“El Polifemo de Oro” by Reginald Smith Brindle: specificity of implementation of the program plan

Section 3. History and modernity in world musical art

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The 20th century in the development of the guitar art of Great Britain is significant and is associated with the formation of its own traditions of guitar academic performance. One of the representatives of the British composer school of the 20th century is Reginald Smith Brindle, whose composer creativity have an important role at the stage of forming a new image of the instrument – a modernist guitar. Due to the fact that the opuses of this composer now remain almost unknown to the Ukrainian audience, we see it appropriate to pay attention to the creative achievements of this author, to introduce him into the practical and scientific sphere of domestic musicology. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of our research is to reveal the artistic and stylistic features, compositional and performance aspects of S. Brindle’s work by identifying the connection between F. G. Lorca’s poetic images and the complex of musical and expressive means of the play. The research uses an integrated approach, which involves such methods as biographical that contributes to the systematization of certain facts of the biography of S. Brindle in the context of the formation of his composer style; stylistic one aimed at revealing the specifics of the author’s manner of writing; system and structural-functional to identify and systematize the elements that contribute to the artistic integrity of the work. The method of intonation analysis is used when considering the intervals of a series from the point of view of its expressive capabilities aimed at the embodiment of the art content and program design of the work. The novelty of the research lies in the analysis of the methods and techniques of the composer’s discovery of the sound expressive capabilities of the guitar through the use of 12-tone technique in the implementation of the programmatic idea of the work. Research results and conclusion. We can confirm the originality of R. Brindle’s “El Polifemo de Oro” and his innovation for the guitar repertoire of the mid- twentieth century. The twelve-tone technique helps to reveal the symbolic content of the work, born under the influence of the poetic images of G. Lorca. The use of contrasting dynamics, tempo, retention throughout all four fragments of through intonation-rhythmic blocks, such as “leitmotifs” creates a conditional musical plot, in which various shades of the mood of the mythological hero are reproduced. This is facilitated by the reinforcement of the intonation-harmonic layer of the texture with a variety of timbre receptions-effects: tastiera, ponticello, coll’unghia al ponticello, naturale, echo, tamburo, glissando. Thanks to the involvement of a variety of articulation and artistic possibilities of the guitar, the composer managed to maximally reveal the color of the instrument, opening a new format for the sound of the guitar repertoire.