Specificity of the formation of the Ukrainian violin school and its influence on the creation of R. Gliere (on the example of "Seven artistic-instructive pieces" op. 54 for violin and piano)
Background.In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the notion of the “school” in the musicology sphere. At the same time, the history of the formation of the Ukrainian violin school remains beyond research attention. The peculiarities of the geopolitical position and the known historical events “prepared” specific conditions for the emergence of various creative relationships in the country, the most active of which fell upon the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20 th century. They manifested themselves primarily through the activities of foreign musicians. Let us remind you that the violin art of Europe had a strong informational foundation at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. The performance was increasingly getting freer from technological limi-tations; the literature was enriched with instructive material. Owing to the “research” from teachers who sought to find the most rational setting, the necessary materials in large volumes were concentrated in the hands of a violinist-beginner. For example, the genre of the violin etude was presented in several variants, among which we can outline an instructive one and an artistic one, including that with the accompaniment. In addi-tion to that, the methodology developed a steady tendency to a more detailed study of skills, on the one hand, and to the unification of technical and expressive tasks, on the other hand. Consequently, the exercise books by O. Szewczyk, H. Schradieck and the opuses of etudes, such as “L'École moderne” by H. Wieniawski, appeared, and they were distinguished by their unique combination of a brilliant instrumentalism, a refined figurativeness, and instructive goals. These data point to the dialectic nature of the art development – the efforts of musicians are concentrated on deepening into the specifics of the performance on the instrument, and, at the same time, on the artistic fullness of each extracted sound. Besides the practical material, the outstanding musicians created an impressive the-oretical base, where the two well-grounded works were greatly wide-spread – “Violin Playing as I Teach It” by L. Auer and “The Art of Violin Playing” by C. Flesch. Thus, by the time of the formation of the Ukrainian violin school, the multilevel information transfer system, proven by experience, already existed. The uniqueness of the Ukrai-nian violin art lies in its synthesizing character of the experience appropriation from the multinational areas, which predetermined and ensured the emergence of its own tradition and school. The creative activity of famous artists of the past in Ukraine had a strong influence on the strengthening of the latter, however, the specific “prolixity” of its formation allows, on the one hand, to see the fruits of their work only after a while, on the other hand, to comprehend the dynamism of the phenomenon of the “school” itself. Objectives.In retrospect, the results of the compositional practice, in particular, “Seven artistic-instructive pieces” for the violin and piano by R. Gliere, allow us to record the moment of the interaction of the multi-pole tendencies. The objectives of this study are to determine the specificity of the mentioned collection which is a certain “chronicle” of the national violin school formation from the position of the modern knowledge level. Methods.The offered analysis of the musical opus as a historical “witness” makes it possible to assess the legacy of R. Gliere from a new perspective. So far, this method has been applied to the “schools of playing” or to etudes for recreating the anthology of the violin art in general and identifying the existing achievements in performing, in particular. So, let us pay attention to the unusual name of the Gliere's opus, as the instructional piece as a special educational material was not widespread, especially under the condi-tions of the development of the genre of the etude with the piano accompaniment. In its essence, “Seven artistic-instructive pieces” by R. Gliere is a new look at the existing ideas about the relationship between expressive and technical components in the music for teaching. In the collection, the composer uses various artistic contexts, gradually complicating the performance of both playing techniques and the semantic qualities integrated into them. That is why, the first pieces allow one to solve the given tasks, on the basis of the violinist's capabilities at the present moment, and the latter dictate more stringent and freedom-regulating conditions where in the foreground there are an integral coverage of the miniature and a focus not on details, but on the movement of a musical thought in general. For example, in “The Sketch” the homogeneity of the violin part provides a focus on the rhythm-intonation formula, and the similar uniformity of the violin voice in the piece called “By the Stream”, on the contrary, requires that the musician should have the maximum length of phrases with an unobtrusive change of positions, strings and the bow. An important role in the dramaturgy of the opus belongs to the ensemble aspect. R. Gliere uses the piano as an inseparable participant of the embodiment of the sound image. For example, in “The Pastorale” the pianist paints the texture with stroked and intonation colours which are absent in the violin part; in “The Minuet” he forms a har-monic and rhythmic foundation, picking up the main theme in the trio; in “The Melody” he reveals a hidden two-voice singing in the shimmering triplet accompaniment. Using such decisions, the composer does not outshine the violin; on the contrary, by giving small cadences to the part, he emphasizes its “main” role. The above reveals R. Gliere's attitude to the violin as to his native instrument, which allows one to speak about the purposeful creation of the regarded opus. In this aspect, it is also not without interest to watch the process of R. Gliere's becoming as an outstanding musician and violinist, which, in particular, found its reflection in the successive connections of “Seven pieces” with tradition. Results.The results of the research support the idea that R. Gliere's creative devel-opment and heritage are the links of the integral process of the Ukrainian violin school formation. The interconnections with other national traditions allowed the artist to ac-cumulate the acquired knowledge and offer his own view on the existing tendencies. Emphasizing the duality of tasks in the title to the opus, the author stresses the need for a holistic mastering of technical and expressive skills. Conclusions.We conclude that “Seven artistic-instructive pieces” by R. Gliere re-flect in full the complicated process of knowledge acquisition and synthesis which took place in the Ukrainian art at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries and which provided the formation of the domestic violin “school”.