CHORAL ARRANGEMENTS OF UKRAINIAN RELIGIOUS KANTOS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

In this article deals with little studied phenomenon in the Ukrainian choral music – choral arrangements of religious cants at the beginning of the 20th century. The article noted that the arrangements of religious cants emerged only at the beginning of the 20th century. The stimulus for the rise of this phenomenon were, firstly, the common cultural events in Ukraine in the second half of the 19th century when society developed an interest in folk art and Ukrainian peasant song began to be seen as an outstanding artistic phenomenon, even as a particularly important element of national culture. At this time drawn attention to the specific phenomenon of Ukrainian kobzar’s art3, which was an important factor in singing old Ukrainian cants (psalmos) by kobzars, and more – lyrist4, whose work focused on this aspect of their religious (and paraliturgical) work. Second, the creation of choral arrangements of Ukrainian cants preceded specific event – the publication of the famous Ukrainian folklorist Porphyry Demutsky "Lyra and her motives" in 1903. The article emphasizes that religious chants considered in domestic scientific literature mainly as many voices choral song of Baroque or as a solo tune performed lira Ukrainian lyrists in the 19th century. As for arrangements religious cants at the beginning of the 20th century, they are present in a circulation research is not enough. Unfortunately, because these choral arrangements perform a dual function. On the one hand, they are choral works, a sort of choral pieces, sometimes with fairly spreading form that brings them to the great choral form. On the other hand, they have relevance to the creation of the church as a choir paraliturgical so they can be considered in the plane of church choral works. In the analytical section of article describes the features of musical structure and the use of musical expression in cant’s arrangements. In particular, notes that the composers, referring to the genre, using their own criteria that were inherent in their personal individual style. Therefore, in arrangements of cants you can see the different structure works. There are simple couplet constructs. They are more relevant to simple harmonization folk songs (most likely, they were made by church regents what adapted them to the capabilities of their choirs). Next are more complex couplet-variation constructs that resemble professional reminiscent of folk songs Ukrainian classical composers: M. Lysenko, M. Leontovytch, K. Stetsenko, Ya. Yatsynevych and others (except for the cants, this type of arrangement is in the arrangements of melody of carols). A few, but the most interesting part is multipart arrangements, in the type of poem that brings these works to large constructions such the church choir concerts. These works were created by professional composers would fill the niche that remained in the church after extracting from their repertoire the music of church concerts. This process began, but it was interrupted by force through the repression that took place in the communist country against church ideology. At the end of the article, talking about the arrangement of choral religious cants constitute a special genre of choral art for their music features and they have considerable promise for use in scientific, pedagogical and executive turnover.