JAVS Spring 2026

The first examples are two works by Tamara Alexandrovna Popatenko (1912–1991), frequently listed in Russian databases as a detskii kompozitor (children’s composer) due to her extensive output for young performers. Her catalogue includes numerous pedagogical instrumental pieces, children’s choral works, three operas and a ballet for children, as well as music for cartoons and spoken-word recordings. 33 In contrast to many of the composers discussed earlier, Popatenko’s choral repertoire remains widely performed in Russia, and several of her instrumental works continue to circulate in pedagogical curricula. 34 She studied composition in Moscow with the highly celebrated Reinhold Glière (1875–1956). 35 Although Glière’s conservative idiom is more accurately described as post-Romantic than opora na klassiku Soviet authorities promoted him, much like Myaskovsky, as a model figure of patriotic socialist realism. 36 Admission to his studio was both prestigious and indicative of the aesthetic continuity expected of his students, a potential that came into full realization in Popatenko’s case. 37

The deep sorrowful tone of Popatenko’s Meditation in Memory of Glière (date of composition unknown; published in 1980) conveys both personal loss and collective mourning. The opening viola gesture—an ascending minor sixth from F to D-flat—functions as a conventional elegiac symbol and was closely associated at the time with the leitmotif of Spartacus in Aram Khachaturian’s ballet Spartak (1954). This motif appears both at Spartacus’s introduction and in the final “Requiem” scene, where his body is mourned by his wife, Phrygia. Within official Soviet symbolism, Spartacus represented resistance to fascism before and during World War II and, according to some unofficial interpretations, the struggle of the Soviet people under internal repression. 38 Figures 7a–b compare the melodic and accompanimental contours of Khachaturian’s leitmotif and Popatenko’s Meditation . Whether intentional or coincidental, the reference underscores the expressive depth of this brief work and complicates its classification as merely pedagogical.

Figure 7a. Popatenko, Meditation , mm.4-11, ‘minor-sixth’ tune.

Figure 7b. Khachaturian, Spartacus, Act I, Scene 6, mm.1-4 (piano reduction), Spartacus’ leitmotif, similar melodic and orchestral contours.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 42, No. 1, Spring 2026

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