Romance «Blacked Night» by O. Tadeush based on Sappho’s poem: dialogue in “large time”
Authors: Bielova Yе.D. 
Published: March 2020

Theoretical background. According to the concept of M. Bakhtin (1986, others), every from outstanding works enters to the “large time”, where it enriches with new meanings, senses, fully revealing the subtext embedded in it. A similar dialogue occurs directly in the process of composer’s interpretation of a literary text taken as the primary basis for a musical piece. Especially this is true for the archaic literary source, since the perception of it in the distant epoch don’t coincide with the way it is perceived by contemporaries of the composer. This phenomenon is due to a new cultural and historical context, and, as a result, the literary work acquires a new semantic content adequate to the musical opus, its perception by performers and public. Thus, a composer and performers of a musical-poetic opus, recipients and scientists enter into the dialogue of the “large time”, bringing their own intellectual baggage, thesaurus, artistic perception of art. In this case, the researcher need to take into account the unique artistic synthesis that arises as a result of the interaction of words, music and the all of means of artistic expression. The proposed study is based on M. Bakhtin’s concept of dialogue, which carries out in the semiotic space of culture. M. Bakhtin views the dialogue not only as a human-to-human contact but also as an appeal to a scientific or artistic text. Analyzing the vocal miniature, one should track the individualities of the authors of literary text and the musical work, at the same time filtering the meanings of the text of the vocal miniature through the own artistic experience, grasping the dialogue in the context of cultural and historical experience and “large memory”, (M. Bakhtin’s concept). The romance “Blackened Night” is addressed to the original members – soprano and marimba duet. However, from the standpoint of the need for performing reproduction of vocal and instrumental synthesis, it is appropriate to refer to the experience of concert pianists. The purpose of the study is to define the cultural and historical context of dialogue in “large time”, which determines the content-semantic areas of gravity between the word and music in the composer’s, performer’s interpretation and perception of the romance «Blackened Night» by Oksana Tadeush. Methods. The methodological basis of the study is the communicative model of the “large dialogue” (M. Bakhtin), which is carried out in the time-space (chronotope, according M. Bakhtin) and is based on the “large memory” of culture. On the other hand, the study used the methodology of interpretative performing analysis of musical works (in particular, the analytical approach by remarkable singer and researcher Ian Bostridge, 2019). The moment of coincidence of both research methodologies has been revealed: unraveling the semantic images of the opus simultaneously from the standpoint of the time of its writing and modernity, which helps to reveal the content of the cultural dialogue. Results. The study showed that the poem by Sappho is related to the «night» poetry characteristic of European culture, as well as to the symbol of Night, which the archetype of the Romantic era is. At the level of musical semantics, the connection with «night » poetry is reflected in the musical texture, since the arpeggio figures in accompaniment, as one of the texture units, is characteristic to the nocturne genre. The author concludes: the sound image of marimba corresponds best to the spirit of «night» poetry. The connection with archaic thinking is represented through the signs of monodic texture characterized for singing with the accompaniment in the Hellenistic era. Archaic origin is inherent in hemiolica (term by Yu. Kholopov, 2003): there is the scale with augmented second in the vocal part of O. Tadeush’s romance. Dialogue in “large time” was further extended by the performers on the premier of the romance (O. Velyka – soprano, and the author of this article – marimba) with the assistance of stage costumes (dresses that resemble ancient Greek tunics) that helped the communicator-interpreters to get deeper into the image. Interpreting Sappho’s «night» poetry, O. Tadeush turns to the sound image of marimba, which is the background for the heroine’s internal monologue. The dialogue not only with the author of the poetic text arises, but also with the tradition of the chamber-vocal genre in historical retrospective, as the second member of the ensemble in O. Tadeush’s romance is not the piano, but the marimba (a percussion instrument related to the piano, but at the same time unique in terms of timbre and articulation). The articulation of a percussionist who intones on the marimba should fill each sound with coloring vibration to make it expressive and meaningful, to achieve a variety of sounds of this mono-timbre instrument with helping of use of varieties touch&#233; and registers, in according with dynamics of form-building and figurative development of the work. Conclusion. To sum up, we note that in the romance «Blackened Night» Oksana Tadeush enters into dialogue with great Sappho, reproducing the world of her poems, melody and rhythm of the poetic text in the original language. The composer creates a unique artistic concept, following the laws of the chamber-vocal genre with regard to the duet of singing and instrumental voices as well as the laws of music in accordance with the current tendencies of the beginning of the 21st century, where the search for an extraordinary artistic solution is not the last argument. As a research prospect interesting the author, further clarification of the specificity of the implementation of the sound images of percussion instruments in the creativity of the composers of the Kharkiv School is suggested, taking into account the individuality of the artistic concept of each piece of music.