Scriabin: The Promethean Chord   (1910)

Promethean chord—
a rite in sound; he destroys
his immortal soul.


85. Klangfarbenmelodie   (1911)

One chord, held in place,
its tones passed from flute to horn:
color becomes line.


86. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring   (1913)

Pulse rules; accents shift
in every bar; the chosen
maiden dances, falls.


87. Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil   (1915)

Ten tunes from old chant,
five of his own in their mold—
the new serves the old.


88. The Twelve-Tone Method   (1923)

Twelve notes, one fixed row:
no pitch may return again
till all have been heard.


89. Jazz: Improvisation as Composition   (1920s)

The chords go around;
each night, a new line is made—
and the disc keeps it.


90. Webern: Compression   (1928)

Each note carries weight;
silence leans on every one—
a sigh holds a world.


91. Varese: Organized Sound   (1931)

Siren, anvil, drum:
all of the world's noise is clay—
organized, it sings.


92. Schenker: Hidden Structure   (1935)

Beneath the surface
one line falls from three to one—
Schenker's hidden thread.


93. Bartok: The Peasant Song   (1936)

Wax cylinders turn:
a peasant's old mode becomes
his new harmony.


94. Shostakovich: Grotesque and Grief   (1930s – 1970s)

The waltz limps; the march
grins too wide; beneath the tune,
a long quiet grief.


95. Hindemith: Series One   (1937)

A tone has kinship
with its root, near or distant:
Series One ranks twelve.


96. Messiaen: Limited Transposition   (1944)

Some scales loop early—
twelve keys shrink to just a few:
color, not motion.



VIII. Sound, Chance and Process (1948–1978)


97. Schaeffer: Reduced Listening   (1948)

Forget what made it:
hear only the sound's own shape—
the object, itself.


98. Total Serialism   (1949–1952)

Pitch, length, and loudness
all ruled by one hidden row—
the ear hears scatter.


99. Cage: 4'33"   (1952)

The player sits still;
no note, yet the hall is full—
wind, rain, then voices.


100. Meyer: Expectation   (1956)

The ear leans forward
toward what it thinks comes next—
meaning is the gap.


101. Xenakis: Stochastic Music   (1956)

Countless tiny grains:
no single one is chosen—
the cloud has a law.


102. Stockhausen: Song of the Youths   (1955–1956)

The youths' hymn, cut up
and set among the sine tones:
holy ground, trespassed.


103. Ligeti: Clouds of Sound   (1961)

Fifty-six string parts:
each line dissolves; one cloud forms,
slowly changing hue.


104. Shepard: The Endless Rise   (1964)

Rising without end,
yet the pitch returns to start—
and still the ear climbs.


105. Riley: In C   (1964)

Fifty-three small cells,
each player moves on by ear—
the pulse stays on C.


106. Reich: Gradual Process   (1968)

The process is heard
from the first note to the last—
nothing is hidden.


107. Berio: Sinfonia   (1968–1969)

Mahler's scherzo flows;
all the past drifts in as shards—
quotation as form.


108. Forte: Pitch-Class Sets   (1973)

Chords become pitch sets:
register and order shelved,
intervals remain.


109. Grisey: Spectral Music   (1975)

A low trombone note,
partials shared among players:
spectrum becomes score.


110. Part: Tintinnabuli   (1976)

After years of hush,
bells of a triad ring out
by a stepwise tune.


111. Eno: Ambient   (1978)

Unequal tape loops
drift apart, then meet again—
heard, or left unheard.


112. Jarre: Equinoxe VII   (1978)

"Music of the spheres":
at the climax, matter stills,
then unfolds backward.



IX. The Listening Mind (1979 to the Present)


113. Krumhansl: Probe Tones   (1979)

Once a key is set,
listeners rate each tone's fit:
the tonic stands first.


114. Lerdahl and Jackendoff: Metrical Hierarchy   (1983)

Beats nest within beats,
a quiet hierarchy
the ear builds unasked.


115. Lewin: Transformations   (1987)

Not how far apart,
but what must I do to move
from this chord to that.


116. Bregman: Auditory Streams   (1990)

Notes close in pitch cling
together, one voice, one line;
leaps become two streams.


117. Schnittke: Ninth Symphony   (1996–1997)

Ends in dissonance:
a question never answered—
consonance: God's part.


118. The Brain and Musical Pleasure   (2001–2011)

Before the chord lands,
dopamine already stirs:
waiting is a joy.


119. Machines That Compose   (1957 to the present)

It learned every song
and writes one for each of us—
no breath, no author.


120. Coda: The Listener

Breath, then a tune, then
silence—and the listener
still holding the note.



© Sergey Dobrenkov, 2026


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• A Synopsis in English with notes can be read here https://proza.ru/2026/10/05/644

• A Synopsis with verses in English and a literal translation and notes in Russian can be read here https://proza.ru/2026/10/04/1056