The Semantics of Virtuosity in Genre-Stylistic System of C. Saint-Saëns’s Album for Piano op. 72
Authors: Oleh Klendii 
Published: June 2019

Background. In recent decades an intensive development of art semiotics, which contributes to the investigation of the concept of musical compositions and their functioning in performance practice, has been observed. Music semantics and performance texture are closely interrelated, since texture elements as semantic signs are able to convey the semantic expression of the language of music. Texture depends on a lot of factors. There is a strong semantic interrelation between an individual music genre and its typical texture, which has established itself in music practice and has become its distinctive feature. The typical examples are chant chords, which is a typical accompaniment of a waltz, and toccata martellato as an articulation technique. There is an interdependence of music styles and texture elements at historical, national and individual composer’s levels. For example, there is exquisite embellishment in French clavecinists’ works and Alberti bass in Viennese classics’ works. An unexpected outburst of virtuoso style in performance art has become a cultural heritage of Romantic era. In the 19th century the semantics of virtuosity, which is evident in the choice of the mediums of expression in piano works, was of significant importance more than ever before. Texture was in focus and tempo-rhythm, articulation, dynamics and agogics created tonal variations (clarity of Chopin’s jeu perl&#233;, bravura octaval passage works by Liszt). Together with the main meaning-making mechanisms of genre and style in piano works of the 21st century, there is program music. In Baroque era it was closely connected with oratory and the theory of affects. Romanticists gained a better understanding of the potential of music art as a universal language. As a result, during the last two centuries, a “dictionary” of texture semantic signs connected with program music was in the process of its creation. Its demonstrative and wide-spread example is the onomatopoeia of bells (indexical sign by V. Kholopova), which provided for using chords, a broad range of registers and polyrhythm (F. Liszt, O. Borodin, S. Rachmaninoff, C. Debussy). C. Saint-Sa&#235;ns is one of the most brilliant representatives of French piano school, who personifies the phenomenon of a “composer-virtuoso”. That is why, among all the kinds of conceptual-music and conceptual-word signs (by V. Kholopova), which make up the texture of C. Saint-Sa&#235;ns’s piano music, virtuosity signs are of great importance and their scientific apprehension reveals the principles of his piano style better. Album for piano op. 72 was written in the years of C. Saint-Sa&#235;ns’s intensive creative work as a performer and as a composer and it emphasizes the main trends in mature pianoforte mentality. Objectives. The paper covers the determination of the style basics of C. Saint-Sa&#235;ns’s piano music in terms of the influence of a virtuoso performance practice, which was developed in Western European art. Methods. Research methodology is based on the unity of style, genre, intonation and system analysis types, which highlight the significance of the piano music heritage of the great artist for contemporary performers. Results. A genre and stylistic system of the miniature cycle of Album for piano op. 72 is complex and various. There is a principle of genre interrelation, which manifests itself in the use of folk genres of Italian music culture as a national tradition of this country and the combination of prelude genres of Baroque and Romantic eras (Baroque principles of composition in creating a romantic character). The composition of Album can be roughly divided into two “small cycles”, which are characterized, first of all, by the presence of motor (motor-dance) genres in the final parts and, secondly, by the contrast in the middle part, namely a sound representing one and a cantilena one. The first cycle contains Pr&#233;lude, Carillon, and Toccata and the second one includes Valse, Chanson Napolitaine and Finale. As for the virtuosity, three main semantic complexes, through which it is manifested, can be distinguished. Their differentiation depends on the dominating expressive means. A high tempo, loud dynamics (ff, fff) and a high level of articulation clarity (non legato, marcatissimo, rinforzando) are the most significant ones in the first cycle. The second cycle is characterized by a multilayer texture with a complex metro-rhythm organization and the elements of a polyphonic notation, which compensates a medium tempo. The third complex represents the semantic values, which are opposite to the first one. They are reached due to a clear light texture, fine finger action combined with articulatory leggiero and dynamics (p, pp). C. Saint-Sa&#235;ns’s Album for piano op. 72 requires the performer to have the whole set of technical skills. The works of this cycle contain not only a creative synthesis of the piano music of Baroque, Classicism and Romantic era, which is heritable for the artist, but also new ideas of a thematic organization followed by the appearance of music impressionism stylistics in future. Conclusions. C. Saint-Sa&#235;ns’s piano music style combines the fundamentals of common European instrumental music and mental evidences of French national tradition. The main principles of the composer’s pianoforte mentality include polygenre, stylization, onomatopoeia in program music and virtuosity that were brilliantly embodied in the original authenticated forms of piano music. The virtuosity signs, which were determined in the process of the semantic analysis of Album, bring French instrumental miniature to the whole new level of artistic music creation. Being a virtuoso, C. Saint-Sa&#235;ns further developed miniature poetics, and thus, contributed to the understanding of the virtuosity style of piano music performance.