Artistic and Expressive Space of the Vocal Chamber Works of Bohdana Filtz

Abstract

The paper studies the chamber and vocal legacy of the prominent Ukrainian composer Bohdana Filtz (1932–2021), whose musical thinking was influenced by the traditional Ukrainian romance songs, in particular, the old Galician ones. Her orientation towards the genre of romanсe manifests itself in the poetic intonation of the textual basis and in the manner of her musical writing. In Filtz’s chamber vocal works, she expands the boundaries of themes and genres of solo singing. Her solo pieces for voice are characterized by an attentive and careful attitude to the performance and skillful use of the entire range of the most “capricious and fragile” musical instrument—the human voice. In addition, she effectively builds the very part of the piano accompaniment, which always plays an important figurative and semantic role. Two significant components in the figurative and thematic content of Filtz’s vocal music were defined—civil and lyrical. In her chamber vocal compositions, Filtz combines a purely personal idea with a universal, humanistic principle at the figurative and meaningful level, closely intertwining epic characteristics with lyrics and drama. Her tendency for the psychological acuity of the musical images of her vocal works was traced through their philosophic nature, enriched with drama, and sometimes with tragedy. Ukrainian classical and modern poets prevail in the poetic stanzas of her romances.