“Wedding” by Yakiv Yatsynevych: Peculiarities of Verbal Texts Musical Reading
Authors: Chamakhud Daryna 
Published: February 2024

The relevance of the research. Among the Ukrainian composers who, in the first third of the 20th century, turned to the musical design of the Sacrament of Marriage, is Yakiv Yatsynevych. In his work, the composer issued the structure of the cycle in a new way. There are no thorough studies of the music of "The Wedding" by Y. Yatsynevych. In the short analytical description of O. Zasadna, not all characteristics of the cycle are identified and commented on. Today there are no performances or audio recordings of "The Wedding". The reason for this is the lack of interest of choral groups in the sacramental music artists of this era. However, it is extremely necessary to research, revive and popularize high-quality Ukrainian music.

Objective of the research – to investigate "The Wedding" songs by Y. Yatsynevych, to reveal the author's peculiarities of the verbal texts embodiment, to outline the musical characteristics of the work for the interest of performing choral groups. During the fulfillment of the mentioned tasks such methods of investigation were used: source study (search of documents in the archives of Kyiv), systematization (division and classification of found materials), history-chronological (arrangement and reconstruction of "The Wedding" creation), comparison (comparison and identification of musical features of "The Wedding" songs by Ukrainian composers of the first third of the 20th century), synthesis and generalization (joining of gained knowledge).

Scientific novelty. For the first time in Ukrainian musicology, archival documents from the life of Y. Yatsynevych, archival manuscripts of individual sections of the composer's "The Wedding" songs have been published, the musical and performance features of the cycle have been analyzed in detail, and intonation original sources of the works have been found.

Research results and perspectives. According to archival documents, the approximate date of "The Wedding" creation by Y. Yatsynevych was established - on the eve of 1927. Based on a comparison of the printed sheet music of the composer under the editorship of M. Hobdych with the work archival manuscript, a violation of the order of the chants was revealed. The structure of "The Wedding" was coordinated with the canonical liturgical sequence, and a separate numbering of the parts of the cycle was proposed: 1. "The Great Litany", 2. "Blessed are all", 3. "Prokymen", 4. "Isaiah, rejoice", 5. "For long years". Simplified versions of individual sections of the cycle were found and published for the first time – "Holy Martyrs" from "Isaiah, Rejoice", "To You, Lord" from "The Great Litany". The number of songs and their musical forms in Yatsynevich and his contemporaries (K. Stetsenko, O. Koshyts, P. Kozytskyi, Y. Kyshakevych) were compared. The peculiarity of the structure of "The Wedding" by Y. Yatsynevych was revealed – for the first time, the canonical texts of the two parts of the sacrament of Marriage (Engagement and Wedding) were voiced. The study of the musical features of "The Wedding" by Y. Yatsynevych leads to certain conclusions. In the compositions of the cycle, the author relied on the characteristic features of various stylistic sources – canto, folk song stylistics, techniques of church vocabulary in all the canticles of the cycle. Appeals to the concert genre (broad chants, contrast of choral tutti and solo parts in the long "Prokymen "), everyday chants (sound imitation in the short "Prokymen" of the pre-initial psalm "Bless my soul, God" of the Greek chant) were revealed. Important factors in ensuring the integrity of the cycle became intonation connections in the form of related melodic turns (wave-like development of the melody, broad chants). The citation of musical fragments in the work "Blessed are all" from "In Your Kingdom" from "Liturgy" by Y. Yatsynevych was found and illustrated. As an experienced conductor of professional and amateur choral ensembles, the composer took into consideration the performance capabilities of the singers and offered various versions of individual parts of the cycle - both virtuosic and simplified, which was not known before.

Significance. The proposed research testifies to Y. Yatsynevych's professional implementation of the canonical texts of the ceremonial wedding service and it should encourage singers to perform the work not only in the church, but also in concerts.