Style Features of the Vocal Cycles by Alexander Jacobchuk

Abstract

The vocal cycles “Excerpts from my Kobzar” based on I. Hubarenko’s poems for mezzosoprano and piano and “Plum Blossom” based on M. Bashō’s poems for soprano and piano (2017) by Alexander Jacobchuk, the representative of the Kyiv Composers School, are considered in view of the originality of interpretation of conceptual basics of the outlined genre.The embodiment of poetry in music, in particular in the genre of the vocal cycle, as one of the interesting areas of the composer's work is highlighted through the use of textual, analytical, comparative, historical methods, as well as the method of interviewing the author. Since an era of Romanticism a history of music has accumulated considerable experience in this genre, which testifies to its huge artistic and aesthetic potential in both vertical (chronological, stylistic) and horizontal (geographical, national) aspects, according to the renewal of compositional techniques in interpretation of poetry. In this field A. Jacobchuk’s work has not yet become the subject of interest, that’s why actualizes its study in the stream of vocal cycle development at the beginning of the XXIth century. The artistic and stylistic features in relation to the figurative and semantic context of the verbal series are analyzed. It is revealed the use of musical intonation as the most important expression of the semantic load of the word. Chromatization consistently used in melodic lines and harmonic complexes, due to the expressive-philosophical basis of I. Hubarenko’s poems, as well as the manifestation of Orientalism in the embodiment of lyric contemplative-meditative poems by M. Bashō are introduced to convey the idea of colouring music language, which resonates with the achievements of the impressionists (parallelism of seventh chords, the principle of matching consonances, sound imagery, the study of phonic qualities of texture in the direction of spatial effects). It is proved that the integrity of drama in both cycles is based on thematic arches, the formation of culmination zones, a well-thought-out tonal plan. A special way of concentrating emotions is alternation the use of unaccompanied vocal solos with piano solos in some parts and instrumental interludes (in framing parts).