The Polystylistics of Svyatoslav Lunyov’s Paraliturgical Music

Abstract

Paraliturgical music is a sophisticated expression of the composer’s pure faith, acquired through knowledge of his craft in historical and technical progress. Many examples of sacred music have come down to us from the past, and most of them were in the territory of modern Ukraine, along with works by Russian composers that are still a priority in some churches. One way to rethink this topic is to study the work of Ukrainian composers, particularly in the context of paraliturgical music. One example is the work of contemporary Ukrainian composer Svyatoslav Lunyov. While many scholarly studies have been analyzing liturgical genres and music in the liturgy in various aspects, including canonical music and the work of S. Lunyov, the question of the place of the choral symphony “Strasna Sedmytsia” in the context of paraliturgical music remains unresolved. Due to its scientific novelty, the study of Lunyov’s choral symphony in the context of Ukrainian paraliturgical music became the subject of a special musical and cultural analysis for the first time. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the spiritual revival has become more and more important. The historical path of development of church culture, which was deliberately almost destroyed at the beginning of the last century, is being rehabilitated as a result of the establishment of church-state relations. Currently, sacred music is subject to very mixed opinions among scholars, composers, church leaders, philosophers, and people of different faiths. Music based on the canonical texts that form the basis of the church rite but interpreted by contemporary composers seems impossible to introduce into the service on an everyday level. Such music is defined as “paraliturgical.” Today, there are many different examples of music of this genre, as almost all academic composers turn to.