This volume constitutes the first complete publication of Marina Lobanova's study - banned in Russia in 1979 as too avant-garde and published there only in a bowdlerized version in 1990.

Drawing on baroque, classical, romantic, and contemporary music, Dr. Lobanova proposes an original concept of musical syntax with special emphasis on the role of the categories of time, space, and motion. Embracing such aspects of cultural life as poetry and philosophy, she deals with the problems of cultural dialogue and the disintegration of the concept of absolute music.