Sound Images in the Children's Piano Cycle "Mishkina Notebook" by V. F. Krasnoskulov: Traditions and Innovation

The piano cycle Mishka's Notebook by V.F. Krasnoskulov, composed for his grandson, comprises eleven miniatures forming a self-contained artistic whole. This study focuses on how sonorous images are constructed in several pieces: Before Sleep, Two Butterflies, Skipping, Turning the Pedals, The Little Hare and the Bear, and Chastushki. It examines textural and registral organization, rhythmic patterns, harmonic language and articulation in detail. The work traces the shift from the static Romantic model to a dynamic structure governed by action development and musical narrativity. The author demonstrates continuity with the children's piano album tradition beginning with R. Schumann and P.I. Tchaikovsky. Special attention goes to the composer's treatment of programmaticism and tone painting, conveying not just mood but living movement and spatial depth. Comparative-analytical and intonational-structural methods are used. The cycle is compared with children's cycles by S.S. Prokofiev, D.D. Shostakovich, S.A. Gubaidulina and R.K. Shchedrin to clarify individual style. Novelty consists in revealing the processual-narrative nature of sonorous images in Krasnoskulov's music. Unlike stable emotional states in Romantics or fixed character traits in Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Krasnoskulov constructs a sequence of events unfolding in time. He organically combines external motorics with the child's internal psychological experience. The synthesis of lyrical tradition with modern devices—polychords, clusters and ostinato structures—expands piano expressiveness in children's music. Mishka's Notebook represents an original phenomenon in contemporary Russian music, where didactic tasks dissolve fully into vivid artistic narrative, securing the cycle's significance for concert and pedagogical practice in music schools and conservatories.