The value transformation аnd semantic space of kitsch in the music practice at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries
Authors: Zhaleіko D.M. 
Published: August 2020

Background. The phenomenon of kitsch in the musical practice of the 20th century is characterized by the absence of a strict definition, on the basis of which one or another musical composition could be classified as a kitsch one. The appearance of kitsch in music had several reasons: 1) the composers’ desire to impress the listener, as well as to achieve commercial success (hence the imitation of high art patterns through democratization, aimed at achieving the replication of a musical composition); 2) the perception of kitsch as a “secondary” phenomenon – a copy or a fake; 3) the change of one cultural paradigm for another (“Romanticism – Avant-gardism – Postmodernism”). The negative semantic load of kitsch has developed genetically and is a kind of marking of “a bad taste”. The paradox is that “kitsch” is interpreted by music critics as a secondary phenomenon, which is beyond the boundaries of genuine art. However, in the composer’s work, kitsch can be interpreted in a positive sense, too. The purpose of the article is to identify the space of the actualization of kitsch as a stylistic mechanism of the value semantics of a musical composition and to point out the specificity of kitsch in its categorical correlation with other components of the stylistic system of the composer’s creativity. Objectives. The object of the research is the stylistic systems of composers creativity of the 20th–21st centuries, the structure of which includes the intonation form of kitsch, the ambivalent nature of which is revealed through various composing methods in various semantic keys that are the subject of this study. Methods. The need to substantiate the immanent-musical manifestations of kitsch in the composer’s style system explains the choice of interdisciplinary interaction of general scientific (historical, axiological, cognitive, systemic, and comparative) and special (genre-style, structural-functional, and interpretive) approaches. Results. Kitsch in academic music oeuvre is an intonation form, which is made by a composer from the “intonation dictionary of the epoch” without any individual activity and independence (“ordinary art”, forgery) or by the method of modelling and transforming that reflects the stereotypical human’s ideas of the Beauty in the axiological dynamics of musical arts (“high” art, its transcendental essence). The mechanisms of actualization, assessment and identification of kitsch in music have been revealed. The level of identification by the listener of the composer’s idea with one or another evaluative judgment will depend on the position of not only the author, but also the interpreter. The essence of kitsch is immanently predisposed to the multivariate nature of its manifestation, depending on the peculiarities of the correlation of the composer’s intention and the perception of the recipient. A typology of kitsch and its functions in music have been proposed. Mechanisms of kitsch meaning formation are semantic, axiological, and performing factors. Conclusions. In musical art, the phenomenon of kitsch acquires a perception and semantic transformation, which should be different from other types of art. The versatility of the intonation forms of kitsch depends on the composing, performing, and listening interpretation. In terms of professional perception and evaluation of the composition, kitsch carries a negative semantic load. However, if the perspective and evaluation criteria change, then kitsch can become a “borderline” phenomenon of musical culture. Transformation and “centring”, shift away from the main negative understanding of kitsch is possible only upon its immersing into a new compositional context. At the basis of kitsch stylization is the conceptual reason for referring to kitsch material through modelling (method by I. Stravinsky, D. Shostakovich, A. Schnittke, and R. Schedrin). The interaction of the kitsch material with the author’s stylistic frees kitsch from the negative meaning (metastyle). The transformation of the “kitsch” material becomes possible due to the appeal of the composers to the form of its symbolization (method by A. Schnittke, V. Silvestrov), which generalizes the process of the semantic “decoding” of kitsch in the perception of the recipient. V. Silvestrov reflected the ideas about Beauty within the borders of the modern European musical and aural experience. The uniqueness of the intonation embodiment of kitsch lies in the fact that the composer took into account the axiological aspect of the perception of one or another of its parameters by the recipient to embody his conceptual ideas. Kitsch, being the lexical “component” of the composer’s style, at the level of inter-textual connections becomes a new tool for generating meaning-making in music. In other words, in the music by V. Silvestrov, kitsch is released from the negative semantic load. The ambivalence of the nature of kitsch and the duality of its perception by listeners are the very immanent qualities that the performer can take into account in his/her interpretation of kitsch.