The Art of Travelling Musicians in the History of Joint Performance Establishment

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze the art of travelling musicians – the ancestors of the participants of the joint game; to substantiate the origins and reveal the socio-cultural prerequisites for the formation of this type of performance, which has its roots in ancient civilizations. For the optimal solution of the outlined tasks, the researcher used methods, among which the main ones are source and systematic. The research methodology is to analyze the performing arts of the Ancient and Middle Ages, most clearly represented by the syncretic works of ancient poets, kithara players and singers, as well as other travelling musicians who personified the singer, the poet, the accompanist, the storyteller, the dancer, the circus performer, which testifies to the emergence of elements of syncretic vocal and instrumental performance in their art. Scientific novelty of the research. For the first time in Ukrainian musicology, the origins and socio-cultural prerequisites for the development of joint performance, which has its roots in ancient civilizations, are substantiated and the art of travelling musicians of the Ancient and Middle Ages is characterized. Conclusions. The performance of the Antiquity and Middle Ages was represented mainly by the art of travelling musicians and was marked by their complicated relations with the socio-cultural environment of that time. At the same time, thanks to their art, joint music-making gradually emerged as a procedural form of vocal and instrumental performance with a huge potential for development. After all, their art formed some of the distinctive features of joint playing: mutual coherence of the performer’s intentions with sufficient individual freedom and at the same time the subordination of their playing to another performer. It was their creative work that became an important link between the first traditions of joint performance, albeit in a syncretic format, and its subsequent highly professional forms. Travelling musicians laid the foundations of musical art and it is from them that various genres of chamber vocal and instrumental performance take their roots.