Еволюція романтичного стилю в українській фортепіанній музиці ХІХ – початку ХХ століття

Abstract

Investigation of artistic phenomena in the historical-cultural development is one of the crucial tasks of the contemporary music studies. These include Romanticism – a style that was dynamically developing during the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century in different European nations’ music, particularly Ukrainian. The article deals with Ukrainian Romanticism in music as a national form of European romantic style. The evolution of Ukrainian Romanticism is traced by the example of the nocturne and elegy genres’ development in Ukrainian composers’ piano music, such as O. Lysogub, T. Besuglyi, V. Zaremba, M. Lysenko, S. Liudkevych, I. Stepovyi, V. Kosenko. Consideration of these piano genres evolution of Ukrainian Romanticism in the context of European musical culture of the 19th – the beginning of 20th century is suggested as a conceptually demonstrative approach. Therefore, nocturnes and elegies by mentioned Ukrainian authors are compared to the corresponding genre samples of West European and Russian romanticists: nocturnes by J. Fild and F. Chopin; elegies by J. Massenet, E. Grieg and A. Arenskyi. The research methodology is based on M. Aranovskyi’s conception of genre’s historic development. According to it, genre as a musical-historical object goes through three stages: formation, stabilization, and destabilization. The style generalizations are justified basing on the ideas of L. Kornii, who has defined the prominent tendencies of Ukrainian Romanticism evolution: acquisition of foreign genre-style traditions (a process of style adaptation) and creation of new style features (style generation). In the research, the following general and specific scientific methods are applied: historical (to analyze social-political processes of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century); historical-cultural (to consider the artistic-aesthetical foundations of European and Ukrainian musical cultures of that period); theoretical method of modeling (to reveal the analogies of the embodiment of the romantic principles in the Ukrainian and foreign music); comparative (to define similar and distinct genre-stylistic features of the piano works by Ukrainian and foreign composers). The research results demonstrate that the romantic style evolution in the Ukrainian piano music means nocturne and elegy genres’ gradual attaining of national specificity. Each of them has gone through three stages that correspond to peculiar stages of genre’s “life”: formation, stabilization, and destabilization. At different stages, two main aspects of creativity were revealed: universal Romantic movement related to the composers’ orientation towards the set genre models and stylistics of European romanticists, and a national one. Both movements preconditioned the development of style process’ driving forces: adaptation and generation. Adaptation was the leading tendency as evidenced by the orientation of Ukrainian composers towards the particular genre models and creativity stylistics of European and Russian romanticists (J. Fild, F. Chopin, J. Massne, E. Grieg, A. Arenskyi, O. Skriabin). A style generation process manifested the most remarkably at the mature and late stages of the genres’ evolution. The mature stage associated with M. Lysenko’s creative work, is characterized by the vivid expression of national identity of this artist’s creative reasoning – the crucial feature of romantic style. The culmination of Romanticism evolution at this stage is a creation by M. Lysenko of national form of nocturne genre (The Second nocturne). The last stage of evolution is peculiar for the turn from mature Romanticism to its modified style version that incorporates the traditions of the previous romanticists and style tendencies of the 20th century. V. Kosenko’s nocturnes and elegies composed by I. Stepovyi and S. Liudkevych created at that time demonstrate the highest level of romantic reasoning where the national foundation of creativity is expressed via the original style of every artist embodied in the musical language of the new era. A demonstrative example of Ukrainian Romanticism generation at this stage is Elegy of S. Liudkevych – the national form of this genre. The Second nocturne of M. Lysenko and Elegy of S. Liudkevych appeared to be the quintessence of the romantic style in Ukrainian piano music of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century. Both musical pieces that differ by the novelty of the artistic conception, artistic beauty, and national originality of the style, justify Ukrainian Romanticism as a unique asset of the European musical art.