The theory of narrative in the musicological discourse
Authors: Shara Oleksandra 
Published: December 2023

Statement of the problem. The eternal debate, how words and music interact with each other, runs through the history of musical art, covering both vocal works, where the leading role of the verbal base is obvious, and instrumental works, where the influences of verbal genres give rise to new qualities and corresponding expressive complexes. One of these qualities is “narrativity”, i.e. narration based on eventfulness that in music, especially purely instrumental one, has a specific character. The notion of “narrative” has moved far beyond the boundaries of a single discipline and has become the object of active theoretical research in 20th –21st centuries, including the music world. The concept of narrative in music has been considered in a number of studies by foreign scholars (Hatten, 2004; Klein, 2009; Almen, 2003, 2004, 2008; Tarasti, 1994; Grabocz, 2004; Hair, 2004, and others) and Ukrainian researchers (Ivko, 2008; Piaskovsky, 2003; Lysiuk, 2011, and others). Objectives, methods and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is the meta-analysis of the discourse on music narrative and highlighting some of the fundamental theories and methods of narrative analysis. For the first time, an attempt was made to systematize the narrative concepts of Ukrainian and foreign researchers and to highlight the approaches of foreign scientists to the issues of narrative analysis for their further application and development in Ukrainian musicology. A combination of methods of generalization and systematization, as well as comparative analysis of information, was used as a research tool. Results. The research shows that the theory of musical narrativity in national musicology is currently at the initial stage. I. Piaskovsky studies this issue on the material of polyphonic music only, A. Ivko considers merely such aspect of narrativity as eventfulness in vocal and instrumental works, Liu Xia and S. Lysiuk focus on the performance embodiment of music narrative, and V. Stepurko & Ya. Bardashevska apply a synthetic approach to the analysis of contemporary instrumental works. Foreign musicology, which has already studied the issue of musical narrative in detail, offers the various theories and methods to analyse it. R. Hatten, drawing parallels with a fairy tale and a storyteller, proves the existence of a narrative in “pure” music and creates a theory of expressive genres that are carriers of tragic, pastoral, heroic principles, and whose appearance is associated with change of current music state, which the author calls “shifting to a higher level of discourse” (Hatten, 1991: 76) ( similar to the “narrator’s” comment). B. Almen uses this concept in his research and adapts the theory of narrative archetypes by J. Liszka and N. Frye to musical analysis; M. Klein also relies on the latter. B. Almen uses this concept in his research and adapts the theory of narrative archetypes by J. Liszka and N. Frye to musical analysis; M. Klein also relies on the latter. Besides, B. Almen creates a classification of the correlations of the musical theme and narrative in an instrumental work. E. Tarasti and M. Grabocz refer to the models of A. Greimas in their analytical studies. There are scholars who oppose the idea of musical narrative (J. J. Nattiez and C. Abbate), but numerous researchers (including B. Almen and M. Sichardt) refute their arguments, which indicates the active entry of the concept of “narrativity” into the musicological discourse in different countries of the world. Conclusion. Thus, the meta-analysis of the discourse on musical narrative, although not complete, allows us to understand the interest of researchers from all over the world in this issue, which remains relevant to this day. The issue of musical narrative is a complex one that requires further research and expansion of the field of musicology.