Poetics of Yannis Konstantinidis’ piano style

Abstract

Relevance of the study: the poetic aspect of the music works last time is more and more pooling the attention of the researchers, giving to them the argumentation of several composers’ stylistic preferences within the selection of the music impressiveness system. Poetic side of the piano stile by the Greek Composer Yannis Konstantinidis (1903–1984) is investigated for the first time in Ukrainian musicology as a divided subject. Despite the fact, that the several parts from the set “44 Children pieces upon the Greek songs” was already studied in the thesis by Liana Charalampidy (2004), now the First Piano Sonatine by composer is analyzed for the first time in the world musicology. During the studying of the creative personality of Y. Konstantinidis, which is necessary for the making clear the main topic, the new facts of composer’s biography, unknown for Ukrainian musicologists, will be presented.The main objectives of the study. The purpose of the article is to study the poetics of the piano style of Y. Konstantinidis as a system of proportions of artistic images and means, determined by the principles of the Greek musical tradition. At the same time, the angle of research identifies the methods of transmitting the spiritual and aesthetic content of a folklore source, inherent in the composer’s individual manner.The study was done by complex approach, combining the principle of the phenomenological, historical, musical analysis, examination of the poetic text and comparative analysis.Conclusions: Unique and common features in musical compositions of Y. Konstantinidis which are based on folklore, in particular in his First Piano Sonatina, correspond to the application of aesthetic norms, which have been developed in the ethnic tradition. It has been established that the mechanism used by these norms in a musical work is a range of poetic elements that influence the formation of the symbol system and the structure of content. The levels of functioning of poetics in musical style are shown. The tiny sense of the melodic nature and orphic-epic structures of the folklore are originated on composer’s experience of work in aria of popular music.Significance of the study: The prototypes of the main themes of the Y. Konstantinidis’ First Piano Sonatina are discovered. The deep links between the Main Theme of its First part with the Cretan traditional song “When the sky became bright” (“Πότe υα κάμeι ξαστeριά”) and “The waters are streaming...” (“Τρέχουν, τρέχουν τα νeρά...”) and Byzantine psalmody “The grieving Mother...”. (“Aι γeνeαί πaσαι μαναρί...”) are exposed. The similarity of the modes and motives proves the unity of the musical stylistics of ancient, Byzantine and contemporary Greek tradition.