Repetitive techniques and semantic metamorphoses of repetition

Abstract
The article discusses the functions of repetition in the compositional process. Purposeful self-reproduction of repetitions forms a specific type of ostinato — a repeating technique. Its use served a wide variety of artistic purposes, without often claiming to become an end in itself. But when this did happen, it was always associated with a deep rethinking of the semantic and structural functions of repetition.
In the middle of the 20th century, two alternative understandings of this issue emerged in Europe and America. One belonged to Xenakis and was reflected in its finished form in his work “Formalized Music”. Xenakis gives the phenomenon of repetition the status of a metaphysical basis of Genesis. In this version, repetition is not a technological technique, not an object of choice that can be rejected. Repetition and the processes of its multiplication acquire an independent creative function, which Xenakis tried to express in his theoretical teaching and at the same time give it a specific sound embodiment in his opuses.
Representatives of American minimalism, based on the ideas of Cage, adhered to another. The American version tended to interpret repetition as a specific tool for building up the structure of a musical work through repeating technique. Consequently, repetition remained a means of realizing the composer's plan and a subject of his personal choice.

Keywords
Repetition, ostinato, repeating technique, musical minimalism, structuralism ontologization