COMIC GENRES IN LEONID LISOVSKY’S CHAMBER AND VOCAL WORKS: STYLISTIC ASPECT

Abstract

Statement of the problem. Leonid Lisovsky (1866–1934) is the Ukrainian and Russian composer, conductor, pianist, ensemble player, teacher, music critic, editor of musical works, translator, musicologist. He is the author of over 300 works in various genres, among which an important place belongs to compositions of comic genre. L. Lisovsky was very well known in his lifetime, but later he was completely forgotten. The relevance and scientific novelty of the research is determined by the necessity to study the person and creative heritage of the famous artist. The purpose of the offered research is to reveal the ways of creation of comic musical characters in L. Lisovsky’s chamber-vocal compositions and to identify stylistic peculiarities of this works. Cultural-historical, theoretical, musical-analytical, structural and systematic research methods were used when the history of Lisovsky’s chamber-vocal compositions were studying, the key principles of comic in music were identifying, the works of the composer were analyzing and their genre and style features were revealing. The results of the researches by O. Solomonova, B. Borodin, O. Freidenberg, I. Gendler on issues of the laugh culture and I. Gorbunova who viewed the comic genres in Ukrainian music were used as methodological basis for our study. Works by I. Trofimov and others are used for contextual analysis, as well as the studies of S. Koltysheva, M. Rzhevska and A. Litvinenko, where the person of L. Lisovsky presented in the biographical aspect. Results of the research. Based on abovementioned scientific sources, the principles of embodiment of the comic by the ways of musical art were highlighted. Some chamber and vocal works by L. Lisovsky were analyzed, such as the Suite for baritone and bass cantando “At the Bailif’s Gate” (words by O. Tolstoy), comic Romance for tenor and baritone “TheCuckoo and the Rooster” (words by I. Krylov), the fable “Woman” (words by K. Kropyva) and the vocal cycle “Four jokes by Alexander Pushkin”. The peculiarities of the composer’s reading the literary stories were disclosed. L. Lisovsky’s enthusiasm for satirical poetic texts in the works of the early period and especially in the 1920s were revealed. Conclusions. L. Lisovsky’s turn to the comic chamber vocal works becomes his response on the social and economic hardships and promotes to regeneration of his creative forces in the important periods of his life. For implementation of the comic poetic texts by musical resources L. Lisovsky uses the genre mixes. The comic imaginative and emotional spectrum in chamber and vocal music lengths from good humor to bitter satire. The composer uses romantic, late romantic and impressionistic stylistic peculiarities to create musical characteristics.