Interpretation of chamber vocal music in Modern (Secession) style as a problem of music teachers training process

Abstract

Based on the methodological foundations of the principles of art aesthetics and poetics, the theory of art style and the hermeneutic approach, the authors analyze the art style of Modern (Art Nouveau, Secession) in order to identify the possibilities of its mastering by future music teachers in the process of interpretive activity. It has been established that there are two fundamentally different approaches to interpreting the term “Modern”. According to the first, Modern is understood as the state of European art of the “Fin de siècle” (or “decadence”) era, which is represented by many stylistic trends, movements and personal manners (Pre-Raphaelites, Symbolists, Impressionists, etc.). At the same time, some researchers consider Modern to be the first historical stage of the subsequent long era of modernism. According to another interpretation, Modern is a style that manifests itself in various types of art and is characterized by a complex of formal and substantive individualtypical properties. This point of view has a fairly convincing justification when it comes to architecture, fine and applied arts. It is much more difficult to determine the relevant features of the Modern style in music. Nevertheless, attempts to outline the formal and semantic features of the Modern (or Secession, or Art Nouveau) style indicate the presence of objective psychological grounds for such research intentions. According to the authors of the article, Modern (Secession, Art Nouveau) can be interpreted both as a historical category and as a specific style. Such a “stereoscopic” and tolerant understanding of this concept should be formed in future musical art teachers in the process of higher pedagogical education Important educational tasks of a musical art teacher are verbal and musical-performing interpretation of art works. In solving the complex task of interpreting Modern (Secession) works, a teacher can be guided by the following provisions formulated by the authors of the article: 1. Modern (Secession) works are aimed at awakening in the percipient a vivid hedonistic experience, a feeling of pleasure from the perception and comprehension of form. This specific “formalism” requires the performer to pay great attention to the sound quality of the musical composition, to all the beautiful details and properties of the form. 2. Modern works are most often easily perceived by the general public. At the same time, many of them are designed for the aristocratically refined, experienced, qualified listener who is able to understand symbolic meanings of the form that are not “on the surface”. Therefore, the modernism artistic artifacts require the teacher-interpreter to be familiar with a large thesaurus of cultural symbols (mythological, religious, ideological, literary, artistic), the ability to understand and explain the symbolic meaning in words and to implement this understanding in musical performance. 3. The musical form of Modern (Secession) works requires special attention from the interpreter to such properties of form and content as: a) the pure quality of the sound material (timbredynamic, register, articulation means, color of consonances); b) expressive flexibility, patternedness, ornamentation of melodic lines; c) clear and rich dynamic, articulation, tempo and timbre nuances. 4. Modern artistic works are often associated with national folklore. In such cases, the performer’s correct decision will be to emphasize the aesthetic prerequisites of the composer’s appeal to ethnic-national elements. For example, authentic intonation can be used. A justified approach to interpretation is to demonstrate the conventionality of the stylistic embodiment of ethnic-national material. 5. In the performance of modern works, especially vocal music, one should strive for the synergy of all expressive means, their combination in a holistic image of the artistic act. We are talking about the synergy of musical intonation and acting expressive means – prosody of verbal speech, facial expressions, body movement, clothing, hairstyle, makeup. The performer should appear before the audience not in the image of a teacher demonstrating educational material to students, and not in the image of an artist-performer, but in the role of a typical representative of the creative intelligentsia of the era of decadence, an aristocrat of the spirit, a refined stylist, a master of artistic mystification.