S. Bortkiewicz’s piano style

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The genre-style richness of S. Bortkiewicz’s legacy does not except the dominance of piano music in it, which is explained by the composer’s piano education, the experience of his public performances and teaching activities. The 21st century became a time of revival of the composer’s name in the modern culture, but the specifics of his piano style remain outside the scope of special studies. Recent research and publications shows the great interest in the artist’s figure. Scientists focus on the performance of S. Bortkiewicz himself (Levkulych, 2021), highlight his violin compositions (Yakubov, 2021), develop the theme of dance and dance quality in his music (Kościelak-Nadolska, 2016), examine the composer’s life and creative legacy (Ishioka, 2016), stylistic influences on his thinking (Johnson, 2016). Objectives, methods and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to reveal the features of S. Bortkiewicz’s piano style based on observations of leading solo genres (sonatas, preludes, etudes). The scientific novelty of the article is determined by the original thesis about participation in the realization of the artistic idea of a complex of certain pianistic techniques, which are perceived as carriers of emotional content. The presented study is based on the principle of historicism and a comprehensive scientific approach involving various methods of analysis. Research results. In S. Bortkiewicz’s legacy, the piano sonata is represented by two compositions: op. 9, B major, and op. 60, C sharp minor. The purely piano techniques, the totality of which indicates virtuosity as a means of realizing the art design, have the great importance in these works (large-scale technique, bright jumps, rapid octave passages on f, a wide dynamic palette from pp to fff). The combined technique, the use of rubato play become the typical features of his piano style. Preludes op. 13, op. 33, op. 40, and op. 66 are distinguished by the dominance of a single image, embodied by the laconic pianistic means. The image and genre spectrum of prelude cycles is diverse and reflects almost the entire experience of a romantic miniature. The composer finds his own ways to reveal individuality and to manifest the modern thinking, the essence of which is in the use of combinatorial methods in the field of both language means of expression and purely pianistic techniques. The etude genre can be classified as one of the most popular in S. Bortkiewicz’s creativity. Ten Etudes op. 15 and Twelve Etudes-novels op. 29 are a true anthology of the concert etude, which combines the effectiveness of style brilliant and al fresco with spiritual imagery, playing allusions, ironic approach to typical formulas, nostalgia for lost ideals. Conclusion. S. Bortkiewicz demonstrates his own attitude to the classical-romantic tradition, which reveals an individual author position. Relying on typical pianistic techniques, the composer combines a concert virtuoso style with inspired confessional expression, prefers lyrical and scherzo imagery realized often through widely uses polyrhythmic layering, closely connects each of the playing techniques with a certain artistic idea, due to which the author’s own “word” is always felt.