Piano Pieces in Contest and Concert Practice of the Republic of Moldova Composers at the Turn of the 20th-21st Centuries

The purpose of the article is to characterise the features of the thematic material and the musical language of some works by P. Rusu (Pastoral dance), V. Zagorschy (Fantasia), V. Rotaru (Five novelettes on a single theme), V. Beleaev (Ostinato) and Gh. Ciobanu (Still-life with flowers, melodies and harmonies), which are actively used in the concert and contest practice of the pianists of the Republic of Moldova. Research Methodology. The method of musicological and performance analysis is used to consider the genre features of these compositions and to give characteristics of their melodic-harmonic, metro-rhythmic, and textural peculiarities, which ensure the quality of the concert brightness and representativeness. Scientific novelty. The system analysis of the piano pieces of the composers of the Republic of Moldova, which are actively used in the concert and contest practice of pianists, is provided for the first time. Conclusions. The analysed piano pieces are characteristic of the contemporary musical art of the Republic of Moldova. Being concert pieces by genre and clearly belonging to the Moldovan national musical tradition, they differ in style and language parameters. As for their content, a large place is given to the active, strong-willed, and dance images with elements of theatrical effectiveness and game logic. The musical language is characterised by the quality of complexity and modernity: in the pitch organization, harmonic tonality, atonality, dodecaphony and sonoristics are combined; the metro-rhythmic patterns are characterized by both regular accents and offbeat time-measurement. At the same time, the modernity of the means is naturally synthesized with the folk elements. The texture plays a huge expressive and formative role. It combines homophonic and harmonic, imitative and polyphonic, sonoristic and heterophonic textures, which require the use of various piano playing techniques for performing and give to the analysed compositions the quality of virtuosity necessary for concert and contest repertoire.