D. Shostakovich’s Suite on verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti for bass and piano, Op. 145: a semantic key to the polyphony of conceptions
The aim. The article is meant to analyse the semantics of Shostakovich’s landmark composition in terms of its performance. A performance version by Dmitri Hvorostovsky (baritone) and Mikhail Arkadiev (piano), which is considered by the composer to be etalon, serves as a material for the analysis. The essence of the “conceptual polyphony” of the author’s conception in the suite is revealed by the interaction of the three-pitch and mode-harmonic complexes, namely reflexive (“figure of speech”), motives of death and elegiac. D. Hvorostovsky organises his version as a confession (alter-ego of Shostakovich-Michelangelo), inserting meditative utterances into the song chant with a wide breathing. The main load is carried not only by a word and vocal, but also by the sound image of the piano. The instrument personifies a sound aura of the outer, unfamiliar to the poet world. M. Arkadiev creates a holistic sound image. The timbre personification and symphonization of the piano part characterize the piano player as a synergetic partner – a poet who thinks with sounds and is an intellectual interlocutor. Research methodology. Among a few scientific sources which analyse D. Shostakovich’s Opus 145 (A. Kremer [2], A. Shelomentseva [6]), the author did not find a semantic analysis carried out in the light of the specifics of a vocalinstrumental performance. Along with the classic works by M. Aranovsky [1] and V. Medushevsky [3], the methodological basis of the study is the comparative and reflexive approaches [5]. Results. #1 “Truth” opens the storyline of the musical dramaturgy. “Morning” (#2) and “Love” (#3) depict the “life-death” dilemma in favour of light. The semantic signs which prevail are a psalmody and “motives of tears”. Contrast spheres are set between reflexive images. #5“Anger” functions as a dramatic development (in the toccata stylistics). The musical theme structure of “Dante” (#6) is composed in the “hamlet” style: a meditation at the background of the “theme of glory” (trumpet fanfare in the triplet style). #7 “To the Outlaw” is the author’s monologue about his attitude to the matter of a political exile. The Hymn to Dante in Hvorostovsky’s performance sounds as a symbol of immortality of a man’s creativity, coinciding in a high level of the spiritual rise with the final of the cycle called “Immortality” (#11). This “reminiscence into future” can be heard not in every interpreter’s performance, and represents a style feature of its melo-declamative style. “Night” (#9) is a quiet climax in the nocturne stylistics as if it were an intermezzo before a tragic culmination “Death” (#10). The truth lies in the termination of the life path (the identity of the themes in “Truth” (#1) and “Death”). As if the author wanted to suggest a wrong answer: everyone is afraid of death (“there is no hope/ and the lies reign/ and the truth hides its eye”). But not the poet! Poetry of Michelangelo has a deeply Christ-centric conception; it requires not an admonition, but a moderate degree of both a quiet meditation and a deep contemplation of death as a transition into immortality. This is the very true credo of Shostakovich’s music! With the theme of “the celestial bells” in the philosophical ode “Immortality” (#11), the composer sends a listener into another reality where death has already been overcome by love and a man’s creative power (by analogy with “childhood = Paradise”). The ode is characterized with a plain simplicity and purity (crystal resonant timbre and a staccato stroke, along with a hymnal style in the vocal part and a rhythmic increase by means of the leit-intonation) and recreates grandeur of life as a path to immortality. Novelty. The result of the analysis of Shostakovich’s Sonnets Op. 145 performed by D. Hvorostovsky and M. Arkadiev is an organic “entry” into the artistic world of the author’s reflection. The comparative analysis of the mode-harmonic writing style in Shostakovich’s musical sonnets and Britten’s “Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo” revealed a correspondence in the stylistic techniques. However, it has nothing to do with a spiritual relationship. The differences are caused by the age-related reflection of the creative work. “Sonnets” were composed by a 27- year-old Britten during his travel to the USA; their concept is youth, anticipation of findings. Meanwhile, Shostakovich created the sonnets in his declining years. Maturity of the artist’s soul and a difficult experience of ideological prohibitions moulded the cryptogram language encoded in the musical-poetic text. To decode this language and comprehend it, as well as to multiply the impact power of D. Shostakovich’s spiritual message is an urgent task for the 21st-century interpreters of his music. Practical significance. The comprehension of the role of Shostakovich’s Opus 145 reveals the artistic potential of reflection in the vocal genre. The semantic analysis serves as a style-forming mechanism which helps to comprehend the author’s reflection of the composer in the value system of the 20th-century performance art. Chinese singers use the experience of studying of “Sonnets” for creative projections onto composer’s creativity in China, as well as for detecting reflexive influences in modern vocal art