Concert genres for piano and orchestra in the works of Sergei Bortkiewicz
Authors: Cherednychenko O.V. 
Published: May 2019

Background. The last two decades testify to the fact that the music of the Ukrainian composer S. Bortkiewicz (1877–1952) has become popular in various countries not only in Europe, but also around the world, giving birth to a so-called multilingual “Bortkiewicziana”. It would be already enough to mention the works published in German, English, Bulgarian, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Japanese. The literature and multi-genre musical heritage left by the composer provides vast opportunities for researchers. However, many creativity aspects of the “last romanticist”, refl ected in various research projects, do not lose their relevance for contemporary musicians. Objectives. The goal of the article is to reveal the image and the stylistic peculiarities the music pieces by S. Bortkiewicz, composed for piano and orchestra. Methods. The study is based on the historical, theoretical and comparative methods of analysis, which allow to bring in critical reviews of contemporaries and researchers about S. Bortkiewicz’s music, reveal the compositional and dramatic features of his piano concerto opus, reveal the individual approach to the inherited tradition. Results. The composer’s legacy includes three Concertos and the Russian Rhapsody, created between 1910s and the fi rst half of the 1930s. The interest in this fi eld of creativity can be explained by the pianistic activity of the composer, who “started” with the Concerto Op. 1 for the favorite music instrument. Despite the fact that the author ultimately abandoned his “fi rst-born” work, judging by the Kharkiv press publications of the fi rst decade of the 20th century, he presented it to the public. Actually, 1st Concerto for piano and orchestra op. 16, B-dur (1912) bares the tradition of a three-part structure with contrasting comparison of movements. Despite the seemingly impressive appearance of the piano part, S. Bortkiewicz summarizes the best achievements of Western European and Russian music, revealing his creative individuality. While maintaining a clear delimitation and contrast between the three movements, he seals the cycle with thematic arches. He also involves the idea of a multi-episodic mood swings, revealing closeness to the poetic type of thinking. The predominance of lyrical expression in S. Bortkiewicz’s Concertos indicates the composer’s orientation to the experience of romantic culture. However, he does not seek to establish the domination of the soloist, his priority position in the concert dialogue. There is an equal parity of both parties, which is beyond the tradition of alternate duplication-development of the same material. S. Bortkiewicz does not tend to use symphonic methods either, handling the contrast technique and as a means of creating dramatic collisions that move the process forward, and as one of the most effective methods of development. The composer uses the entire arsenal of pianistic techniques, except for the passage technique of style brilliant. The principles of a poem found their further implementation in the 3rd Piano Concerto, Op. 32, c-moll, entitled “Per aspera ad astra” (“Through thorns to the stars”), which is a single-cyclic music piece, referring to the works of F. Liszt. The choice of compositional and dramatic solution is determined by the artistic idea. It also brings into existence the intonation, the mode and tonal, and the texture allusions that give birth to vivid imaginative associations and ideas about deep semantic connections that relate composers from different eras to each other. The combination of different style phenomena, based on the commonality of their context, the activation of associative relations, the free application of accumulated experience reveal the composer’s modern thinking, an active search for new approaches to the established tradition, refl ecting the polystylistic tendencies in the music of the 20th century. Russian Rhapsody for piano with orchestra op. 45, a-moll is a concentrated expression of the “folk” line in the works of S. Bortkiewicz. It summarizes the specifi c features of the composer’s large-scale music pieces: the multi-episode structure based on contrasting material, and the purposefulness of the dramatic process, ensuring an active movement to the unfolded “fi nal” climax; the suite structure that appears from the change of the whole expressive means complex on the borders of the sections; and the refrain structure that builds the “frame” of the contrast composite form; the principle of “threading” themes that are different in emotional content, and the gradual consolidation of the main imagery sphere through the extrusion of the previously using thematic ideas. For the Russian rhapsody, using the fresco principles of writing, the larges-cale and brightness of the instrumental palette is typical. These properties bear the imprint of individuality that is common to Bortkiewicz, since the solo piano is considered as one of the equal participants in the orchestra. The 2nd Concerto op. 28 for the left hand (1924), at fi rst glance, stands somewhat apart from similar works by the composer. However, the composer does not limit himself in his choice of pianistic methods. Instead, he uses the whole complex of technical and expressive means: the fi gurative movement, octaves, hidden two-voice theme with the typical “landscape – background” texture, dialog cross-talks, fullness of timbre and register space, a variety of playing techniques that help to reveal the imagery and the emotional content. Conclusions. Large cyclical genres demonstrate the creative approach of S. Bortkiewicz to the established patterns, which can be seen through the specifi c interpretation of the sonata form and the cycle as a whole, in using the technique of variation and the poem principles, the dynamization of the dramatic process and the relative completeness in each section of the form, the mode and harmonic freedom within the construction elements and overall tonal balance. To concretize the imagery world and the artistic idea of a music piece, the composer makes extensive use of genre and style allusions and the quoted material.