Performative and semantic space of Borys Liatoshynsky’s instrumental expressiveness in the 1920s: sonata for violin and piano (1926)

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Performative and semantic space of Borys Liatoshynsky's instrumental expressiveness in the 1920s: sonata for violin and piano (1926)

Zhang Han Ph.D. Student in the Department of the History of Ukrainian Music and Musical Folklore, Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music

Abstract

The article examines the performance and semantic features of Borys Liatoshynsky's chamber music style, focusing on the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1926), a landmark work of the composer's modern period. Actively inspired by new expressive components consonant with the expressive search of European artists of that time, chamber music became a field for the formation of Liatoshynsky's stylistic discourse aimed at the symphonic expression, exploring the potential of those chamber music expressive means and formative experiments that are later tested in the composition of symphonic works. The principle of symphonicity shapes the corresponding performance and semantic space of instrumental expressiveness. It should be noted that in the Sonata for Violin and Piano, the composer expanded the timbre possibilities of both violin and piano as solo instruments of the chamber ensemble. Several features determine the specificity of the performance drama in this work. Among them, the most crucial role is played by the principles of symphonization, hence the interpretation of the violin and piano parts as original orchestral groups with their timbre and dramatic lines of development, rhythmically complementary layers in the joint image. In the context of the generalized programmatic approach and the specific one-part structure of the sonata, considering these dramatic components is essential, as they largely ensure the perception of the musical content and its compositional logic.

Keywords: the work of Borys Liatoshynsky, symphonism, timbre phonism, sonata for violin and piano, interpretation.

Анотація

ХАНЬЧ.

ВИКОНАВСЬКО-СЕМАНТИЧНИЙ ПРОСТІР ІНСТРУМЕНТАЛЬНОЇ ВИРАЖАЛЬНОСТІ БОРИСА ЛЯТОШИНСЬКОГО 1920-Х (НА ПРИКЛАДІ СОНАТИ ДЛЯ СКРИПКИ І ФОРТЕПІАНО (1926))

У статті розглянуто виконавсько-семантичні особливості камерно-інструментальної стилістики Бориса Лятошинського на прикладі Сонати для скрипки та фортепіано (1926), знакового твору модерного періоду творчості композитора. Активно наснажена новими виражальними компонентами, суголосними з тогочасними пошуками європейських митців, камерна творчість стає полем становлення стильового дискурсу Лятошинського, спрямованого на симфонічність вислову, апробацію у сфері камерно-інструментальних здобутків тих виразових засобів та формотворчих пошуків, що згодом апробуються у написанні симфонічних полотен. Принцип симфонічності формує відповідний виконавсько-семантичний простір інструментальної виражальності. У камерному полі Сонати для скрипки та фортепіано композитору вдалося розширити темброві можливості скрипки і фортепіано як солюючих інструментів камерного ансамблю. Специфіка виконавської драматургії у цьому творі визначається низкою особливостей. Серед них найважливішу роль відіграють принципи симфонізації, а відтак трактування партій скрипки та фортепіано як своєрідних оркестрових груп з їх тембродраматургічними лініями розвитку, ритмічно комплементарних пластів у спільному образотворені. В умовах узагальнено трактованої програмності та специфічної одночастинної структури Сонати врахування цих драматургічних компонентів є важливим, оскільки вони багато в чому забезпечують сприйняття музичного змісту та його композиційної логіки.

Ключові слова: творчість Бориса Лятошинського, симфонізм, темброфонізм, соната для скрипки і фортепіано, інтерпретація.

Introduction

The work of Borys Liatoshynsky, the founder of Ukrainian musical modernism, attracts attention for many reasons. Studying his modern period, inspired by his ap-peal to chamber music, is vital in this context. In these works, the new components of the author's style, which crystallized in the previous period of musical explorations, finally take their shape. Actively inspired by new expressive components consonant with the expressive search of European artists of that time, chamber music became a field for the formation of Liatoshynsky's style discourse aimed at the symphonic expression, exploring the chamber and instrumental potential of those expressive means and formative experiments that are later tested in the composition of symphonic works. The principle of symphonicity shapes the corresponding performance and semantic space of instrumental expressiveness. An analysis of its manifestations and influences on the interpretive space of the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1926) will be the focus of this article.

The Aim of the Paper

The paper aims to explore the performing and semantic field of the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1926), formed under the influence of the principles of symphonicism in the chamber and instrumental works of Borys Liatoshynsky.

The paper's objectives include identifying traditional and innovative manifestations in Borys Liatoshynsky's creative search in the field of chamber music of the 1920s, characterization of the principle of symphonizing a chamber work as a sign of Liatoshynsky's compositional expression, and study of the special features of the performing interpretation of chamber music, focusing on the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1926).

Research Methods

borys liatoshynsky instrumental sonata

In the article, the art historical method revealed the special features of Liatoshynsky's stylistic discourse and manifestations of symphonization in the chamber music style of his ideas of the 1920s. The interpretive approach was used to outline the time-space of the performance versions and their semantic field, inspired by the influences of symphonism.

Among the studies on Borys Liatoshynsky's chamber music, I will draw on the works of Tetiana Homon (2017), Liudmyla Hrysenko (1963), Marianna Kopytsia (2002), Oleksandr Kozarenko (2000), Igor Savchuk (2021), Viktor Samokhvalov (1970), and Iya Tsarevych (1972; 1987).

Results and Discussion

Borys Liatoshynsky's chamber music can be considered both from the musicological scientific standpoint, when the connection of the musical text with various contexts of creative and existential nature is modeled, and from the performing and interpretive perspective, with the singling out of the features of emotional inspiration of the idea, reflected in the phonism and time-spatial deployment of the concept of performance as a special manifestation of the author's principles of symphonizing the genre.

Major changes in the direction of symphonization can be observed in the formation of the components of Liatoshynsky's musical language. Already in the first (mainly piano) samples, we can see “experiments with polyphonization of texture, harmonic constructions, polyrhythm, there is significant musical expressiveness with detailed melody composition of texture lines, appeal to ostinato patterns, and emphasis on the metro-rhythmic principle. Liatoshynsky often complicates the texture using imitative and contrasting polyphony in these miniatures. The formation of modal thinking, characteristic of the master's symphonic achievements, originates in the works of this stage” (Savchuk & Homon, 2019, p. 164). In the melody, there are II and IV low and IV high degrees, as well as halftone melodic and harmonic combinations.

In his chamber music and piano compositions of the 1910s and 1920s, several textural layers are often traced, the bass line is melodized, and subvocal layers are used. Along with this, Liatoshynsky actively develops the traditions of classical harmony of the Romantic period. He actively chromatizes harmony to the point of splitting individual tones in chords, thus achieving dissonance in harmonic constructions, using leit-harmonies, elliptical harmonic comparisons, and modulations to distant keys. As Homon notes, “polylinearity and polyplasticity, horizontal and linear development testify to the growing importance for the composer of the symphonic principle of unfolding the musical fabric towards the complication of the chordal and harmonic language” (Homon, 2017, p. 3).

A gradual complication of the musical language characterizes Borys Liatoshynsky's creative search. As a transition to the work of the 1920s with its innovative experiments, the Mourning Prelude (1920) concentrated on the main semantic features of the next decade's symphonization of chamber music style. Among them, one should note the use of twelve-tone tonality, the composer's conscious departure from tonal completeness, etc. Igor Savchuk notes that the artist's “outstanding disruption of traditional expressiveness occurred in parallel with changes in the artist's worldview. The ideological origins of the inner exaltation of the composer's ideas are evidenced by the layer of his chamber and vocal works of the 1920s; the dynamic exalted expressive limits of the author's expression in his symphonism are striking as a specific attempt to “survive” a laconic idea, where a subtle inner world with its refined contexts makes it possible for a person to survive in a whirlpool of meaningless ideas” (Savchuk, 2021, p. 229).

To trace the beginnings of symphonization in Borys Liatoshynsky's chamber music, I shall turn to an early work, the Romance for Cello and Piano (1913). The Memorial Cabinet Museum has an autograph of this work. The work was published in 2020, with the cello part edited by Viktor Rekalo and the piano part by Tetiana Homon. The romance is written in a romantic salon manner. The composer generously uses triplets and octave doubling of the melody, filling them with simple unchromaticized harmonies. However, the composer sets quite complex interpretive tasks for the performers in the work. Even in his youth, the composer already gravitated toward a rich polyphonic texture, in which one must be able to distinguish the layers of the unfolding musical fabric and subordinate them to a single development. A constant imitative “conversation” with the cello requires the inclusion of subtle articulation and stroke solutions. Artistic taste and a sense of proportion and time are essential, which both performers must agree upon in advance.

Allow me to summarize some of the features of Borys Liatoshynsky's chamber style that are important for the performance of chamber music. His principle of clear structuredness of the work's idea correlates both with the logic of the composer's musical thinking, especially the crystallized graphic form at both the macro and micro levels, and with the very process of formation of musical drama (development, climaxes, recessions, coda). In this context, the task of the performers is to study the author's music in depth, paying attention to the accuracy and logic of the construction of the entire work, the intonational clarity of thematic formations, harmonic content, and its transformation, and the clarity of the author's remarks. At this stage, the performers draw up a conditional scheme for the initial interpretation of the work based on the characteristics derived, which combines the logical processing of the text with their own performance and technical capabilities. This approach should underlie the realization of a convincing chamber stage interpretation of the work.

The question of phonism (sound in a broader context) of the chamber music also reflects the symphonic nature of the composer's thinking. In the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1926), we can trace the so-called intellectual type of forming the idea -- conscious experimentation with form (the sonata appears as a one-part composition in the performance, although the score of the work has certain boundaries of three parts), melodic intonation, harmonic means, etc. At the same time, the so-called intuitive concept of the sonata's performance is essential -- it is a kind of “natural way” that seems to complement the intellectual, experimental content of the master's search, helping to capture its essence. Having studied these parameters of creativity and having realized in detail the external components, there occurs the moment of “merging” the performer's personal feelings with the composer's sound worldview. The stylistic attribution of a work's stage realization is determined by objective and subjective factors: style and time, development of elements of the author's performance style, search for an appropriate background manner with its inherent expressive and technical methods of implementing the work.

It should be added that the composer's work is an indirect reaction to the external conditions of the world in which the artist lives. In a stage interpretation, it is essential to realize these components. Performers need to consider and coordinate with the sonata's intentions the concepts of other works composed by the composer during this period. This gives the interpreter ample opportunity to embody the composer's performing style, rethinking it from the perspective of modern artistic and aesthetic principles of performance.

It is worth analyzing the interpretation of the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1926) by Armen Marjanyan (violin) and Iya Tsarevych (piano). Several essential factors are combined in this version. First, Iya Tsarevych was brought up in the family of Borys and Marharyta Tsarevych and actively observed the process of writing and performing of Borys Liatoshynsky's works. That is why this interpretation carries the best possible approximation to the author's idea and, as a result, is quite close to realizing the author's intent. In addition, the pianist performed virtually the entire chamber music oeuvre of the composer. In her interpretation of Liatoshynsky's works, the pianist “accurately reproduced all the author's remarks and notes. And although she never practiced the piano in the presence of Borys Mykolaiovych and he, according to her recollections, did not comment on her playing, and he never made any comments after the pianist performed his work” (Homon & Savchuk, 2013, p. 165). This allowed her to experience the chamber music ideas of the Ukrainian modernist composer at the ideological and semantic levels.

The interpreters of Liatoshynsky's sonata set a complex task of recreating the composer's idea: the conflict of drama, the scale of the concept, emotional intensity, richness of musical images, the introduction of the sound idea of symphonizing the genre with attention to the logic of the formation of the main structural components of the sonata's idea.

The first movement, which sounds courageous, alternately reproduces the thematic work's graphic curve, laconically outlining the central part's undulating and improvisational development. All technical means are aimed at creating a tense, dramatic image. Hence, the rhythm is changeable and subordinate to melodic intonation. The performers realize the author's idea of an innovative interpretation of the ensemble's instruments, re-emphasizing their functions. In their interpretation, the piano part has a significant background. Here, several layers of symphonic musical development are formed, interdeveloped, and contrasted. Starting from the late romantic piano school of the twentieth century, the pianist creates her background sound of the instrument, aimed at a deep reading of the composer's chamber music style, large-scale in its embodiment, and emotionally dramatic in its symbolic and semantic saturation.

In the interpretation of Armen Marjanian and Iya Tsarevych, rhythm has an active internal potency. From the opening bars, there is a strong and salient impulse towards active dramatic development (the violin part and syncopated shifts in the piano part). The performers focus on the energy-intensive structure of a gradual rhythmic variation of thematic formations -- thickening the texture, revealing and showing heterogeneous main intonation structures. Interpreters use the intonations of the central theme, which appear from time to time in the overall dramatic development of the work, to weave the musical canvas closely. These intonational thematic formations are interpreted throughout the work with considerable similarity in the choice of performance means -- the constancy and immutability of the stroke scale, touches, a similar manner of intonation, and the power of sound. Thanks to this, in their interpretation, the work sounds like a single structure, reinforcing the author's idea of the one-part and cross-cutting development of the concept.

The side part sounds quite concentrated and complete. The performers start from the author's idea of the wave-like development of the musical fabric. The dynamic scale of this development is built in the performance: рр-тр-р-рр. In this interpretation, the development, which begins with the prominent core of the central theme in the piano part, acquires dramatic and exalted features. Armen Marjanian and Iya Tsarevych's interpretation of the sonata is a symphonized development, where the violin and piano carry the load of several symphonic layers. The performers emphasize the author's general pauses, fragmenting the formative structures. Further rhythmic fragmentation of thematic nodes using sequential development leads to a change of tempo (Россо meno mosso) and at the level of the performer's intention -- to the expansion of the boundaries of sound, revealing the episode's tragic features. The canon (Рій mosso. Smanioso) is interpreted in a compressed and poignant way.

The idea of timbre phonism as sound symbolization becomes the dramatic core of the sonata and an essential component of the performers' artistic method. For the musicians, it is a basic principle of dramatic performance of which they are well aware and which allows them to unfold a variety of differentiated moods in their opposition and interpenetration in the musical form's development through time.

The performers endow the central theme of the development with dramatic character. The intonational core is developed: the violinist actively engages with the theme, while the piano part focuses on the chordal syncopated thickening, accentuated by pauses. The side part is interpreted as a pre-culminating digression: the pianist's coloristic saturation of the musical fabric (we observe a new presentation of the theme: the graphic lines are constant, but a new figurative color is achieved).

There is one more crucial regularity of the author's intention, which is vividly embodied in the proposed performance of the sonata. In the score of the sonata, the dynamics is built up through harmonic means; the climax is interrupted by unexpected dynamic contrasts; in the performance by Armen Marjanian and Iya Tsarevych, the structural patterns are shaded by harmonic shifts with a constant dynamic unfolding of the texture, which leads to the interruption of the climax. There is “stage exaggeration”: on the one hand, the author's idea of a large-scale interpretation of the work is reproduced; on the other, the traditions of the late romantic piano school, where all elements of the texture must be expressed and intoned, play a meaningful role.

In the performance of the second movement, special attention is granted to ostinato patterns. This phenomenon is interpreted in terms of complex polyphonic layering. The violin's ostinato as an intonational and graphic model (a manifestation of the idea of timbre phonism) is also found in other works by Borys Liatoshynsky. This is the embodiment of the image of death (Mavra's cry from The Golden Crown opera, the chorus to Taras Shevchenko's poetry “The Sun Rises from Behind the Mountain,” the theme from the second part of the Ukrainian Quintet). The main symbolic characteristic of the performance of the second part is contemplation and detachment. Listening, one gets the impression of improvisation: the piano and the violin seem immersed in a timbre game, alternately playing the central theme with overall tranquility.

The cross-cutting development of the exposition of the finale (the author's sign of symphonization of the chamber genre) is vividly reproduced by the performers with the help of the sharpening of the syncopated rhythm, intonation compression, and the interpretation of the performance in large thematic formations. The interpreters' dynamic approach to the musical fabric, emphasizing its elaboration, leads to the climax. This is achieved by rhythmic thickening, texture compaction in the piano performance, and the violin's provocative sound. The finale in Armen Marjanian and Iya Tsarevych's interpretation embodies “romantic sublimity and even a certain patheticism characteristic of the music of the main part” (Tsarevych, 1972, p. 116). Integrally reproducing the author's idea of uniting the parts into a single synthetic form, the performers inject a dramatic resolution into the coda, built on a monothematic core, thus attempting to create a dramatic and thematic arc of the entire sonata.

Conclusions

It should be noted that in the Sonata for Violin and Piano, Borys Liatoshynsky managed to create a full-fledged, dramatically rich canvas with the help of various orchestral means. The composer expanded the timbre possibilities of both the violin and the piano as solo instruments of the chamber ensemble. Several features determine the nature of the performance drama in this work. Among them, the most crucial role is played by the principles of symphonization, hence the interpretation of the violin and piano parts as original orchestral groups with their timbre and dramatic lines of development, rhythmically complementary layers in the joint image. In the context of the generalized programmatic approach and the specific one-part structure of the sonata, considering these dramatic components is essential, as they largely ensure the perception of the music and its compositional logic.

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