Ukrainian Music in the 18th – 21st Centuries: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

The purpose of the article. The study seeks to characterise traditional Ukrainian music of the 18th-21st centuries influenced by Western European stylistic trends. To do this, the study analyses the similarities and differences in the historical development of music in Ukraine by looking into some historical events. The contextual relationships of Ukrainian music history with national traditions and global trends were established. The research methodology. The study relies on comparative and culturological analyses to compare the historical heritage of Ukrainian music art as a cultural process with Western European traditions and influences. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the expanding of the historical knowledge about Ukrainian music in the context of artistic styles. Conclusions. Culturological analysis revealed that Ukrainian Baroque was most vivid between the mid 17th and the mid 18th centuries. During this period, polyphonic pieces were written in the Baroque style not inferior to Western European church music in terms of artistic quality and national originality. Partes is a new Ukrainian style of church music born from the baroque tradition. Under the influence of Western Europe, the single-frequency partes singing or partsong transformed to become a spiritual concerto in the Classical period. The influence of European Romanticism had a weak effect on Ukrainian music. Its elements can be traced only in the works by Ukrainian composers of the second half of the 19th century, such as S. Hulak-Artemovskyi, M. Lysenko, V. Matiuk, S. Vorobkevych, and A. Vakhnianyn, to name a few. Later, the Ukrainian music culture was enriched by compositions from B. Liatoshynskyi, A. Kos-Anatolskyi, S. Liudkevych, and A. Shtoharenko. The avant-garde music of the 1960s (L. Hrabovskyi, V. Khodziatskyi, V. Sylvestrov, and V. Zahortsev) stands out with its innovation. At the beginning of the 20th century, national music culture entered into a dialogue with the modernist discourse, leading to the emergence of Ukrainian Modernism.

Key words: Ukrainian music tradition, Western European influences, Classicism, Romanticism, Avant-gardism.