“Image of the Beloved” by Mykhail Verikivsky in the context of the problem of chamber-vocal cyclicity

Abstract

The article examines the vocal cycle “The Image of the Beloved” by Mykhailo Verikyvskyi in the context of the problem of chamber-vocal cyclicity. It is emphasized that during the 1940s of the 20th century, the composer created a significant number of vocal compositions. The lyrical cycle for voice and piano “The Image of the beloved” for a high male voice based on a poem by P. Grabovsky was completed in 1944. The purpose of the article is a musictheoretical analysis of the vocal cycle “The Image of the Beloved” by Mykhailo Verikyvskyi in the context of the problem of chamber-vocal cyclicity. To carry out a music-theoretical analysis of the vocal cycle “The Image of the Beloved” by Mykhailo Verikyvskyi in the context of the problem of chamber-vocal cyclicity, we used analytical methods (musical-textual, intonation, harmonic, genre, hermeneutic analysis), which allowed us to generalize the system of stylistic features of the work, and also reveal the peculiarities of cyclicity as an aesthetic value of the composer’s work. A musical-theoretical analysis of each of the four romances of the cycle was carried out. No. 1 “You” (based on the poem “To N.K.S.”) opens the cycle, is a bright, elegiac portrait of a beloved. No. 2 “Everything to you” (to the poem “As long as the sun, as long as the world...”) reproduces a confusing, passionate image of love. No. 3 “A heavy premonition” (based on the poem “Holy soul prayed...”) represents a sharp emotional contrast, imbued with an anxious gloomy mood, a foreboding of an imminent separation from the beloved. No. 4 “You’re dead” (based on the poem “You’re dead, the dawn is clear...”) is the tragic ending of the cycle. The plot basis of the cycle is the hero’s understanding of the various stages of love: meetings with the beloved, singing of the joy of love, premonitions of separation, the death of the beloved – mourning and the pain of eternal separation. It is proven that the general storyline reproduces various shades of the tragic love of the hero, following a single through line of figurative and dramaturgical unfolding. The composer carefully follows the poetic text, flexibly reflects its semantic accents by means of musical expressiveness, flexibly applies sudden switching of the development of the action to a new figurative plane, from cantilene intonation to declamatory intonation and back to detail the reproduction of the poetic text. The romances included in the cycle are characterized by a high level of artistic generalization. Various facets of lyrical and lyrical-dramatic expression are conveyed by means of the composer’s individual style. Generalized opinions regarding the compositional and dramaturgical integrity of the cycle; features of the melody as a carrier of the lyric, harmony as the most expressive means of reproduction of the composer’s musical thinking; ladotonal, textural, form-forming features of cyclization. The prospects of further scientific research in the study of the peculiarities of cyclization in the vocal cycles of Mykhailo Verikivskyi “Three romances” on the poem Yu. Slovacky, “From Modern Greek Lyrics” on the poem N. Vrettanos, “Songs of Sappho” on the poem Sappho in trans. I. Franko in order to observe the evolution of this phenomenon in the composer’s subsequent work.