AVANT-GARDE, INSTRUMENTAL THEATRE AND CELLO IN VALENTINE SILVESTROV “DRAMA”

Abstract

The development paths, conceptual ideas and methods of their implementation in avant-garde chamber and ensemble music with the participation of the cello in the last third of the 20th century in Ukraine are highlighted. This period was a time of refusal of a new galaxy of Ukrainian composers from large-scale symphonic canvases and their transition to more modest chamber compositions, in which form-making and coloristic experiments were carried out, the expressive base and compositional techniques were updated. The growth of composers’ interest in the cello in the 1960s and 1970s was due to the ability of this instrument to be, on the one hand, an expression of deep philosophical concepts, and on the other, subjective human experiences. One of the leaders of the Ukrainian avant-garde, V. Sylvestrov, includes the cello in many of his works, which contain avant-garde searches. It is also part of his piano trio “Drama” (1970–1971), which in its essence belongs to conceptual art. In this work, the composer set himself the task of creating a sound field that would unite different sound systems into new figures and structures, as a result of which tension was created that would hold the listeners’ attention and not give them the opportunity to relax. These aspirations were realized through the introduction of avant-garde elements and theatricalization of the action. Along with the stage action, the composer introduces means unknown in Ukrainian music: unusual athematic intonation, “non-classical” instrumental techniques, additional devices, microphone amplification, etc. The unusual “musical design”: the introduction of clusters, various sonoristic and aleatory elements, tapping on the soundboard, playing on the strings of the piano and under the stand on stringed instruments, plucking the end of the bow on the strings inside the piano, flageolet-like cues in the cello, etc., increased the tension. The creation of a more intense sound space, compared to the previous one, contributed to the implementation of the artist’s conceptual approach to creativity and the purpose of art. In V. Sylvestrov’s compositional practice, this was the beginning of the development of the concept of “music of silence”, and the use of “extended” instrumental techniques, reproduced in the “Drama” trio, became the “norm” of chamber and ensemble works of the late 20th century.