Modal and texture basics and principles of their composer’s realization in V. Bibik’s piano cycle “24 Preludes and Fugues” op. 2
Authors: Levchenko Anna 
Published: February 2025

Statement of the problem. The work of the Kharkiv composer Valentyn Bibik, in particular his piano polyphonic cycles, is increasingly attracting the attention of Ukrainian performers and musicologists. The composer’s two polyphonic cycles demonstrate an original approach to understanding polyphonic traditions and established compositional techniques, and also vividly represent the artist’s new avant-garde and balanced thinking. The article is devoted to the analysis of the cycle “24 Preludes and Fugues”, op. 2 by Valentin Bibik in terms of the manifestations of those creative mechanisms that could have influenced on the formation of the author’s concept of this work – modern and innovative in content and form. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to recognize and analyze some innovative compositional principles and techniques of form-creation in the cycle, among which the leading role is played by the mode and texture means in their dialectical interaction. A historical approach was applied to identify the contextual conditions, where the polyphonic cycle op. 2 was created, and its continuity with the Baroque model, on the one hand, and the traditions of the Ukrainian (Kharkiv) composer school, on the other hand, as well as the correlations with the development of musical art in the 20th century; a genre and style approach for identifying the specifics of Bibik’s individual interpreting the genre model of the fugue; a systemic approach aimed at coverage of the totality of musical and content levels, the dramatic unity of the cycle, the processes of theme- and formcreating, dialectical interaction of polyphonic, mode and harmonic principles as components of Bibik’s compositional technique; a comparative method to analyze the expressive means in the cycle, in particular, comparing mode and tonal centers in the fugues of op. 2. For the first time in Ukrainian musicology, the article, based on the material of a little-studied polyphonic cycle, raises the issue of the specificity of V. Bibik’s polyphonic technique in the context of the composer’s innovation, in particular, in the aspect of mode and texture regularities. Research results. Among the leading principles and means implemented by V. Bibik, we note the wide application of variation, various kinds of polyphonic permutations, the use of contrapuntal combinations with innovative mode and texture (functional and logical, colourful and sonorous) solutions, re-harmonization, the combination of various texture and form-creating polyphonic and harmonic techniques. The pitch organization of V. Bibik’s polyphony is distinguished by the synthesis of diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic systems, enharmonic replacement of tones, which leads to changes in the interval composition of the melody and, in general, mode and harmonic content in the process of thematic development. The combination in one polyphonic form of modal, polymodal, polytonal, atonal and other principles creates a special complex-modal type of mode and tonal dramaturgy, characteristic of the music of the 20th century. The article also highlights the influence of mode and texture on other elements of the musical expressive complex within the work, including various structural components of the fugue, reflecting the unique compositional approach to the interpretation of both the genre model of the fugue and the large polyphonic cycle. Conclusion. The free operation of traditional techniques of polyphonic music, as well as innovation in this area, the skill and maturity of the composer’s writing, the conscious and vivid implementation of creative experimentation make the polyphonic cycle conceptually complete, meaningful and technically diverse, and therefore worthy of further attention from both, the researchers and, above all, the performers.