Choral Bachiana as a current strategy of Ukrainian art (interpretive commentary)

Section 2. Music space of Ukraine

Abstract

Statement of the problem. Choral “Bachiana” is one of the relevant areas of functioning of musical culture of the 21st century for many reasons. One of them is the flourishing of the tendency towards the performance restoration of Baroque music in the artistic practice of Western Europe; the second is especially relevant for its Ukrainian “branch” – the absence of national and confessional boundaries in Bach’s choral works, their spiritual greatness. Finally, the highest level of Bach’s polyphonic technique, which requires significant performance efforts, provides an excellent opportunity for numerous choral groups in different cities of Ukraine to demonstrate their best performing qualities. The relevance of the topic is stipulated by the need to study the latest artefacts of Ukrainian choral performance, which indicate the ways of actualizing its development in the creative practice of the 21st century. The interpretative analysis of the cantata “Meine Seele erhebt den Herren” (BWV 10) in the performance embodiment of the chamber choir “Cantus” (the conductor – E. Sokach, Uzhgorod), as well as the Motet BWV 225 “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied” as a marker of choral Bachiana in modern Ukraine, is proposed. Objectives, methods and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to comment on the concert artefact in the light of the actualization of the interpretation of Bach’s choral work as a strategy for the development of Ukrainian professional choral performance.The scientific novelty of the results obtained lies in substantiating the role of choral Bachiana as a performance phenomenon, which is of strategic importance for the professional choral school, and an interpretative commentary on two Bach’s works in the context of modern performance strategy in Ukraine. The research methods are: historical-contextual – allows expanding the modern understanding the deep “codes” of the baroque text; genre-stylistic – aimed at identifying the typological in the interpretation of the biblical theme; performance and interpretative – revels the personal vision of the conductor. Research results and conclusion. The differences in J.S. Bach’s choral writing are studied on the basis of a comparison of the author’s concept of the selected compositions, genre semantics and performing stylistics. The polyphonic writing, choral texture, cycle composition, artistic image and articulation, and individual conductor's requirements for the implementation of selected scores, which are examples of the highest polyphonic complexity for choristers, are considered. The conclusion define the role of conductor E. Sokach as an interpreter of J. S. Bach’s music: polyphonic mastery, rhetorical tension, and the reproduction of the theological depth of the content of the compositions achieve exceptional unity and impressive power in the conductor’s reading, giving the performance an almost sacred status of “theology in sounds”.