Signs of a New Era: the "Female" Vocal Cycle during the Renewal of Russian Music of the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

The subject of the study is the "female" chamber vocal cycle in Russian music of the 1960s and 1970s, which, according to the author, became a special sign of the time of changes and renewal that came to the musical culture of the Soviet Union together with the Khrushchev "thaw". The article is devoted to the typology of the "female" vocal cycle, the appearance of a large number of works based on poems by A. Akhmatova and M. Tsvetaeva, music for children and youth, numerous vocal compositions in the spirit of the "new folklore wave", works dedicated to outstanding interpreters of vocal music by modern Soviet composers - Z. Dolukhanova, L. Davydova, G. Vishnevskaya, E. Obraztsova, E. Gorokhovskaya, N. Yureneva and others. The main conclusion of the study is the idea that there are several stable types of "female" chamber vocal cycles associated primarily with the modern poetic tradition, folk music, with the concert performance practice established in the country, with various vocal capabilities of singers, the width of their vocal range, flexibility, timbre characteristics etc. Russian chamber and vocal music is being studied for the first time in such a perspective and this direction must be recognized as fruitful. It is quite obvious that it was the "female" vocal cycle that became the most important sign of the time of the radical renewal of the national musical art in the 1960s and 1970s.