Early traditional winter tunes of the villages of the Pereiaslav region located on the Dnieper: typology and geography

Abstract

In the article, for the first time, an analysis of winter melodies of an early rural tradition from Boryspil and Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi districts of Kiev region (western lands of the historical Pereiaslav region) has been undertaken. The relevance of the topic is confirmed by the high interest of domestic ethnomusicologists to the problem of classification of the melodies of the winter cycle.The study is mainly based on new expeditionary and archival records of the 2000s from 28 villages, most of which are located near the Dnieper between Pereiaslav and Kyiv. Part of the materials are kept in the collections of the Problem Research Laboratory of Ethnomusicology of the National Tchaikovsky Music Academy of Ukraine, the rest is in private collections.The purpose of the article is to characterize the genre-style as well as the rhythm-compositional and modalintonational structure of the traditional tunes of the winter cycle with their further mapping. The work involves the methodology of structural-typological analysis, analytical (phonetic) transcription and documentary mapping.The research results. Early traditional winter tunes (about 80 samples) in local traditions are represented by carols, shchedrivkas, sowing rituals (only memories were recorded about the ritual of leading a Goat). According to the musical and stylistic characteristics of the songs and the age of the performers (participants in festive courtyards visitings), the melodies are divided into (1) song primitives (mainly children’s) and (2) stanza compositions of an adult (girl's / female) repertoire.In total, 11 forms with the rhythm of a three-beat four-syllable sample (2112), a four-beat 2222 (one-element and in combinations with a six-beat sample 4224), an ascending ionic (1122), an iambic six-syllable sample (121212) and the forms of the macrofamily with the verse ‹55, r4› were identified. A local feature of the local traditions is a large number of polyblock compositions formed by combining one-(two-)element tunes based on a four-and three-beat samples with a choriiambic rhythm. The described mix of rhythms supplemented the systematics of winter meloforms developed by Irina Klimenko.Detailed mapping of the forms (taking into account the melos) made it possible to make an internal division of the researched territory and also to interpret it as a zone of contacts of the Polissia and Naddniprianskyi (upper Dnieper) musical dialects.Bringing the new expeditionary and archival materials into the scientific circulation will serve as a source not only for melotypological (including macroarealogical) studies, but also for research in related sciences, primarily folklore studies and ethnology. Memories of caroling / shchedrivka ritual (in particular, the attitude of the hosts to the participants of the courtyard visits, depending on their repertoire) and other ethnographic information highlight the culturological aspect of the traditional celebration of the winter feasts in the Pereiaslav region in the middle of the 20th century (the main informants were women born in 1920s – 1940s), and, most importantly, in the pre-war period (memories of the oldest performer, born in 1919, recorded in 2005).The article is illustrated by: 64 notations (within one rhythm type, grouped by melotype), analytical tables, schematic maps, poetic lyrics (one of the tables shows the correlation between plots and rhythm forms) and ritual and ethnographic comments.