Pastoral and the Principles of Its Stylization (Based On the Material of Vocal Music)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the role of stylization as a style­forming principle in the evolution of the pastoral genre based on textbook chamber­vocal compositions (arias by W. A. Mozart), as well as little­known ones.
 The methodology. The proposed research differs from other studies, which are close in the topic (T. Livanova, A. Korobova, A. Taylor and others), by an interpretative­cognitive approach dictated by the challenges of modern performing practice. A comparative analysis of pastoral semantics in European and Chinese poetics was also used.
 The results. On the basis of vocal miniatures created in the XX century (S. Vasylenko “Pastoral” op. 45, No. 5 and A. Rudianskyi “Lotus” and “The Flute on the Water” from the cycle “The Lake of White Lotus” (2001), a parallel of the European pastorals and ancient Chinese poetry from the point of view of a pastoral person in different pictures of the world has been drawn. The onto­sonological foundation of the pastoral is made up of a human voice accompanied by a shepherd’s pipe, landscape sound painting (the singing of birds, the murmur of a brook), and the vastness of natural landscapes (plain air). The author develops the conceptual apparatus of the theory of the pastoral to reveal the richness of various composing interpretations of the genre, its dynamics: “semantics of the pastoral”, “ontology of the pastoral image”, “pastoral person”, “pastoral picture of the world”.
 The topicality of the interpretative­comparative analysis is the conclusion about the necessary principles of stylization of the pastoral: the presence of a genre invariant with its own stable, psychological mechanism of recognition by listeners; historical distancing from the prototype (ancient poetry, baroque opera); creative synthesis of many traditions of the artistic existence of the genre and the signs of its national musical attribution. Poetic text and symbolization of the musical language are also the mechanisms of stylization of the pastoral in vocal music. Musical and poetic symbols, created by the author’s intuition, form a new life for the pastoral in the creative work of the XX century composers. If the composer’s interpretation of the genre invariant of the pastoral has ensured its viability for millennia, then the performer of pastoral compositions is responsible for their genre and style “purity”. The performers must master the technique of recreating the sound­like world of a pastoral person.
 The practical significance of the topic is confirmed by the fact of the actualization of the pastoral in the performance of the XXI century, due to the systematic inclusion of its samples into the concert repertoire of vocalists (including those from the People’s Republic of China), which requires appropriate historical and theoretical knowledge when modelling the behaviour of a pastoral person in the modern cultural situation.