THE TOPIC OF WAR IN WESTERN EUROPEAN MUSIC ART OF THE XX–XXI CENTURIES
Authors:   Private Higher Educational Institution “Kyiv University of Culture”, Ukraine, Sinenko Oksana 
Published: August 2022

Wars are destructive events that, despite their destructive nature, occur with a certain frequency in the history of human existence. The course of wars, their nature and causes are different, but the impact of military events on human consciousness is inevitable. The problem of the destructive nature of war, its ability to integrate and differentiate human communities often received not only scientific coverage, but also became the subject of works of art. Art is a sphere of human life that flexibly responds to all events that occur in the socio-cultural space. There are many literary, pictorial, theatrical, cinematic works that reflect military events. Examples of military coverage can be found in the musical art of the XX–XXI century. Works related to the theme of war and peace, the balance between these phenomena, are available in both foreign and Ukrainian music culture. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the specifics of musical works on military themes and to determine the dominant features that are inherent in them. This task is urgent, given the significant transformation of modern life of the Ukrainian people and the need to define the role of musical art in society. Highlighting the features of musical works will determine their role in the context of culture. Methodology of the study is based on general research methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, observation and abstraction, which are used to systematize achievements in the study of military topics in the art of music. The logic of the study involves determining the range of works on the theme of war, highlighting their essential features, conducting a comparative analysis of works written by Western European artists and outlining further prospects for work in this direction. Results. Composers, turning in their works to military themes, often seek to make their compositions understandable to the public. After all, their works acquire the role of a kind of artistic manifestos, the result of their own subjective experiences of military events, or to reflect on them as observers. Trying to make them as accessible as possible to the audience helps to choose the principle of programmability when it comes to instrumental opuses. Composers give their works bright names that allow drawing an analogy with military events, adding poetic epigraphs and more. If composers turn to vocal and instrumental works, they choose those verbal texts that reproduce the desired artistic and figurative content. Most often, artists choose genres such as requiem, crying, oratorio. Composer’s reflection often includes reliance on texts of the Ordinary, Catholic Mass, etc., which are stable carriers of meaning, have their own symbolic value and are understandable due to their circulation in music culture to the general public. Practical implications. The study of works related to military themes provides an opportunity to understand the power of art, as well as to determine its role in society. The works of Western European composers of the XX century M. Ravel, C. Debussy became a reaction to the events of the First World War. The works of A. Schoenberg, A. Onegger, B. Britten, and K. Penderetsky were initiated at the beginning of the Second World War. Nowadays, the 21st century is a time of wars, which are a powerful emotional shock for people in general and composers in particular, who are trying to capture this traumatic experience in an artistic form. However, they see their mission not only in recreating events in an artistic form, but also in creating a kind of warning for posterity about the inability to move through wars that bring only pain and suffering, causing the death of human beings. Value/originality. Composers’ artistic manifestos are a direct reaction to the changing world, shocks that confuse people, even if they were not directly involved. A promising area for further research is to highlight the specifics of works by Ukrainian composers related to military issues.