Song-Writing Style of Bohdan Yanivskyi: Inspirations, Intentions and Text Eminence

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to outline the style of songs written by B.-Yu. Yanivskyi for his collection “Vyshneva Vikhola” (“Cherry Snowstorm”) for solo and duet performance considering their inspirations, intentions, and means of musical-and-verbal interaction through the optics of the category of the “eminent text” (according to H.-G. Gadamer), as well the socio-cultural terms of the époque. The methods of the studies are based on the integration of the philosophic and art-studies approaches which help to highlight the eminent characteristics of the samples of the composer’s pop-song creativity. System-analytical, intermediate, typological methods of music-poetry studies of the song components in dialogue and, sometimes, polylogue interactions of music, poetry, and borrowed theatre techniques have been applied. Methods of generalisation and reflection enabled the author to trace the inspirations and intentions of B.-Yu. Yanivskyi’s appeals to entertaining music in the time of the Soviet Union. The scientific novelty of the research lies in an attempt of the contextual and intermediate analysis of the songs of the “Vyshneva Vikhola” collection, as the eminent texts. Conclusions. B. Yu. Yanivskyi’s professionalism of a composer, pianist, and concertmaster contributed to the creation of the artistically perfect samples of the pop-song genre. Vocal and piano parts make the suggestive potential of the poetic background more distinct and, at the same time, enrich them in an intermediate and eminent ways. Inspirations of B.-Yu. Yanivskyi’s song-writing style-formation were the national and local musical folklore, Galician traditions of song-entertaining genres and types of music-making, which absorbed the elements of song-and-dance art of other countries, along with preserving their unique features. Composer’s intentions were to popularise the entertainment songs of that time and to prove, that Ukrainian pop-song can be self-sufficient, that it can preserve the national identity at the same time organically reinterpreting the best of the Western heritage. Pop-music semiosis of B.-Yu. Yanivskyi embrace a wide range of intonation-rhythmic, harmonic, and textural marks of various genesis, which altogether make up the unique style of the author.

Keywords: composer B.-Yu. Yanivskyi, pop-song genre, intermediality, eminent text, song, duet, piano part.