CC BY
12
https://doi.org/10.29013/EJA-20-3-43-46
Havrilenko Liudmila Viktorovna, postgraduate degree seeker of Theoretical and Applied Cultural Studies Chair
of Odessa A. K. Nezhdanova Academy of Music E-mail: ludmilagavrilenko23@gmail.com
THE IMAGE OF A FLUTE IN A MODERN SOUTH UKRAINIAN COMPOSER SCHOOL (BY THE EXAMPLE OF OLEG TAGANOV'S WORK)
Abstract. The works for the flute (solo, ensemble, concerto) constitute a significant part of musical heritage of South Ukrainian Composers. The most considerable interest represents the cycle for solo flute pieces "Petals in the snow" by Oleg Taganov, the modern composer from Nikolaev. The range of expressive means in his composition is indeed colourful and modern. The author of this article reveals a close link of the content and of the technical aspects of this work. The indicated harmony of images and of composer's techniques is achieved due to peculiar programme of this cycle, which is based on the poetry by the famous Japanese poets of the XIIth century.
Keywords: South-Ukrainian composer school, Oleg Taganov, flute music, Japanese poetry of Middle Ages, cycle for the solo flute pieces, "Petals in the snow", programme music, modern musical language.
In the music of the second half of the XXth and of the cusp of the XXth-XXIst centuries the interest of European composers in chamber instrumental music significantly increases since this particular field is the most favorable for bold experiments. The flute plays an important role here as a solo and ensemble instrument.
The main reason for such a distinction of the flute is the great potential of this instrument in the search of new technique, expressive and timber means.
The active development and improvement of the technical side of the instrument entailed the interest of modern composers in different genres of flute music - both for the solo flute and chamber ensemble works for different kinds of the flute.
We can find such a phenomenon in national composer schools, which makes the flute music important and of high demand in the modern music composing and performance.
In the works of Ukrainian composers of the second half of the XXth-the first decades of the XXIst
centuries the flute appears in solo, ensemble and concerto genres. In these genres we can find combination of traditions laid down by predecessors and new tendencies, being developed in the works of the bright modern representatives of Odessa and Nikolaev composing schools (Karmella Tsepko-lenko, Yulia Gomelskaya, Alena Tomlenova, Oleg Taganov, Vladislav Korshunov, Irina Zhadik, etc.). We should note the great interest among contemporary composers in works for the solo flute, while in the middle of the XXth century they were interested in the concerto type genres for a solo instrument and orchestra playing.
The subject of our article is the cycle for the solo flute "Petals in the snow" by Oleg Nikolaev-ich Taganov, the composer from Nikolaev (born in 1971), which was composed in 2007. This work has become an object for musicological analysis for the first time, which makes our research a sort of scientific novelty.
The specified work includes five small parts demonstrating brilliant and subtle music as well as an arsenal of modern musical expressive means that reveal the artistic and technical capabilities of the flute.
The programme plays a determining role in this composition. It is based on the poetry by Japanese medieval poets of the XIIth-early XIIIth centuries -Saigyo-Hoshi and Minamoto Sanetomo.
The poetry by the Buddhist monk Saigyo (11181190) at first glance is simple and crystal-clear, but it contains a very complex world of philosophical contemplative thoughts and subtle lyrical feelings to the nature. Being a Buddhist monk for 50 years, Saigyo strove for the state of contemplating the beauty of piece and quiet, he poetized the loneliness and light sadness. His nature images represent the inner life and the state of the soul. The poet embodied in his work the principle of "yugen" (literally "secret, dark"), which is important for Japanese medieval aesthetics, according to which the hidden beauty is a part of every phenomenon of the life. This beauty can be revealed, only if one can understand and feel symbols, hints, allegories and prompts contained in the lines of poets. The central category of such a world view is the state of wabi-sabi (literally wabi - "unassuming simplicity", sabi - "a touch of antiquity, the conciliation of loneliness"), which is a combination of modesty, loneliness and inner strength (wabi), authenticity, genuineness, archaism [4]. Wabi-sabi perceives beauty as a phenomenon of imperfection, transience and incompleteness. The most characteristic images for it are the autumn garden and the dim moonlight.
Minamoto Sanetomo (1192-1219) was the ruler and the poet, who wrote more than 700 poems in a fairly short period of his life (he was killed by his nephew at the age of 27).
The distinctive quality of tanka poetry is the fusion of the aesthetic and ethical sides. As Yasunari Kawabata wrote in his Nobel lecture "Born by the beauty ofJapan", "these poems are filled with warm, heartfelt and kind sympathy for the nature and the
man, and they embody the deep tenderness of the Japanese soul" [5].
As Tatiana Grigorieva, a researcher of the Japanese tradition, euphemistically said, "It fell to the Japanese to go to the Truth through penetration into the beauty of the imperceptible. I can see in this the way they participate in the world process of ascent to the true Being" [3, 14].
The composer refers to Saigyo's poems three times throughout his work (the first, third and fifth parts of the cycle). In his poems selected by the composer for his work, we can feel sadness and awareness of the transience of the life.
The programme of the first play (see Appendix 1) contains images of spring and its inherent attribute, traditional for Japanese culture - sakura, one of the most important national symbols ofJapan. Sakura symbolizes the deity of spring and the awakening of nature. In ancient times this symbol fused with the cult of ancestors (in the Japanese mythological tradition a tree in bloom is associated with the mountains world, as a place where the souls of ancestors are living and where the souls go after the death for 33 years, then they merge with the god of the mountains Yama-no kami. In spring they descend into the petals of sakura in blossom). Therefore, the ritual of admiring the sakura blossom is perceived as the most important religious act for pacifying the souls of ancestors and ensuring prosperity for the living persons [6, 37]. The image of sakura in blossom is so typical for Saigyo's poetry that he is called the poet of sakura. Furthermore, a short but meaningful tanka contain images of a dawn and a nightingale. The image of the spring, the dawn and the singing nightingale are closely related in the poetics and symbolism of Japanese poetry as the beginning of the life and the beginning of the day. "The change of seasons is the prism through which the Japanese see the world and contemplate the mystery of being-ness. This is the principle of artistic vision organizing the work" [3, 19]. We can assume that the name of the cycle - "Petals in the snow" - is most likely as-
sociated with the main idea of the composer - the connection of times in an entire mythological time (the spring - sakura as a symbol of a departed soul, in the snow - a symbol of the winter and the death).
The poetic programmes from the second to the fourth pieces (see the corresponding tanka in Appendix 1) contain the states of melancholy, loneliness, fleetingness of the life, typical for wabi-sabi, which in Zen world perception are considered as positive states, having behind the "transcendent" transition from the material world into the world of simplicity and harmony, a release from the frailty of earthly material existence.
The fifth piece, completing the cycle, constitutes a kind of arch, connecting the figurative world of the first and the last tanka. In the poetic programme we can see again the image of nature, but this time it is autumn and winter, which symbolizes the late period of a person's life and in fact, his poetically sad farewell to life.
We can note Taganov's subtle way to express the lyric and philosophical content of these verses using a number of modern expressive means - many micro-changes in dynamics, a delicate melodic pattern decorated with grace notes, numerous alterations, tremolo and glissando, flageolets, frullato and playing (knocking) the stops of the flute.
According to O. Taganov the national Japanese shinobue and shakuhachi music (kinds ofJapanese end-blown flutes made of bamboo) had a certain impact on the musical images if his pieces. The shakuhachi is the most popular instrument in Japan from the family ofJapanese flutes, called fue (literally from Japanese - "flute, pipe, whistle"). The way of playing the fue is rather peculiar - the performer does not use the usual way of pressing the holes with his fingertips, but he uses his phalanges. Borrowed from the Chinese tradition, already in the Vth century these flutes became widespread in Japan and were endowed with sacred properties, and soon they began to be used for "blowing meditation" by monks of the Japanese samurai school of Fuke-shu
of Zen tradition. Playing the flute contributed to self-realization of a monk, and the higher the skill of the performer was, the more complete self-realization he achieved. This type of meditation practice by the Japanese Zen Buddhist komuso monks became a part of official Zen practice at the end of Edo period (1603-1868).
At present the shakuhachi is actively used in both professional and amateur music performing and is the most important part of school music lessons [for details see 7]. Furthermore, the sound ofJapanese flute is used in the field of high technologies (neu-rosurgery, deconstructive epistemology, robotics, etc.). Both instruments have been being used in Japan for monastic meditation practice for a long time.
Since the composer is acquainted with the sound and practice of playing these instruments, it produced a significant impact on the mood of the pieces of the cycle, which are quite introvert and meditative. The high and gentle sounding of the shinobue and shakuhachi is achieved in the music of the cycle due to the use by O. Taganov of the middle and high register of the flute, as well as due to the abundance of flageolet sounding, numerous frullato and predominance of quiet dynamics.
The detailed study of the flute technical abilities by the composer (in terms of coloring the sound and overtone technique) impacted on the musical and technical sides of the work under consideration. The composer's originality and complexity of musical images required introduction of special composer's designations for the performer.
A deep psychological insight, revealing the inner world of a modern European, a Slavic, is combined in the music of the cycle with the subtlety and refinement ofJapanese view of life.
The composer of the opus under consideration focuses on it the attention of the audience and makes obligatory recitation of medieval Japanese verses before performing each piece of the cycle.
The composer puts into the timbre of the flute the "sonoric" of a live human voice, which represents
in the pieces a lyrical hero with all his inner feelings. In the work under consideration we can notice the chamber sounding of the flute which constitutes a peculiar tendency of modern instrumental style. Furthermore, the most important role in this cycle plays the lyric and expressive character of musical images.
The lyric and philosophical tone of the poems by Buddhist poets determines the innovation of the techniques used in the pieces: a number of microchanges in dynamics, a delicate melodic pattern,
decorated with grace notes, numerous alterations, tremolo and glissando, flageolets, frullato and playing (knocking) the stops of the flute, etc., the ingenious and elaborate rhythm, the variety of the flute part timbre, the sound symbols, etc.
"The Path of the Japanese can be called the Path of Beauty (Bi), which is the Truth (Makota). Different types ofbeauty are just different facets of one Truth" [3, 15]. This path, is reflected in the wonderful cycle for the solo flute "Petals in the Snow" by the modern South Ukrainian composer Oleg Taganov.
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