Violin Cycle by Bohdan Shyptur with Epigraphs from Children’s Poetry of Mariika Pidhirianka

Abstract

The article specifies the necessary condition to involve the national samples of pedagogical repertoire in the teaching and educational process of training violinists. The programmatic musical pieces, which are directly related to Ukraine and its nature, are particularly important. The author has chosen the cycle for the violin and piano by Bohdan Shyptur for analysis. This cycle includes four musical pieces with programmatic title and epigraphs from Children’s Poetry of Mariika Pidhirianka. Most of these excerpts are from her collection My Songs. As a poet and teacher, she focused her creative work on the Ukrainian folklore and its educational and spiritual potential. The first musical piece of the cycle V Litniu Poru In the Summer) has the features of the marching song. This genre is organically derived from the text of the epigraph. The violin and the fortepiano complement each other in performing the exalted and cheerful marching. The second piece Dzvinochky (Little Bells) includes the onomatopoeic leitmotiv, which has a semantic meaning of good wishes. In the counter instrumental parts, the composer used ingenious texture transformations and modal-tonal musical composition approximating to the folk harmonic means. The third musical piece Kolyshysia Kalynonka (Wave Snowball Tree, Wave) has a lyrical mood and resembles folk cradle songs by both in rhythm and intonation, and by modal and structural features. The final of Oy Selom, Selom (Oh, in Village, Village) is a comprehensive picture with a variety of themes – from Kolomyika tongue twisters to improvisatory recitative and thoughtful contemplation. The diatonic scale is combined with alterations and chromaticism, the dance rhythm - with song rhythm, three-part form - with variant deployment. In general, B. Shypura cycle combines typical national figurativeness peculiar to the poetry by the poet and musical lexicon inspired by them. The duo of two instruments made the beauty of the artistic word visible and enriched it with emotional and semantic nuances.