INTERPRETATION OF SPIRITUAL SYMBOLS IN CANTATAS OF MODERN UKRAINIAN COMPOSERS (AS EXEMPLIFIED BY VICTOR KAMINSKY’S SYMPHONY-CANTATA ‘UKRAINE. THE CRUSADE’)

Abstract

The embodiment of religious themes in the large-scale choral canvases of Ukrainian composers of the 20th – 21st centuries. received a new impetus during the years of Independence. Therefore, not only significant quantitative progress in works related to spiritual sources is noticeable, but also the expansion of the thematic horizons of choral music, in which a very wide range of sacred images, allusions and symbols are interpreted in a new way, in accordance with the modern cultural and information space. The peculiarity of the cantatas of the philosophical and religious direction of Ukrainian composers is, firstly, the use of folklore and symbolic images, which in our spiritual tradition are inextricably linked with the artistic reinterpretation of the Christian canon, and secondly, the spiritual theme in cantatas is very often mediated through literary and poetic sources. Most often, sacred symbols are mediated by the poetic texts of T. Shevchenko and I. Franko, especially since religious allusions and parallels are constantly found in their works. In this context, the transformation of spiritual and religious symbolism in the symphony-cantata ‘Ukraine. The Way of the Cross’ by Viktor Kaminsky on the words of Ihor Kalynets. Sacred symbols fill all four parts of the cycle and are interpreted in a concise connection with the ‘stations’ of the procession of the Ukrainian people, carrying the cross of statelessness. We note the exceptionally successfully found musical system of expression, with which the composer ‘illuminates’ the multifaceted meanings of Ihor Kalinets's poetry as if from within. The dynamism and theatricality of the intonation events in the first part of the Passion, the pictorial iconography of the second part of the Requiem, the architectural rigidity of the third part of the Necropolis culminate in the comprehensiveness of the poetic Word in the finale The Liberated Word, rising to the top – the liberation of the eternal essence, reminiscent of the biblical ‘ In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was God.’