Piano Etudes by E. Rautavaara and Ph. Glass: modern transformations of the genre

Statement of the problem. The article considers piano Etudes by the Finnish composer E. Rautavaara and the American composer Ph. Glass as examples of a vividly individual genre interpretation in the context of the stylistic pluralism of the XX–XXI centuries. Recent research and publications. In English-language musicology, Etudes by E. Rautavaara became the subject of special research only in the work by L. E. Matambo (2010). In Ukrainian musicology, E. Rautavaara’s Etudes is only briefly mentioned in the article by M. Chernyavska and K. Timofeyeva (2022). A number of English-language critical publications are devoted to Ph. Glass’s Etudes (Barone, 2023; Franks, 2024; Siôn, 2025; Thrasher, 2014). The collection of essays (Glass, Brumbach, Regas, 2023) contains the history of the composer’s creation of Etudes and rather general remarks on their imagery, experience of performance and listening. In Ukrainian musicology, Ph. Glass’s Etudes were studied only in the N. Sydor’s work (2021), where the main compositional and stylistic features and performing tasks of the cycle are traced rather fluently. Оbjectives, methods, and novelty of the research.The purpose of the study is to identify the avant-garde and postmodern peculiarities in the cycles of piano Etudes by E. Rautavaara and Ph. Glass, their common features, connection with classicalromantic and early twentieth century samples. The methods of style, genre, and comparative analysis, as well as the of analytical methods theoretical musicology were used in the study. For the first time, the Etudes of E. Rautavaara and Ph. Glass are presented in a common context of modern genre transformations. Research results. E. Rautavaara’s Etudes are the virtuoso pieces with a rich polyphonic texture and diversity of complex techniques. Despite their fundamental mono-interval idea, reliance on thematic harmonic complexes and sometimes on the series, the intonation content and harmony language of the Etudes are rich, complex, and diverse. Ph. Glass treats the etude not as a traditional virtuoso piece, but rather as a single-affect miniature, where the lyric combines with motor motility, and meditativeness, and the pianistic tasks are modified under the influence of minimalism techniques. Conclusion. In E. Rautavaara’s Etudes, avant-garde techniques combine with a wider range of stylistic elements: romantic pianism signs, impressionistic and jazz idioms. Ph. Glass’s Etudes are in line with the aesthetics of postmodern, using the techniques of minimalism. Despite the noticeable stylistic differences, both Etudes cycles contain common features: conceptualism, intertextuality, constructivism. Also, both opuses demonstrate a move towards a more democratic musical style compared to the avant-garde.