Characteristic Features of Valentin Silvestrov’s Own Style in “Two Romances” on Oleksandr Blok's Poems
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31318/2522-4190.2019.126.197970Keywords:
chamber vocal creativity of V. Silvestrov, poetry by O. Blok, translation of poetry, romance, author's styleAbstract
Relevance of the study. V. Silvestrov is one of the leading Ukrainian composers. To a greater extent, he has shown himself in the sphere of instrumental music, which reflects his way to individualization of the musical utterance. Nevertheless, the chamber vocal opuses for voice and piano are no less indicative in this respect. Clear evidence of this is the cycle “Two Romances” on the poems of O. Blok in which the signs of a mature style are traced. This work still remains outside the scope of research thought, which determines the scientific novelty of the study.
The main objective of the study is to identify the characteristic features of V. Silvestrov’s own style in his early chamber vocal works.
The methodology is based on an integrated approach involving historical, genre-style, structural-functional and comparative methods.
Results and findings of the study. Vocal cycle by V. Sylvestrov “Two Romances” on the poems of O. Blok (1961) is separated from other works in the time space. The work on the next piece — “Silent Songs”, began only in 1974; it shows the crystallization of the composer’s technique. Such a stylistic “leap” allows us to determine the constant methods of the composer's work with poetic texts. If “Two Romances” have not been considered yet, then “Silent Songs” gained a lot of popularity among scholars, which created a solid theoretical basis for the research. In these works, musicologists find such constants of the composer's style as the pursuit of the ideals of beauty and harmony, lyricism, melodiousness, use of silent sounds, change of performance techniques, addressing the music of romanticism, combination of classical-romantic harmony with the linguistic means of the twentieth century. At the same time, principles of embodiment of poetry metrical patterns, caesura, and work with text are still beyond the attention of scholars. Analytical observations have shown that while reflecting the primary sources in “Silent Songs”, the composer changes the metrical pattern of poems by synthesizing several types of vocalization and rhythmic formulas, and at the same time preserves the poetic basis and sticks to the caesura.
Similar techniques mark the early chamber vocal cycle “Two Romances” on the poems of O. Blok. It has full-length poems, logical caesuras, but the stresses of the poetic meter are changed, which makes the figurative semantics deeper. Along with this, the connection with the mature style is also found on other levels of musical texture: in harmony — unclosed tonality is used, in articulation — subtle nuancing, in texture — melodization of voices, in dynamics — prevalence of quiet sounds.
The results obtained regarding evolutionary processes in V. Silvestrov’s early vocal lyrics become an impetus for further research in this direction and contribute to the performers’ deeper understanding of the figurative and emotional world of romances.
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