Genre and stylistic transformations in the works for bayan by the Ukrainian composers of the last third of the 20th – 21st centuries
Authors: Melnychenko Maksym 
Published: August 2024

Statement of the problem. In recent decades, the bayan has become quite popular among Ukrainian composers. Today, it not only retains its traditional academic forms of use and sounds, but also acts as an interesting and high-tech instrument that finds its place in various musical genres and styles. The modern bayan art, in particular of the Ukrainian composers, combines of traditional elements with innovative approaches and experiments, which expand of sound possibilities of the instrument and transform academic genres and forms, causing today the need to study of such modern trends. Objectives, methods and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to investigate the genre and style transformations in the work of the Ukrainian composers of the last third of the 20th – the 21st centuries, connected with the artists’ turn to neo-folk and pop-jazz stylistics. For that the research methods, such as genre and style, are used to identify individual composer projections of style on typical genres; structural and functional ones in the course of analysing the selected works. The novelty of the obtained results is caused by turning to the bayan works by V. Vlasov, Ya. Oleksiv, V. Runchak, V. Zubytsky and B. Mironchuk, which belong to the neo-folk and pop trends, in order to identify in them genre and style transformations determined by the context of the development of modern bayan art. Results and conclusion. The tendency of the modern bayan art towards genre and style transformations was examined basing on the genre models of academic music of the European tradition (partita, suite, concert miniature), which are key in the mechanism of creating new music. As the considered examples show, the modern Ukrainian composers actively work in them bayan pieces both, on the folklore sources using the deep archaic layers of traditional music, and on the jazz and pop music. Genre and style transformation in the considered works (V. Vlasov’s “Vesnianka” – “Spring song”, Ya. Oleksiv’s “Night at mountain valley”, V. Runchak’s Suite No. 2 “Ukrainian”, V. Zubytsky’s “Jazz Partita No. 1”) is carried out due to the authors’ appeals to neo-folkloric and pop-jazz stylistic directions, taking into account such parameters as 1) melody, 2) peculiarities of the scale structure; 3) harmony; 4) genre attributes; 5) methods of thematic development, which are characteristic the authentic national instrumental music making and the pop jazz performance. In many cases, artists use genre and style transformations as a means to abandon standard musical formats and to create something original and exclusive. Therefore, genre and style transformations are an important component of the artistic method of the bayan composers, which allows them to avoid stereotypes and create unique original composition, giving it a special color and atmosphere. Thus, the genre and style transformations in modern button accordion art expand the boundaries of the traditional interpretation of the instrument and “breathe” new life into it.