Conversion of Traditional Mythologemes in the Symphonic Music by Nikolai Mentser
The present article studies the combination of folk and original music from the point of view of conceptual interaction of the two artistic systems. The study is made from the speciﬁc theoretic and methodological angle of intertextual ideas typical for music by Nikolai Mentser, a composer who interpreted the folklore of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East in many diverse ways. The composer smoothly integrated this complex of concepts and styles into the system of academic genres of European composing professionalism. The presence of a distinctive plot and dramaturgy of his pieces is remarkable for the stability of patterns, images, and plots, researched by K.G. Jung on the basis of archaic mythology and mythologemes belonging to the class of archetypes. To reveal such mythologemes, a series of symphonies by N. Mentser with great generalizing potential is studied from the point of view of mythopoetics. In the plot and imagery of the music there is a cultural protagonist, the role which undergoes multiple transformations in modern mythmaking. Musical dramaturgy reveals the effect of general mythopoetic tendencies, such as binary opposition, and action-orientedness (normally harmonizing the initial situation) of the mythic-ritualness. These general rules are implemented in the music stylistics, the “ folklore character” of which is achieved by means of folk tune quotations and free re-intonement of traditional music microstructures.