THE GENRE OF ARRANGEMENT OF UKRAINIAN FOLK MELODIES IN THE PIANO WORKS OF VASYL BEZKOROVAINYI

Abstract

The article is devoted to the piano heritage of Vasyl Bezkorovainyi, a composer, conductor, music and public figure, pianist-accompanist, whose work and creativity are forgotten and little known in Ukrainian musical culture. He was an active figure in the musical life of Galicia, founding music schools, choirs, and orchestras. Subsequently, since 1948, he worked fruitfully to popularize Ukrainian music among the postwar Ukrainian emigration to the United States. The article briefly discusses the need to revive the artist’s multi-genre heritage, which has come down to us in manuscript form in more than 360 works. The article describes the way Vasyl Bezkorovainyi’s archive was returned to his homeland, preserved and organized by his daughter Neonila and brought to Ukraine by her husband Yevhen Stetskiv. At the initiative of the composer’s relatives, Natalia and Bohdan Bezkorovainy, 2 volumes of the composer’s piano works were published in 2020. Among the one hundred and sixteen piano opuses, a significant part is occupied by the genre of arrangements of folk songs and samples of the calendar and ritual cycle. The selected exemplary pieces demonstrate a wide range of genre interests of the artist, and the studied musical, expressive, architectonic features reveal the stylistic foundations of Vasyl Bezkorovainyi’s piano heritage. It is noted that the piano compositions have artistic and pedagogical value. On the example of the analysis of a number of arrangements of folk songs and calendar and ritual samples, it is demonstrated how nationally specific expressive means and traditional European harmonic turns of the romantic direction form the linguistic and stylistic phenomenon of the artist. It is noted that for the composer, when working on folk melodies, it is not simplicity or complexity that is important, but compliance with the spirit of the folk song, the need to leave its harmonic, intonational and metrical basis intact. In terms of formation, we note national models and methods of developing thematic material based on the variant principle, improvisation, and the regulatory nature of structural constructions. Most of the compositions are dominated by two- and three-part forms. In the palette of stylistic features and linguistic expressive means, we observe a synthesis of the harmonic, harmonic, metrical principles of European music and the peculiarities of Ukrainian folklore, with the dominance of the latter.