Cycle of Poems by G. Apollinaire "Bestiary: Or the Parade of Orpheus" in Composer Interpretations by L. Durey and F. Poulenc

Abstract

Understanding the aesthetic ideals of the French art of the first half of the 20th century in their artistic embodiment is an actual task of modern musical science. The bases of modernism influenced on all periods of its development. The author of the article compares two works of two representatives of "Group of Six" L. Durey and F. Poulenc. Such research is new in our Art History. L. Durey and F. Poulenc created two own works using the "Bestiary: Or the Parade of Orpheus" by G. Apollinaire. Their works are identical in terms of genre. The articles intended to study the poetics of literary original source. Special attention must be given to the comparison of conceptions, dramaturgy and composers’ writing style and composer's interpretations. Scholars' attention has been drawn to the fact that L. Durey and F. Poulenc appealed not to all poems of poetic text by G. Apollinaire, the article throws lights only on those poems which both composers used. Main goal of this research is to do the comparative analyze of L. Durey and F. Poulenc composer's interpretations of "Bestiary: Or the Parade of Orpheus" by G. Apollinaire by highlighting commonalities and divergences. The author used such methods as historical ad contextual, comparative, semantic, analysis of music dramaturgy. In the process of research by using the comparative methods of two self-titled chamber-vocal cycles special features of the composer's writing by L. Durey and F. Poulenc were revealed. Among these features are the laconicism and aphorism of the statement, the pictorial method. Both cycles are characterized as cycles with systems of leyintonemes and musical symbols and the vocal part of the cycles is characterized by the features of melodic declamation. A number of differences were also revealed in the volume of the whole, in the concept, in the interpretation of the same poetic texts. Thus the F. Poulenc's cycle is a "response" to a friend and colleague in the "Group of Six" and was created a little later (as evidenced by the dedication of the cycle L. Durey), F. Poulenc's concept has even greater minimalism. The composer, using the method of playing, brings the elements of the grotesque in those works which are deep and serious both by G. Apollinaire and by L. Durey (method of playing). We find out that the "Bestiary" by L. Durey, and in the cycle of the same name by F. Poulenc, the interaction of the semantic image with the form is revealed. The parts are leyintonemes, rhythmic formulas, lines of the score. They interact with each other and are subordinated to one task which is to reveal the deep poetic meaning. Thus, despite the type of composition, the difference in scale and choice of poems from the poem by G. Apollinaire both composer interpretations of the cycle "Bestiary: Or the Parade of Orpheus" aimed at cleansing art from artistic excesses in achieving a "new simplicity", elegance and aphoristic expression. Studying the work of the composers of the Group of Six during the 1920s to the 20th century will allow not only to expand the range of comprehension of artistic and aesthetic tendencies of the period of formation of modernism in music, but to more deeply and objectively comprehend and evaluate the cultural heritage that influenced the development of the art of everything in the 20th century.