Spiritual Concerts of Maxim Berezovsky: the Problem of PostAuthor Editions

Abstract

A complex of issues related to the editing of the musical texts of three well-known choral concerts by the outstanding Ukrainian composer of the classical era Maksym Berezovsky was studied. The sources of the sheet music were identified and systematized - musical manuscripts of the second half of the 18th - 19th centuries and editions of the 19th - 20th centuries. The purpose of the research is determined, which involves comparing the sheet music of M. Berezovsky's spiritual concerts from the collections of the 1980s and 1990s with the variants available in the musical and manuscript sources of the second half of the 18th century. The method of comparative analysis is applied, which provides grounds for identifying common and distinctive features in the handwritten and published musical texts of spiritual concerts by M. Berezovsky. Traces of later editorial corrections made during the preparation of the analyzed concerts for publication in 1817–1818, 1904, and 1995 were revealed. It is indicated that this practice had already begun at the beginning of the 19th century, in the process of preparing for the publication of the concert "Don't repudiate me in my old age". It is noted that as a result of such editing, the original author's text was transformed in each of M. Berezovsky's three concerts. It has been proven that vocal delivery, harmony, texture, melodic relief, etc. were subject to correction. It was concluded that the corrected versions of the text are post-author revisions. It is emphasized that the found spiritual concerts of M. Berezovsky have reached our time in the form as they were conceived and written by the composer, because they were not published in the 19th century. It is indicated that the biography of M. Berezovsky was also revised in the 19th century and that now it is important to clean it of fictional layers, restoring the real facts on the basis of real-life documentary materials.