The genre of folk song arrangement at the present stage: cultural and historical aspect
Authors: Zhang Ling 
Published: January 2021

Logical reason for research. Folk song arrangement used to occupy and still occupies a prominent place in musical practice, both in the composing one and the performing one. It combines the best, time-tested features of the folk music tradition and professional musical art. Being a genre, which is synthetic in nature, the arrangement of a folk song carries a complex set of characteristics of different types of musical creativity, which, activating different genre indicators in different historical and cultural conditions, allows this genre to occupy a special place in musical culture. The focus on a wide audience, realized at different levels of the genre, determines its external intonation-figurative, as well as performing simplicity and accessibility. At the same time, in the field of musical theory, the genre of folk song arrangement has not been given sufficient special attention either in the aspect of the peculiarities of this genre as such, or in terms of the peculiarities of its development in certain temporary socio-cultural conditions. According to the author of the present article, it is precisely the combination of these perspectives of research that is a fruitful approach to identify the specifics of the genre of folk song arrangement, in particular, in the historical and cultural aspect. Innovation. The present article is devoted to the genre of folk song arrangement in the aspect of historical development on the example of the musical culture of Ukraine and China. The genre of folk song arrangement as a result of the interaction of traditional and professional musical art has its own intonation-musical, figurativemeaningful and performing specificity. It manifests itself in stable genre indicators, providing the genre of folk song arrangement with vitality and recognition in various historical, temporal and cultural conditions. For the first time, we propose a comparative characteristic of the history of the development of the genre of folk song arrangement in Ukraine and China, on the basis of which it can be argued that differences in the ways of the development of this genre do not affect the genre nature, which has theoretical and practical (namely, the performing one) dimensions. Objectives. The purpose of the presented research is to reveal the specifics of the historical development of the folk song arrangement genre on the basis of comparing the conditions of interaction between the traditional and professional musical culture of Ukraine and China. In this regard, the following scientific tasks arise: a review of scientific sources devoted to the Ukrainian and Chinese folk song in the aspect of the study of the genre of arrangement; the identification of the ratio of the traditional and professional approach in the genre of folk song arrangement; a comparative characteristic of the main directions of the development of the genre of folk song arrangement in Ukraine and China from the early recorded data of the modern musical practice. Methods. The main methods of our research are the genre one and the historical one. The genre method is necessary to identify the main genre constants of folk song arrangement, which preserve the specificity of the present genre in various historical, temporal and cultural conditions. The historical method is associated with regulating information about the evolution of the folk song arrangement genre in the time perspective from the beginning of the interaction of traditional and professional music to the modern existence of the genre. Results of Discussion. A rather voluminous baggage of facts related to the arrangement of folk songs in the existing musicological sources often remains just a sum of facts. Quite a lot of research has been devoted to folk music and folk song as one of its main representatives, both in a historical and theoretical way. These are scientific works of different genres – from articles to dissertations. As a separate genre, the arrangement of folk songs has not received comprehensive coverage in individual scientific works, although the study of specific samples of arrangements of folk songs in the conditions of the composing or performing creativity is represented quite widely. As a rule, in studies devoted to the genre of folk song arrangement, the object is the arrangement of a folk song in the creative work of a particular composer or in the field of performance – for example, in relation to Ukrainian musical culture, one can talk about bandura performance, the activities of certain musical groups of varying degrees and directions of professionalism – from amateur to academic. As for Chinese musical culture, the representative of which the author of the present article is, Chinese musicologists pay more attention to the history of Chinese folk song, its collection, recording and influence on the professional creative work of Chinese composers – from chamber-vocal to instrumental creativity. Thus, the lack of a systematic study of folk song arrangement as a genre makes such a study very perspective. Considering that modern musicology involves genre, stylistic, figurative, national-cultural parameters in the field of scientific research, the study of the genre of folk song arrangement seems to be quite rich both in terms of problems and in terms of predicted results. The cultural and historical aspect of the study, associated with understanding the patterns of the development of any musical genre at different stages of history in different cultural and civilizational conditions, is one of the basic ones in science. In the present article, it is based on a comparative characteristic of the development of the genre of folk song arrangement in Ukrainian and Chinese musical culture. Conclusions. The result of the study is the conclusion that the genre of folk song arrangement, owing to its synthetic nature, has special genre qualities, which in various historical and cultural conditions allowed it to retain its specificity for several centuries up to the present day. The comparative characteristic of the history of the development of the folk song arrangement genre in Ukraine and China allows concluding that the differences in the ways of the development of this genre (the history of the development of professional musical art, the differences in the ways of interaction between traditional and professional musical culture and, accordingly, the peculiarities of the compositional arrangement of folklore primary sources) do not change its specificity, which has both theoretical and practical (in particular, the performing one) dimensions. The prospects for further research in this direction are associated with: the characteristic of the synthetic genre nature of folk song arrangement; with the peculiarities of the historical development of the folk song arrangement genre in different time and national-cultural conditions; with the identification of the role of the genre of folk song arrangement in musical practice (both the composing one and the performing one) at different historical stages of the development of musical art in different countries of the world.