Frank Martin’s mass for double choir a cappella in the discourse of comparative interpretation

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The legacy of Frank Martin (1890–1974) has never been studied in Ukrainian musicology before, although his music is performed on many European stages. The absence in Ukrainian musicology of works devoted to the study of the style and peculiarities of the performance interpretation of the Swiss composer’s music actualises the need to study it as a holistic phenomenon in various discourses (socio-cultural, stylistic, performing) and to further popularise it among Ukrainian performers and listeners. This article develops a method of comparative interpretology. Recent research and publications. Foreign musicologists, including Z. Maldjieva, J. Kilgore, R. Glasmann, have repeatedly chosen F. Martin’s works as an object of study. However, a number of contemporary interpretations of F. Martin’s Mass for Double Choir a cappella by different choirs call for comparative analysis, which is absent in the works of both foreign researchers and Ukrainian musicologists. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the paper is to present an argument for the specifics of performance interpretations of the selected work by F. Martin based on rendering its artistic content using performing versions of the RIAS-Kammerchor (conducted by D. Royce) and The National Youth Choir of Great Britain (conducted by S. Layton) as a case study. The research methodology includes musicological analysis of the artistic content of music and the principles of comparative interpretation. Comparative analysis helps to identify peculiarities of different performances of the same work and their compliance with the author’s concept. Results and conclusions. In the Mass, one can find typical features of F. Martin’s early style, which boldly and organically combined the stylistic principles of music from different eras from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Based on a comparative analysis of two performance interpretations of F. Martin’s Mass by the RIAS-Kammerchor and The National Youth Choir of Great Britain, we have specified the main features of their interpretation of the author’s artistic text. Thus, the German chamber choir fully saturates the texture of F. Martin’s Mass with the sound of professional voices, and the arrangement of details in its tone is filigree. The choir has a well-balanced timbre ensemble, the manner of its sound production is close to light, rounded, not burdened by excessive vibrato or excessive volume. The performance interpretation of F. Martin’s Mass by this choir is characterised by tempo dramaturgy appropriate to the composer’s intentions, large-scale climaxes and a penetrating, meaningful attitude to the canonical text. The performance of The National Youth Choir of Great Britain is marked by the ease of sound production that is characteristic of most European youth choirs. Their performance interpretation is characterised by a “romanticisation” of the spiritual content, a certain enthusiasm and sublimity that are not typical of the Mass genre. In our opinion, the performance version by the RIAS-Kammerchor under the baton of D. Royce corresponds to the composer’s intention to the maximum extent possible. The conductor’s interpretation is based on the principle of “al fresco”, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it impresses with its psychological detailing and subtle reproduction of spiritual imagery. It is this creative synthesis that forms the basis of the RIAS-Kammerchor’s reference performance of F. Martin’s Mass for double choir a cappella.