Meditative compositions in contemporary Ukrainian music: background, context and realization

Section 2. Music space of Ukraine

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The desire to comprehend the numerous challenges of cultural and artistic interaction between different cultures is one of the main tasks of our time, marked by the ideas of global understanding and tolerance. Among artistic searches by Ukrainian musicians, an important place is occupied by the appeal to the Eastern type of meditation, which is not typical of Western academic music of the past centuries, but at the same time is in tune with the contemplative aspects of the Christian worldview. Creating a new and very interesting national image of a geographically distant world, engaging in a creative dialogue with the versatility of ancient and modern poetry, religion, philosophy, fine arts and other artistic forms of different eras, the Ukrainian composers not only enrich and renew their creative experience, but also discover new approaches to understanding both, ancient and modern traditions and trends. Resent research and publications. In the last decades, the productive sphere of cross-cultural analysis and communication has been expanded to include such a specific problem as the embodiment of meditation in contemporary Ukrainian music as a principle, phenomenon, and way of experiencing the world. The monograph by L. Shapovalova (2007) is devoted to the understanding of the phenomena of musical reflection, where meditative states are associated with the personification and representation of the artist’s image. Related terms – “meditation”, “reflection” and derivatives of them – are contained in the works of O. Zinkevych (2002), O. Guzhva (2007), V. Redia (2010), they are purposefully involved in the analysis of author’s styles by I. Krainska (2012), A. Kamenieva (2018; 2020), N. Kostiuk (2024), A. Mizitova and I. Ivanova (2020). It is natural that the Ukrainian scientific base is founded on data accumulated in world practice. The sources of creative experiments that become material for study, although rooted in many layers of proto- Ukrainian spirituality, are in most cases associated by researchers with Eastern and, partly, with Western philosophical and cultural phenomena. Confirmation of this is found in the work “The Diversity of Meditative Experience” (1977) by the famous American researcher of Buddhist meditation problems Daniel Goleman. Among the prototypes of musical meditation, the scientist points to Hindu bhakti, Jewish Kabbalah, Christian hermeneutics, Islamic Sufism, transcendental meditation, Patanjali Ashtanga Yoga, Indian Tantra and Kundalini Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Japanese Zen, Georgy Gurdjieff’s “fourth way”, and Jiddu Krishnamurti’s “unconditional awareness. Objectives, methods and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to highlight the phenomena of the creative and scientific contexts that influenced the emergence of meditative concepts in modern Ukrainian music. The scientific novelty of the chosen topic is due to the lack of musicological works that clarify the specifics of meditativeness as a stylistic factor in the work of Ukrainian composers of the last third of the 20th – 21st centuries. The article offers an updated view of the development of meditation as a specific component of the work by Ukrainian composers of this time, which was formed in the process of reception of worldview concepts of different origins, in particular, the reflection of Eastern concepts of meditation in Western academic music. To identify the specific characteristics of the phenomenon and concept of “meditativeness” in the Ukrainian composers’ output of abovementiond period, historical-typological and genre-stylistic methods were employed as instruments of a systematic approach. Research results. The comprehension of meditation as a feature of musical art and its manifestations in each particular work – especially when it comes to Ukrainian music, which seems to be far from Eastern roots – puts a request for a deep personal comprehension of various aspects of this experience. It is personal awareness, somehow revealed in the composer's works, that becomes the key in this process. The next step is to comprehend the very phenomenon of meditation (Latin “meditatio”, from “meditor” – meditating) in its most common interpretations: as reflection, contemplation or focused self-knowledge aimed at achieving spiritual enlightenment. Some scholars emphasize the consequences of the metaphorical nature of the concept of “meditation”. In particular, they note the difficulties in applying intellectual reflection to academic music, as well as the tendency for the term itself to become a universal cliché. There are also different positions in Ukrainian musicology. The difference between these approaches is explained not so much by the methodology as by the historical ways of forming meditation in European art and, in particular, in the Ukrainian musical tradition. In Ukrainian music, the approach to a modern understanding of meditation took place in parallel with the process of intellectualizing emotional reflections that began in the 19th century. Approaches to meditation in Ukrainian music are closely intertwined with the integration of “Eastern” philosophical, aesthetic, and artistic influences into its space. However, there are few examples of the composer works directly related to the cultures and arts of the Far East in Ukrainian music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the last third of the20th century, a new wave of interest in meditation was unfolding. It brought a significant renewal to the sphere of “reflection,” in fact, completely changing its meaning. Conclusion. Meditative musical concepts, based on various national sources, corresponding spatiotemporal representations, in particular regarding the passage of time, specific intonation, offer not so much an original image of a geographically distant world in content, as they create a special feeling of an unusual reality. Systematization by chronology of interesting experimental works has shown that meditation is understood by the authors both as a separate genre, the semantics of which is determined by the name (reflection, thought, spiritual state), and as a component of a synthetic genre (cycle), and as a concept of style. The performance compositions of the works demonstrate the absence of any restrictions in building the sound universe of intonation-timbre, coloristic or sonorous compositions with the genre name “meditation”, and their conceptual layer indicates the influence of the postmodern cultural and artistic paradigm. Genre-style embodiments of the author’s concepts of meditativeness are interesting for their combination of established and original features, the activity of extra-musical influences, and the context of intercultural interaction.