Russian Folk Songs in F. I. Chaliapin’s Repertoire: Interpretation of Folklore Singing Traditions in Academic Performance

The study aims to prove that F. I. Chaliapin became an unsurpassed interpreter of Russian songs included in his repertoire. The paper presents a detailed performance analysis of Chaliapin’s interpretation of folk songs “Eh, Vanka” and “Dubinushka (Russian Laborers’ Song)”; shows the interpretations of folklore singing traditions in F. I. Chaliapin’s academic performance. The novelty of the paper lies in substantiating the fact that intonation in F. I. Chaliapin’s creative work becomes the main conduit for the performing idea of a composition. As a result, it has been determined that such traditional techniques of folk culture as the complete freedom of intonation and rhythmic utterance; bending, stops inside a phrase with the help of agogic extensions; an abundance of fermata over a note and over a rest; strict restraint and concentration focused on the movement of thought and feeling are traced in Chaliapin’s style of performing folk songs.