The ontogenesis of the early symphonies of Valentyn Silvestrov

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The ontogenesis of the early symphonies of Valentyn Silvestrov

Shchelkanova Svitlana,

Purpose of Research. The purpose of the research is to detect the ontogenesis of the symphonic compositions in the early creativity of Valentyn Silvestrov. The author uses the Second, Third, and the Fourth Symphonies as examples and consideres their compositional dramaturgy within the historical-stylistic genesis of a Ukrainian symphony. Methodology. The methodology of the research is based on the ontological, historical-typological, and structural-functional methods. Also the structural-semiotic approach and the method of hermeneutics were applied. Scientific Novelty. The scientific novelty of the study lies in discovering new ways of interpretation of the historical- stylistic genesis of a Ukrainian symphony and symphonism of the latter part of the 20th century using Valentyn Silvestrov's early symphonic creativity as an example. Nonuniformity, detected in compositional-dramaturgic models of the Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies points at different vectors and ways in overcoming a typological standardization. Thus, the analysis of the genre concept of the Second Symphony identifies being as a sound reality (de natura sonores), a contonative dramaturgy, a refusal from the anthropocentric model of a symphony. First a compositional-dramaturgic analysis of the Third Symphony has been carried out. The latter pronounces historism as a type of consciousness (homo historicus) and a category of time as a basic category. A word serves as a structureforming principle in this symphony. The intonational-dramaturgic analysis of the Fourth Symphony detects key features of a reflexive monodrama (homo credens) coming from an alteration of the nature of a dramatic conflict based on the inner self-movement of music's lyric consciousness. Conclusions. The ontogenesis of V. Silvestrov's early symphonies is based on the author's inner speech and manifests itself on the level of different compositional-dramaturgic models. It presumes a change of the paradigm and reconsideration of the historical-typological principles of symphonism in Ukrainian music of the 20 th-21st centuries.

Key words: symphonism, contonative dramaturgy, aleatoric-sonorant composition, reflexive monodrama.

Щелканова Світлана Олександрівна, аспірант кафедри інтерпретології та аналізу музики Харківського національного університету мистецтв імені І. П. Котляревського

Онтогенез ранніх симфоній Валентина Сильвестрова

Мета роботи - виявити онтогенез симфонічних творів раннього періоду творчості Валентина Сильвестрова на матеріалі Другої, Третьої та Четвертої симфоній, грунтуючись на аналізі композиційної драматургії у контексті історико-стильової генези української симфонії. Методологія дослідження базується на онтологічному, історико- типологічному, структурно-функціональному та структурно-семіотичному підходах та методі герменевтики. Наукова новизна полягає у відкритті нових можливостей інтерпретації історико-стильової генези української симфонії та симфонізму другої половини ХХ століття на прикладі ранньої симфонічної творчості Валентина Сильвестрова. Віднайдена неоднорідність композиційно-драматургічних моделей Другої, Третьої та Четвертої симфоній є свідоцтвом пошуку композитором шляхів подолання типологічної нормативності. Так, аналіз концепції жанру Другої симфонії характеризує буття як звукову реальність (de natura sonores), контонативну драматургію, відмову від антропоцентричної моделі симфонії. Вперше здійснено композиційно-драматургічний аналіз Третьої симфонії, що декларує історизм як тип свідомості (homo historicus) та категорію часу як базову. Структуротворчим принципом цієї симфонії є слово. Інтонаційно-драматургічний аналіз Четвертої симфонії унаочнює ключові ознаки рефлексивної монодрами (homo credens), що походять від зміни природи драматичного конфлікту, який базується на внутрішньо-спричиненому поступі ліричної самосвідомості музики. Висновки. Онтогенез ранніх симфоній В. Сильвестрова грунтується на внутрішній авторській мові, відтворюється на рівні різних композиційно-драматургічних моделей та свідчить про зміну парадигми і переосмислення історико-типологічних основ симфонізму в українській музиці ХХ - ХХІ століть.

Ключові слова: симфонізм, контонтівная драматургія, алеаторного-сонорна когось позиція, рефлексивна монодрама.

Щелканова Светлана Александровна, аспирант кафедры интерпретологии и анализа музыки Харьковского национального университета искусств имени И. П. Котляревского

Онтогенез ранних симфоний Валентина Сильвестрова

Цель работы - выявить онтогенез симфонических произведений раннего периода творчества Валентина Сильвестрова на материале Второй, Третьей и Четвертой симфоний на основе анализа композиционной драматургии в контексте историко-стилевого генезиса украинской симфонии. Методология исследования базируется на онтологическом, историко-типологическом, структурно-функциональном, структурно-семиотическом подходах и методе герменевтики. Научная новизна состоит в открытии новых возможностей интерпретации историкостилевого генезиса украинской симфонии и симфонизма второй половины ХХ века на примере раннего симфонического творчества Валентина Сильвестрова. Выявленная неоднородность композиционнодраматургических моделей Второй, Третьей и Четвертой симфоний свидетельствует о поиске композитором путей преодоления типологической нормативности. Так, анализ концепции жанра Второй симфонии характеризует бытие как звуковую реальность (de natura sonores), контонативную драматургию, отказ от антропоценртической модели симфонии. Впервые осуществлен композиционно-драматургический анализ Третьей симфонии, которая декларирует историзм как тип сознания (homo historicus) и категорию времени в качестве основополагающей. Структурообразующим принципом в ней является слово. Интонационно-драматургический анализ Четвертой симфонии выявляет ключевые признаки рефлексивной монодрамы (homo credens), исходящие из изменения природы драматического конфликта, основанного на внутреннем самодвижении лирического сознания музыки. Выводы. Онтогенез ранних симфоний В. Сильвестрова основывается на внутренней авторской речи, проявляется на уровне различных композиционно-драматургических моделей, свидетельствуя о смене парадигмы и переосмыслении историко-типологических основ симфонизма в украинской музыке ХХ - ХХІ веков.

Ключевые слова: симфонизм, контонтивная драматургия, алеаторно-сонорная композиция, рефлексивная монодрама.

Problem statement and its connection with principle academic and applied tasks

Valentyn Silvestrov's symphonic creativity is a clear indication of a radical transformation of the symphony genre in the Ukrainian musical space of the 20th century. It is also a fertile ground for reconsidering the paradigm of the musicological analysis of a symphony and symphonism. To date, the researchers have thought that in the late 70's - early 80's there was a rapid stylistic `breakup' in the composer's creative work. Thus, they refer the Second Symphony, `Spectra', and `Eschatophony' to the avant-garde period of the composer's creativity, while the Fourth Symphony takes the frontier zone, and the Fifth and subsequent ones open the aclassic period. Such a division is brought about by the specific character of the composer's writing. It has undergone a considerable evolution, starting with avant-garde techniques of Post-Webern style, pointillism, clustering and sonority and moving through the stage of polystyle to the `synthesizing monostyle'. Hence, the study of the ontostylistic grounds in the composer's early symphonic creative work is an urgent topic. It is also novel to specify in what exactly way atypical dramaturgic models influence a transformation of the genre invariant which reflects the ontological distance `being - man'. On the one hand, in each of the symphonies, Silvestrov finds an original solution to this problem. On the other hand, all his early symphonies are semantically recognizable. A modern humanitaristics along with the methods of the structural-semiotic and semantic analyses, as well as the method of hermeneutics enable the researcher to decode `the gene' of Silvestrov's symphonism. The analysis of V. Silvestrov's novative artistic thinking promotes specifying of the historical-stylistic genesis of the Ukrainian symphony which is a major academic task.

Analysis of Recent Researches and Publications

Symphonic creativity reflects a composer's world outlook. This is why it is of a constant interest to the musicological analysis. There are a number of scientific concepts meant to interpret Valentyn Silvestrov's ground-breaking symphonic style. A great importance in the study of Silvestrov's symphonies belongs of the basic studies by E. Zinkevich [5]. Different aspects of a symphonic creativity are considered in the studies by N. Gerasimova-Persidskaya [3], M. Nestieva, S. Pavlyshyn, O. Mykhailova, S. Savenko and T. Frumkis. A meditative nature of Silvestrov's music is reflected in the studies of E. Beregovaya and L. Shapovalova. A. Mishyna, the researcher, analyses a postlude character of the Fifth Symphony. V. Zaderatsky's [4] thorough study compares the avant-garde and the neo-romantic as two stylistic dominants with the Second and Fifth Symphonies as examples. However, Silvestrov's early symphonies have not been consistently analysed yet. To date, the avant-garde period of the composer's creativity has been least studied in the national musicology.

The purpose of the article is to detect the ontogenesis of the symphonic compositions in Valentyn Silvestrov's early creativity. For that purpose the author used the Second, Third, and the Fourth Symphonies as examples and consequently considered their structural, thematic, timbre-textural, and dramaturgic aspects.

Main part

V. Silvestrov's early symphonic creativity is of the academic interest as first in the national music a situation of a real overcoming of the centripetal force of `a big' symphony's canonic invariant has been created. This brought about a process of the intra-genre differentiation, a search for new ways in overcoming a typological standardization. Among the inner reasons promoting this process the author outlines the following factors. Firstly, it is a strong longing for new artistic information different to tendencies in the social realism characteristic of the 1960s, when new writing techniques served as symbols of freedom. Secondly, it is an attempt to find a way different from the dominating symphonism of Shostakovich. Among the outer forces the author names both proclaiming and evolution of the author's word, the author's vision of a new type of a sound-image which breaks the correlation with conventional models of a symphony.

The Second Symphony (1965) is a striking example of a ground-breaking thinking; it is an aleatoric- sonorant composition which demonstrates a break with a typological standardization. As a sounding document of its epoch, it is an exception among historical-typological models of the genre, Ukrainian composers of the mid-to-late 20th century worked in. It is a non-cyclic, one-part composition, whose dramaturgy testifies a refusal from anthropocentrism and psychologism traditional for a symphony. The Second Symphony should be considered not from the position of a conventional vision of the genre invariant of a classic-romantic type, but as a return of a symphony to its genetic origins. The genre etymon of the symphony - sin-phonia - `concord' is brought about by the composer's artistic conception. A man's existential wonder at the Universe is important to Silvestrov in this symphony, as well as a refusal from the symmetry of a micro- and macrocosm. Such a demonstration is possible within a new attitude to a sound, a state-of-the-art composer's writing style, and absolutely new dramaturgic thinking. A concept of the genre in this symphony is based not on the image of a Man (who acts, thinks, plays, starts communication) behind whom all the genre traditions are standing, but on the concept of the sound material. That entails the change of the fundamental principles of a symphony, its core, namely a sound structure, as it is determined by the composer and decoded as mundana. It is absolutely important not to have stereotypes when perceiving this structure. On the one hand, a semantic ambiguity surprises a listener, but on the other hand, a method of the associated perception cuts in. The composer did not leave any programme documents on the Second Symphony, though in his later comments he defined the semantic modus of the symphony as Cosmic pastorals. Thus, the author applies the MUSICA MUNDANA metaphor to the poetics of the Second Symphony. When painting `cosmic pastorals' - an image of unexplored, mysterious cosmic space, the composer could not use conventional means of the musical language and genre system. It does not involve a correlation with `human measures'. The Second Symphony cancels an intonation (a basic category), beat (a crucial semantic factor), metre, and harmony. In this concept a man appears as a cognizing subject - homo cogitans. While before a man was a `measure' of a symphonic thinking, V. Silvestrov's approach to a symphony is drastically different: the composer starts not from psychologism of perception and emotional experience, but from a sound as an objective spiritual reality which is a universum by itself. But which categories can be basic when analyzing the Second Symphony? The author believes that the category of space plays a defining role in perceiving the symphony. Any composition, in one or another way, touches upon a spatial coordinate of music's being. However, there is a special type of music where space is not only a natural condition for its acoustic realisation, but it also makes an artistic image, a poetic and constructive idea of the composition. The author suggests considering this music on a new level, namely as a static spatial dramaturgy. For this purpose the study uses the term `contonation' introduced by I. Matsievsky [6]. The essence of contonation involves contemplation, attentive listening, and perception of a concentrate of sounds in statics. Contonation as a listener's intent helps to consider everything that sounds on the level of elements of space, and in this case relations between sound elements of the whole can be called contonative (which is interconnected within a spatial dimension). V. Silvestrov took care of that on the level of his writing technique. The sound fabric of the Second Symphony has no clear differentiation of voices, and so the freedom in its texture creates a quasi-spatial effect of visualization of cosmic energies: one's ear can hear splashes - decline, rarefactions - thickening. All these get caught by one's hearing as there is a lack of recognizable stable elements. Spatial features and characteristics can be observed on the level of the graphics of writing, texture, dramaturgy of the whole; they are defined by a listener. A space is realized in a cosmic, antique sense as a reservoir for nature and culture. An aleatoric-sonorant composition is static: one can think that it is a listener themselves who is moving within a sound space. A movement of the sound material loses its vector-like nature, and by means of contemplation actualizes the inherent value of a sounding unit. Therefore, a role of a listener cannot be overestimated, for their `being involved' into this process is a pledge for the musical composition's entity, a basis for the consolidation of the composer and the listener. One of Valentyn Silvestrov's comments wonderfully illustrates a concept of a listener's contemplation of the objectively existing Universe in the Second Symphony: `A pastoral is a symphony as well, but it belongs to the world. It is a home for a man, their temple. A man finds themselves there in order to contemplate this temple, and not to bring their sorrows into it. Because if there are sorrows, it will be an elegy <...> First - a pastoral, and then, on its background, the elegy as a pastoral which has already been destroyed and poisoned with one's reflection' [8, 108].

With the Third Symphony (1966) the composer suggests a new reconsideration of the ontological distance `man - being'. The very `poisoning' by one's reflection cited above and interpreted as cognition of a historical experience, drastically affected the transformation of the genre invariant. The programme name `Eschatophony' presumes, on the one hand, an allusion to eschatology and raises a fundamental question in the philosophy of the 20th century which concerns a perception of time and finiteness of history. On the other hand, it encourages realization of the phenomenon of sound as a product of a man's perception and concerns a question about boundaries of composer's thinking. Sergey Averintsev understands eschatology as a metahistory, `a self-transcending process happening to a tangibly speeding up course of history ' [1, p.520], as a theory about finite destinies of both human history and all alive in the eternity, which is in the very definite perspective - beyond the history, biography, and `this' world in general.

The Third Symphony in the dichotomy `world - man' expresses the world through the history which is considered and realized as a polarity to the world as nature (de natura sonores of the Second Symphony). This new ontological concept is indicative for the philosophical discourse of the 20th century. It represents a new level of a cognizing subject - homo historicus. The author finds a confirmation to this view in the fundamental research in culturology done by Oswald Spengler. It considers the logic and metaphysical structure of history: `Apart from a necessary relation between a cause and act - I would call it logic of space - there is also an organic necessity of a destiny in life - logic of time. It is a fact of the inmost inner certainty, a fact which captivates all mythological, religious, and artistic thinking and makes the essence and core of any history in contrast to nature'. [9, 131]

Three parts of `Eschatophony' make an appeal to a language, a letter, and eminently, to a word as a quintessence of `the human' and are structured in the alphabetical order. A consistently realized Latin alphabet (similar to numbers in a classic music score) serves as a uniting principle; the composer uses two `systems' in this symphony - as a traditional way to record a music text, so the avant-garde aleatoric- sonorant one. The second way presumes a refusal from a metre, time signature, fixation of a certain pitch; it offers instead a fixed time of a sounding fragment expressed in absolute time units, playing of spontaneous notes and glissando within the graphic model in the specified register, as well as an atonal improvisation. Silvestrov found different solutions to combine these two systems in different parts of the symphony. Thus, the first part opens with an introduction and contains an aleatoric interchange of a fractional metric system and absolute time of an avant-garde text. The second part is composed by traditional expressive means - the composer uses a certain pitch, a certain tempo definition (^=100) and multimeter (4/8-3/8). As for the third part, it is a sonorant-aleatoric complex. A major role in this symphony is played by timbre. Bells and percussion can serve as a clear example; they are interpreted as a sign of time - a mechanical rate of clock, a chime of bells and commemorative chime conveying vanity and frailty of human history. `Eschatophony' is a setting out point in the composer's creative work; it opens a characteristic nostalgic modus of expression. Paul Griffiths's fundamental work `Modern Music and After' contains a chapter about V. Silvestrov's music where the author characterizes the Ukrainian composer's style as `the Reverberating past [10, p.274]. Thus, elegies, epitaphs and such genres as post-music, post-symphony, and post-lude, being central in the composer's further creative work, become possible after the large-scale `apocalypse' of a sound manifested by a 29-year-old V. Silvestrov in the Third Symphony.

Ten years separate `Eschatophony' from the Fourth Symphony (1976), a qualitatively new stage in the ontostylistic dynamics of the symphony genre. It was written at the composer's frontier period between the no-compromise avant-garde stage and `a weak style'. The Symphony vividly demonstrates a vector directed to the reflexive type of symphonism. A variety of genre models in the composer's early symphonic creativity reflects a basic message of symphonism which was formulated by B. Asafiev: `Symphonism can be considered as a continuality of a musical consciousness. This consciousness is, first of all, a complex spiritual `self of the composer' [2, 248]. Thus, a necessity to express qualitatively different image- philosophical ideas brings about a necessity to have various compositional-dramaturgic solutions.

The Fourth Symphony for string and brass wind instruments is a one-part composition where an ambivalent thematic content is articulated. The intonational dramaturgy is based upon a contrast of two image spheres, namely meditative and active. However, it does not show a conflict. The change of the nature of a dramaturgical conflict of the symphony, where the contrast is a result of the inner maturing of music's lyrical consciousness, alters a semantic modus of the symphony. Bi-worldness which one can feel in the Fourth Symphony is interpsychological. It is, in a way, living and thorough understanding of consciousness' life `from inside', contemplation of the mystery of man's being, their life and death. At that, a theme of death is not considered as a tragedy at all, but rather as a catharsis. It is a final-centric model similar to the principle of the ascent in liturgy. The Fourth Symphony comes close to the discourse of the transcendent and points at the beauty of a lyric consciousness. Taking into account stable features of the composer's reflexive concept, the author suggests defining the type of a musical dramaturgy of this composition as a monodrama. Its inner nature is based on self-movement, a gradual maturing and transformation. Absence of clearly structured thematic formations and harmonious syntax, refusal from contrast `relief - background' - all these factors enable the author to define the artistic integrity as a monodrama. The dramaturgic novation is based on the change of the nature of a dramaturgic conflict realized not as outer comparing of opposite elements, but as an inner self-movement of music's lyric consciousness. The intonational grain which makes a basis of the self-movement is a minor third b - des, which marks important milestones of the Symphony starting with the introduction theme. It also plays a major role in understanding of the dramaturgy in the theme of trans. Being transcribed (a - c), it is frequently repeated (approx. 50 times) in the part for cello at the background of a ceased movement in the orchestra. V. Silvestrov mentioned that a law of the inverted perspective from iconography makes a basis of the dramaturgy in this symphony: `everything is given in illusion, all is present and is looking at you <...>, what initially existed, gets unfolded'[7, 88]. Thus, the Fourth Symphony represents the utmost beauty of a lyric consciousness and introduces the type of the ontological distance `man - being' - homo reflexicus, or, eminently, homo credens.

Conclusions and further research perspectives

Early symphonies of V. Silvestrov are a unique repository of a whole world of ideas which serve as a key to comprehending the composer's creative heritage, and so, they deserve a diligent and considerate academic attention. Each of the symphonies finds a different solution to enter a new space of symphonism which differs from `big narratives'. And this variety comes from the author's inner utterance. All novative aspects in the genre reading, as well as creating of a new world view, are born thanks to the genius composer's efforts by means of his overcoming a canon. Thus, a crucial factor in the dramaturgy of the Second Symphony is a refusal from anthropocentrism. The composer demonstrates de natura sonores - being as a sounding phenomenon where a man plays a role of an observer - homo cogitans. A category of space and spatial dramaturgy, namely contonation, helps to comprehend this conception. The Third Symphony, called `Eschatophony', overcomes a typological standardization in a new way. This three-part symphony pronounces historism as a type of consciousness (homo historicus) and a category of time as a basic one. The composer's addressing to a letter, a word, and logos as a structuring dramaturgic principle turns to be metaphorical. The Fourth Symphony, demonstrating a lyric consciousness of music (homo credens), is a vector directed to the reflexive discourse. A contemplation of the ontological distance `from inside', musica humana, actualizes a new type of a symphonic dramaturgy, namely a monodrama, as a drastic transformation of the genre invariant. Therefore, understanding of a change of the dramaturgic paradigm brings about a reconsideration of the historical- typological principles of a symphony and symphonism in the musical art of the 20th- 21st centuries.

ontogenesis symphonic composition silvestrov

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9. Spengler, O. (1998) The Decline of the West. Vol.1. Moscow: Mysl. [in Russian].

10. Griffiths, P. (2010). Modern Music and After. New York: Oxford University Press [in English].

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