The symbolic potential of sound ornaments in “Hutsul triptych” of Myroslav Skoryk

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31318/2522-4190.2024.141.319198

Keywords:

ornamental ostinati, patterns, creativity of Myroslav Skoryk

Abstract

Relevance of the study is related to the problem of the ornaments’ symbolic significance and, especially, their equivalent in music. This problem was repeatedly studied in art sciences. However, it was researched in the context of the modern Ukrainian music not enough.

The main objective of the study is revealing a significance of ostinati in “Hutsul triptych” by outstanding Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk. The methodology is based on methods of textual analysis in music and, especially, analogy method. How the study was done: was asserted significant parallel among visual ornaments in many cultural traditions and ostinati in music as their equivalent; both demonstrate potential endless of Life and its processes. Such symbolic is common to different cultures, even geographically distanced, as Ukrainian and Australian aboriginal one. The score of “Hutsul triptych” by M. Skoryk was analyzed mainly in aspect of formal and semantic significance of its ostinati: melodic ostinato in the first part, “Childhood”, prevalently texture ostinati in the second part, “Ivan and Marichka” and only dramatic attempt to return to ostinati in the third part, “The Death of Ivan”.

Findings and conclusions. “Hutsul triptych” is an evidence of powerful possibilities of ornament-like ostinati in music, including Ukrainian. This score includes not only main biographical moment of Ivan’s life, but also concerning permanent algorithms of national and, larger, all-human existence accordingly to certain folk tradition. In the first part of the "Hutsul Triptych", the melodic and thematic ostinati denotes the persistence of the child's involvement in Life, his assimilation of basic habits, observations of the surrounding world. In the second part, the multifaceted multifacetedness of ostinati embodies the very idea of Love as a harmonious combination, the interpenetration of multiple components of Life. The removal of the ornamental ostinato in the third part of the "Triptych" works as a "minus technique". The destruction of the pulsation of life processes becomes a symbol of death. Of course, figurations and ostinati are ancient and extremely common means of music. However, in the "Hutsul Triptych" they outgrow their formal and constructive meaning. So, significance of the study consists of revealing some important links between archaic and modern forms of culture (b) in discovering of principally original dramatic concept in music; step-by-step declining of Life’s patterns through the Death; (c) in idea of inclusion measured individual life in the potentially unmeasured and multiply returning in the space of art thinking. Among the Perspectives of this research is involvement an idea of replicators from Richard Dawkins’ “The Extended Phenotype” to the musical context

References

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Published

2024-11-28

How to Cite

Stronko, B. (2024) “The symbolic potential of sound ornaments in ‘Hutsul triptych’ of Myroslav Skoryk”, Scientific herald of Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine, (141), pp. 36–49. doi: 10.31318/2522-4190.2024.141.319198.

Issue

Section

Musical intonation: from historical origins to the present day