Yakut Choral Society: Problems of revival in modern social-cultural conditions

В данной статье рассматривается история развития хорового исполнительства в Якутии, становление Якутского хорового общества – республиканского отделения Всероссийского хорового общества (ВХО, обосновывается актуальность этого значимого для Якутии явления музыкальной культуры. Очерчены основные вехи в развитии данного общества. Автор статьи представляет изучаемый объект как значимое явление в культурной жизни республики, прослеживая его развитие на протяжении более полувека, начиная с 1958 г. Благодаря деятельности Якутского отделения Всероссийского хорового общества хоровым движением было охвачено практически всё население Якутии. Благодаря сотрудничеству с якутскими композиторами, хоровая музыка стала популярной на уровне трудовых коллективов республики тех лет. Показана роль руководителей регионального отделения разного периода времени – Г.Ф. Таныгина, Ф.А. Баишевой, Л.Е. Архиповой и др. Смена политического строя в стране не лучшим образом отразилась на развитии хорового дела в стране и в республике, в частности, Всероссийское хоровое общество и его региональные отделения перестали существовать, несмотря на его реорганизацию в 1987 г. в Музыкальное общество. В статье впервые описано время, начиная с 2013 г., когда происходило восстановление Якутского отделения Всероссийского хорового общества. Необходимость его возрождения стала очевидной в виду возросшего спроса на организацию хорового дела как массового явления культуры якутского общества. В статье представлены важнейшие мероприятия, проведенные Якутским отделением ВХО, охарактеризованы крупные достижения за последние годы, проанализированы основные проблемы, стоящие перед организацией в переходный восстановительный период, а именно – улучшение финансирования, подготовка кадров. The article is devoted to the study of choral performance in Yakutia, the formation of the Yakut Choral Society, the regional branch of the All-Russian Choral Society. The relevance of this significant for Yakutia phenomenon of musical culture is substantiated. The main milestones in the development of the society are outlined. The author of the article presents the object under study as a significant phenomenon in the cultural life of the republic for more than half a century, starting in 1958. Thanks to the activities of the Yakut branch of the All-Russian Higher Education, the choral movement covered almost the entire population of Yakutia. Thanks to cooperation with Yakut composers, choral music became popular even among teams of co-workers. The role of the leaders of the regional branch – G.F. Tanygin, F.A. Baisheva, L.E. Arkhipova, and others – is shown. The changes in the political system in the country had a detrimental effect on the development of choral art in the country and in the republic, in particular. The RCS and its regional branches ceased to exist despite the attempts to reorganize it in 1987 into the Musical Society. For the first time, the article shows the difficult time when the restoration of the RCS in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) took place, starting in 2013. The need for revival became obvious in view of the increased demand for the organization of choral work as a mass phenomenon of the culture of society. The most important events carried out by the Yakutsk branch of the RCS are presented and the major achievements in recent years are characterized. At the same time, the main problems facing the organization in the transitional recovery period are analyzed: improving funding and training.

THE DYNAMICS OF CHORAL CULTURE DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA IN THE 1930S ON THE EXAMPLE OF HUANG TZI’S ORATORIO ETERNAL REGRET

Choral music in China is a dynamically developing form of contemporary musical art. Scientific works devoted to the Chinese choral culture consider the 1930s of the 20th century as the most productive period in the development of this branch of musical creativity. The article examines the phase of the active entry of Chinese choral music into the sphere of the oratorio genre, which is directly related to the name of the great Chinese composer — Huang Tzi. It also highlights the issues of the country’s political life in the 1930s, which actively influenced the creation of nationwide singing movements and new choral works in the country. The oratorio genre, the genesis of which refers us to the European religious musical tradition of the 17th century, spread in China owing to the massive flow of Chinese intelligentsia to the territory of Western states throughout the entire beginning of the 20th century. In the article, the actualisation of the oratorio and its interpretation in a new light is presented as the merit of Huang Tzi, whose civic position was directly related to the desire to preserve ethnic origins in Chinese music and to complement them with Western composing techniques organically. Having proved himself not only as a composer but also as a theorist and teacher, Huang Tzi devoted most of his life to educating a large number of music professors, initiating a progressive approach to music education. His desire to raise the level of the composing school in China made it possible to enrich the repertoire of vocal and instrumental music with characteristics of the folk style. The oratorio Eternal Regret presented in the article is a unique creation that organically combines ethnic music and Western composition techniques. In the story of Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Guifei (to the poems of Tang poet Bai Juyi), taken by the composer as the theme for the libretto, there is certain symbolism that has the conceptual plan of addressing the power to demonstrate the alleged results of Kuomintang’s unclear policy. Thus, directly related to political cataclysms and their final embodiment in the form of the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), the oratorio Eternal Regret is presented in the article as a consolidating core that inspired the civilian masses to fight the Japanese invaders. The analysis of Bai Juyi’s original poem “Eternal Regret” and a fragmentary historical-stylistic and vocal-choral analysis of the oratorio have been carried out. The artistic features of individual parts of the oratorio, seven of which were completed by the composer, are revealed. Based on literary sources and theoretical research presented in the article, the author asserts the special role of the oratorio Eternal Regret in history and its far-reaching influence on the prospects for the development of the Chinese choir.

Singing Festivities in the Russian Empire at the Turn of the 19th–20th Centuries

The article tells about the song celebrations in the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. Starting with the Baltic Germans in the late 1850s, the festivities gradually spread to all the western provinces of the country — Estonia, Livonia, Courland, Finland; then they began to settle in Russian territories. The festivities contributed to the rise of the national movement in the regions, and had a beneficial effect on creativity and performance. The first festivity of Russian song took place in Pskov (1911), in subsequent years, song festivities among the Russian population were held in the town of Bela, Sedletskaya Province, (1912) and in Zamoć in the Kholmsk region (1913). A certain algorithm for holding the festivities was worked out: on the first day, sacred music sounded, on the second — secular choral music, on the third day — a competition of groups. The singing festivities were timed to coincide with events of state or provincial importance. Thanks to the singing festivals, various types of arts (music, architecture, theater, literature, music printing) received an impetus for development. Singing festivals enlightened the people, gave the necessary vector to leisure, directing it towards amateur music-making or theatrical activity. The pre-revolutionary tradition, interrupted after 1917, began to actively revive from the 70s of the twentieth century, and it is developing today.

The Symbolism of the Caravaca Cross in the Work “Crux Christi Salva Nos” by Szymon Godziemba-Trytek

Relevance of the study. The author’s commentary of Szymon Godziemba-Trytek concerns the role of sacred symbol in his work “Crux Christi Salva Nos” for mixed choir, soloists, horns, double basses and percussion (2017). This study for the first time acquaints the Ukrainian audience with the creativity of a modern Polish composer, who fruitfully works in the field of symphonic, chamber, and especially vocal and choral music. Main Objective of the article is to show the author’s way of interpreting sacred symbols in the composition and drama of his work; to reveal the role of a symbol as a tool for integrating a composition into an intercultural context that arises on the basis of musical and extra-musical listening experience. Methodology/How the study was done. The empirical and analytical methods used in the research reflect the two sides of the author’s activity — he is a composer and a scientist. From the Christian symbol of Caravaca Cross that inspired him — to the compositional idea and its implementation in sounds: these are the stages of the creative process described in the article. Results/Findings and Conclusions. The composition of the work «Crux Christi Salva Nos» was determined by two aspects of the European Christian symbol Caravaca Cross — its graphics and the history of its existence in culture. The external feature of the Caravaca Cross is the mnemonic signs applied to its surface, they fix the sequence of prayer lines. The sequence of the placement of these signs forms the architectonics of Godziemba-Trytek’s musical work. The symmetry in the arrangement of the signs corresponds to the symmetry of the music composition. In the history of the existence of Caravaca Cross in European culture, the composer is most attracted by the emergence of various religious cults associated with it. They origins often are in folklore. Reflections on the process of acceptance of theological ideas among the people led the composer to some decisions in the field of drama, performing resources, stylistics. Specially, composer use the text of the Polish traditional Lent Song as the epilogue of his work. This epilogue becomes the quiet climax of the composition. The choir’s location and the way haw it is used in the work are also symbolic: within each subsequent movement, the choir is situated closer to the listener. Stylistic means reflect the idea of giving the dogmas of faith a human dimension.

Features of Cadences in Vocal and Choral Music of the Seventeenth Century (on the Example of Giovanni Palestrina’s Motets)

The relevance of the study. The traditional idea of a cadence as a primarily harmonic phenomenon does not completely correspond to some musical styles, including Renaissance and early Baroque. Revealing the polyphonic essence of cadences in vocal works of the Renaissance, which is the aim of the article, allows deeper understanding peculiarities of musical thinking of that period. Scientific novelty. The historical approach to the analysis of cadences is quite common in foreign musicological works; this approach is still new for Ukrainian musicology. The research material is also new: the cycle of motets by G. Palestrina on the text of “Song of Songs” was unfairly ignored by Ukrainian and foreign scholars. Thus, the study is relevant both in relation to the method and in relation to the musical material involved in its approbation. The purpose of the article is to show the specifics of cadences in the style of a strict counterpoint using the motets from the cycle “Canticum Canticorum” by G. Palestrina, to reveal the role of cadences in the modal and compositional processes of a Renaissance work. Research methods. The study systematizes the data obtained as a result of the analysis of the cadences of G. Palestrina’s motets, thus, the main research method is inductive. The main results and conclusions of the study. Cadences in vocal polyphony of the Renaissance have a polymelodic nature, which is realized by combining typical melodic turns (clausulae) in different voices. The clausulae order in the voices and their completeness degree are effective criteria for the classification of cadences (e. g. the classification by E. Rotem). Cadences in which the main clausulae are presented in full (i. e. contain ultima and penultima) are strong. Cadences in which one or more clausulae are incomplete are weak. The role of strong and weak cadences in the composition is different: strong cadences are placed at the nodal points of the piece, they have a dividing function; weak cadences are placed in the middle of the text line and they have a connecting function. Strong cadences are the norm, while weak ones violate the norm, revealing the author’s ingenuity. There are a few ways to weaken the cadence: replacing the ultima with a pause or a different sound, distributing the clausula between several voices, extending the melodic line of one of the cadence voices, etc. Weak cadences significantly outnumber strong cadences. In the Dorian motets from the cycle “Song of Songs” by G. Palestrina weak cadences play an important role in the formation of the mode within the sound scale, as well as in revealing the meaning of the verbal text.

Verbal-textual polyphonic technique in the Ukrainian choral music (on the example of music on Taras Shevchenko’s poetry)

Relevance of the study. In the 20th–21st centuries, searches in the field of sonoristics led to an unconventional interpretation of the sound of musical instruments and the human voice. As a result, contemporary composers are actively experimenting with vocal performance techniques. The timbresonorous quality of speech contributes to the emergence of new polyphonic techniques. The use of verbal-textual polyphonic techniques in the music of modern Ukrainian composers is becoming more and more widespread. This explains the relevance of this study. The scientific basis of the article is the insufficiently studied concept of verbal-textual polyphony by I. B. Pyaskovsky. Main objective of the study. The objective of this study is to examine the existing manifestations of verbal-textual polyphonic technique in Ukrainian choral music a cappella on the example of works based on the texts of the poetic cycle “Psalms of David” by T. Shevchenko. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the work is the first to consider verbal-textual polyphonic techniques in the works of Ukrainian composers on the texts of “Psalms of David” by T. Shevchenko. Methodology. The following methods of research are used: versioning (analysis of the versification features of the original poetic source), semantic (interpretation of the semantic content of the musical expressiveness means, their correlation with the text), typological (based on classification of the varieties of the studied technique). Results and conclusions. The main feature of verbal textual polyphony is the phonic interpretation of speech. This type of polyphonic technique is manifested in the work with text phonemes and syntagmas, which, as a rule, have intonation-rhythmic design. The prerequisites for this type of polyphony in musical works based on the texts of T. Shevchenko are the musicality of his poetry, as well as a specific rhythmic organization — the so-called 14-syllabic kolomijka verse. All examples of this writing technique can be divided into two groups, depending on the compositional work at the phonemic or syntagmatic levels. Phonemic compositional work is carried out by segmentation, vocal accentuation and temporal extension of the sound of the syllable. Work at the syntagmatic level is embodied using the following techniques: simultaneous multi-rhythmic presentation of the same text, text imitation, ostinato, polyphonic techniques of vocal intonation on a verbal and extra-musical basis. The analysis carried out indicates that the polyphonic technique in the studied works of Ukrainian composers is formed taking into account the versification features of the Shevchenko's poetry. The results of these observations can be used in the study of the manifestations of verbal textual polyphony in vocal-choral works on a different text basis

The creative activity of the choir class of Ivano-Frankivsk Vocational Music College named after Denys Sichynskyi

The purpose of the article. To reveal the principles of professional growth of the choir class of Ivano-Frankivsk Vocational Music College named after Denis Sichinsky through the prism of conducting its leaders. Outline the repertoire findings and concert and festival achievements of the group. The methodology consists in the implementation of a system-chronological approach in the analysis of individual pages of the team's activities, first published personal archival materials of the author. It is also possible to use a scientific method to combine and adjust new and previously obtained results, thus tracing the process of professionalization of the college choir for more than 80 years of existence. The scientific novelty is to trace and highlight the stages of the creative practice of the choir class. For the first time, an attempt was made to characterize the activities of the teaching staff of the college from its founding to the present day, which allows us to recreate a holistic picture of its artistic development. Conclusions. For a long time the choir class of the college was headed by famous choirmasters, thanks to whom creative youth has the opportunity to form professionally and popularize samples of the world and Ukrainian choral music in the region, different parts of Ukraine, and abroad. The basis of the choir's repertoire consists of works of various genres and styles, but the uniqueness of the ensemble's funds lies in the sound of D. Sichynsky's choral heritage. Thus, in the cultural process of Prykarpattia and Ukraine, the student academic choir, as a participant in the educational process and a unique concert unit of the region, has an important role.

Transcending the Past: Singing and the Lingering Cold War in the Korean Christian Diaspora

Protestant music in South Korea has received little attention in ethnomusicology despite the fact that Protestant Christianity was one of the most popular religions in twentieth-century Korea. This has meant a missed opportunity to consider the musical impact of a religious institution that mediated translocal experiences between South Korea and the United States during the Cold War period (1950s–1980s). This article explores the politics of music style in South Korean diasporic churches through an ethnography of a church choir in California. I document these singers’ preference for European-style choral music over neotraditional pieces that incorporate the aesthetics of suffering from certain Korean traditional genres. I argue that their musical judgement must be understood in the context of their lived and remembered experience of power inequalities between the United States and South Korea. Based on my interviews with the singers, I show that they understand hymns and related Euro-American genres as healing practices that helped them overcome a difficult past and hear traditional vocal music as sonic icons of Korea's sad past. The article outlines a pervasive South Korean/Korean diasporic historical consciousness that challenges easy conceptions of identity and agency in music studies.

Teaching Italian Romanticism through Philately and Choral Works

Philately and choral works can be excellent integrative pedagogical tools when teaching Italian Romanticism at undergraduate level. In the classroom, postage stamps provide an historical narrative for students and can help clarify the political, artistic, and cultural mood of the time. The intrinsic symbolism of stamps represents the way a nation wants to be seen by the rest of the world. Instrumental and choral music, in their infinite combination of tones, blend sound with sung words, creating an artistic subtext that reveals the complexity and variety of human aesthetic expression. For the current generation of students accustomed to visual and auditory learning tools, classroom realia and a multidisciplinary approach to Italian Romantic literature enhance peer discussions, and encourage students to explore and value the development of human thought in all of its non-linear manifestations.

Musical Shevchenkiana of Yevhen Stankovych: Interpretation of the Poetical Word in the Oratory “Taras Passions”

The relevance of the article is to consider a new perspective of genre transformation in the Ukrainian oratorio of the 21st century, studied in the aspect of the relationship between poetic text and music. The work of Yevhen Stankovуch seems to be the pinnacle of the evolution of passions, during which textual interpolations changed and creatively renewed the genre canon. Despite the significant cultural and social resonance of the oratorio Taras Passion, its creative discoveries have not found coverage in scientific discourse yet. Main objectives of the study are to investigate the methods of conceptualizing the poetic word of Taras Shevchenko in the musical language of Y. Stankovуch’s oratorio and to reveal the genre innovations of the work. Such perspectives of analysis outline the boundaries of the novelty of this article. The research methodology is based on the methods of historical, cultural, phenomenological analysis. Their involvement is justified by the complex nature of the scientific problems of the article. Historical method reveals the general content and artistic specificity of the selected segment of Ukrainian musical history; culturological method focuses research on the different types of genres literary, artistic and musical culture; phenomenological method provides the study of certain conceptual contours and promotes the semantic differentiation involved in the analysis of multilevel cultural and artistic phenomena. Results and conclusions. The features of the uniqueness of modern oratorio opuses with the title “Passion” are determined. The ways of conceptualizing the poetic word in the choral music by Yevhen Stankovych are revealed: they are determined by the process that is able to combine various elements of Ukrainian ethnic culture as well as spiritual and religious traditions. The figurative and ideological concepts of word and music are subordinated to the main principles of the Ukrainian mentality (cordocentrism (philosophy of the heart), sacrifice and chivalry). The multidimensionality of the semantic field of Taras Shevchenko’s poetry is noted, as a result of which the real characters of the national liberation history are endowed with an aura of holiness like biblical persons. The gallery of various images of Y. Stankovych’s oratorio synthesizes the peculiarities of the national worldview and the evangelical virtues. In the pantheon of images of holy martyrs, sung in music, the composer places the image of T. Shevchenko. It is indicated that the story of the last days of the earthly life of the St. Virgin, the Prophet, Jan Hus is of particular importance. The principles of selecting fragments of T. Shevchenko’s poems for the libretto of the oratorio directly correspond to the genre canons of passions. The author defines the peculiarities of the composer’s interpretation of the personality of T. Shevchenko the poet as a prophet, patriot, bearer of the sacred Word, an ardent preacher of the ideas of spirituality, a bright exponent of the ethical position and spiritual tradition of the ethnos. At the same time, he acts as the narrator of the oratorio. The prerequisites for the transformation of the genre structure of the work of Y. Stankovych in the context of inheritance of the methods of text interpolation, up to their radical rethinking, are considered. The correspondence of the compositional and structural norms of sacred utterance in the poetry of T. Shevchenko and in the music of Y. Stankovych has been proved. It is indicated that the text genres of prayer, biblical epigraphs, retellings of passionate subjects, Church Slavonic archaic vocabulary of verses are revealed by the composer in the corresponding musical genres (znamenny chant, chorale, hymn, bellringing) and in the parameters of the expressive style. It is indicated that the drama of T. Shevchenko’s poetic style directly corresponds to the immanent qualities of a composer-symphonist and is realized by the orchestral parameter.