Piano Pieces for Children in Serhiy Bortkevych’s Musical Heritage

Abstract

The article reveals the artistic and pedagogical potential of piano music for children by the Ukrainian Diaspora’s prominent composer Serhiy Bortkevych. For this purpose, we analysed the piano cycles Little Traveller, Marionettes, Musical Wonderland (based on H. H. Andersen’s fairy tales) and From My Childhood. We specified the stylistic features of his music, didactic and educational tasks, which can be determined by working on small pieces of lyrical, dance, scherzo and march genres with their inherent modest scale and simplicity of presentation. S. Bortkevych tends to the chamber type of expression, modesty of texture, and absence of external effects, which reveals the composer’s commitment to the art of the Biedermeier. This component of S. Bortkevych’s creative personality is complemented by his constant interest in the world of childhood, both in terms of imagery and content, as well as didactics and education. All of S. Bortkevych’s children’s piano cycles clearly demonstrate the great importance of programmatic model in revealing the figurative content of piano pieces, in which nature paintings, portrait sketches, emotional experiences, travelling motifs, cities and countries, fairy-tale images, puppetry, etc. take an equal position. Up-tempo pieces (toccata, scherzo) require the same work as etudes, but with the difference that in etudes, artistic tasks are auxiliary, while in music pieces they are the main goal. In dance pieces, the basis for the work is the need to identify the specificity and character of the dance (waltz, mazurka, polka, hopak) and the originality of the rhythm. Lyrical pieces develop musicality, emotionality, artistry and performing initiative due to the musical language accessibility, vivid imagery and laconism of the form. The works of this group are of pedagogical value as they are aimed at gradual mastery of certain piano skills and techniques. S. Bortkevych’s compositional achievements deserve attention in terms of including his heritage in the educational repertoire of modern music institutions to deepen the educational and cognitive process of children’s and youth’s musical and aesthetic education.