“Four words about kolomyika”: author’s experience of orchestration

Abstract

Statement of the problem. Orchestration is one of the spheres of a composer’s professional activity, and its ways and principles are a special subject of scientific research. There are a sufficient number of examples, when the composer turns to the orchestration of self-own piano works (F. Liszt, C. Saint-Saëns, M. Ravel, H. Villa-Lobos, M. Skoryk and others), but the orchestration of violin works is not widespread phenomenon. The proposed work reveals the ways of orchestrating the four parts of the cycle “Seven words about the kolomyika” for solo violin, written by the author of the article. The main idea of the piece is interpretation of the kolomyika genre as a keeper of the genetic code of the Ukrainian people, through different levels of texture and structure solutions. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. Numerous works are devoted to orchestration, among them the guides by Adler, Casella & Mortari, Belkin, Klebanov and others. Another field of research is works on the theory of orchestration by Savchenko, Rakochi, Korobetska, Borodavkin, Kashyrtsev, Bohatyriov. However, the study of the ways and methods of translating a violin texture into an orchestral one has not yet attracted enough attention of musicologists-scientists and practicing musicians, and it is extremely difficult to find works on the orchestration of a violin texture, therefore, the presented work has an innovative focus. The purpose of the publication is to reveal the specifics of the orchestration of the violin texture using the example of the cycle “Four words about kolomyika” through the analysis of the use of orchestral principles and techniques in it. It was required the involvement of such research methods: genre-stylistic to identify the features of the kolomyika genre; structural-functional for researching the functions of instruments in the orchestral texture, the orchestration techniques, the form of the work; comparative one for considering the original violin source and the derived orchestral version; historical to light the context of the writing of the work. Results and conclusion. As a result of the research of the original source and its symphonic, timbre reinterpreted version, the next statements has been revealed. 1. The structural compositional analysis of the texture and form of the original source is of great importance for the creation of an orchestration of both one’s own and someone else’s work – the identification of potential harmony, bass voice, accompaniment, determination of the boundaries of the form, the character and tempo, which helps to understand the way of building timbre drama in the orchestral version. 2. The melody often in a “collapsed” form contains certain orchestral textural and timbre solutions. So, in many sections of the symphonic cycle, textural layers hidden in the initial melodic line are revealed – orchestral pedal, figurations, bass line, counterpoint, et cet. 3. The type, nature of the melody and the form of the piece determine the choice of timbre and orchestration techniques. The cycle uses such techniques of orchestral writing as underlining, the transfer of textural lines from one instrument to another, an orchestral crescendo, timbre mixes, the overlaying of textural layers of different instrumental groups, which creates a sonorous effect. 4. Each instrument of the wooden and brass groups corresponds to a certain line of the texture, is not duplicated in unison according to the “a2” principle, except for a few bars of the bassoons in the first part. This allows us to interpret the orchestra as a large ensemble, which to some extent is due to the neo-folkloric style of the piece. 5. The main idea of the piece in the symphonic version is manifested through the timbre reinterpretation of the theme, the multi-layered texture, the significant role of the woodwinds in the melodic lines and percussion to emphasize the rhythmic pattern and mark the boundaries of the form, as well as through the coloristic effects. The named ways of the piece working create the orchestral style that is a valuable component of composer’s creative activity.