Late Romantic Reflections by Valentin Bibik

Adilya Mizitova,Irina Ivanova

doi:10.7596/taksad.v9i4.2878

Abstract

The article considers the ways of recreating the stylistic properties of late romanticism in the symphonies of the Ukrainian composer V. Bibik (1940–2003). The master’s openness to contacts with various national cultures manifested itself in the circumstances of his life and in the breadth of artistic interests, among which the musical traditions of late romanticism occupied a special place. The affinity of V. Bibik’s composing individuality to the romantic worldview is confirmed by the emphasis on the personality beginning, the monologue nature of the utterance, the sharpness of the reaction to the dissonances of life. Neo-romantic tendencies in the art of music of the last third of the last century stimulated the “meeting” of the modern Ukrainian author with the spiritual and aesthetic heritage of the 19th century. The path traversed by V. Bibik in this direction reflects the gradual maturation of the composer’s creative dialogue with the heritage of the previous culture: from the first obvious responses to late romanticism in the Fifth Symphony, through the testing of its recognizable features on the national-Ukrainian material in the vocal Sixth Symphony to the poems by T. Shevchenko to a kind of “triptych” of symphonic concepts of the Seventh – the Eighth – the Ninth. In them, stylistic signs of late romanticism cover all levels of artistic structure (spiritual, meaningful, dramaturgic, compositional, form-building, and thematic). At the same time, the composer is not engaged in modelling certain genre, stylistic parameters, but transforms the borrowed musical realities into signs, including them into his own ideological imaginative concept. As a result, they turn from “strangers” into “friends”, organically entering the individual stylistic context of the author. The constancy of V. Bibik’s artistic and aesthetic reference points can be judged by the author’s subsequent unnumbered Symphonies to the texts by M. Tsvetaeva and J. Brodsky, respectively. Their performing group – a vocal solo and a symphony orchestra – refers to the late romantic experiments of creating a special genre variety: the orchestral vocal cycle.

Highlights

On the way to comprehending the semantic and stylistic secrets of late romanticism In the activity of appropriating the creative behests of romantics, first of all, later ones, one cannot but see the action of the author’s inner motives. This is stipulated by the consonance of his frame of mind and a long-gone historical era
Bibik is a composer of a pronounced introverted nature
Almost each of his compositions is perceived by the “inner speech” of the creator, acute emotion and sometimes painful meditation

Summary

Introduction

Bibik (1940–2003) can rightfully be considered a “citizen of the world.” For many years he worked at Kharkiv Institute of Arts as Professor, held the position of the Head of the Composition Department, and headed the Kharkiv branch of the Union of Composers of Ukraine. V. Bibik’s close contacts with Joel Sachs, an American pianist, the founder and conductor of the modern music ensemble Continuum, are evidenced by the invitation of the group of the musicians with a concert program to Kharkiv as part of a tour in Ukraine (1990), the organization of a creative meeting with musicians, and a “return visit” of the composer to New York to participate in the celebration of the 30th anniversary of this performing community. The Sikorski publishing house published Seven Miniatures for the string orchestra op. 20 (1978) and Sonata for the button accordion (1986) (Sikorski, 2020)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion