RELIGIOUS-CATECHITIC ESSENCE OF POETIC TEXTS OF THE CHORISTAL ARRANGEMENTS OF UKRAINIAN SACRED SONGS OF THE XVII – XIX CENTURIES

Abstract

Ukrainian spiritual songs in the composers’ arrangements are one of the priority themes of contemporary musicology. One of them is the question of the analysis of poetic texts of sacred songs, its correspondence with theological and liturgical literature, and Christian hymnography. Thus, the purpose of the article is to broadly outline the range of issues that need to be solved in order to understand the essence of the poetic word of Ukrainian sacred songs, their theological-catechetical orientation and educational essence. The article states that the Ukrainian composers became interested in sacred songs of the XVII – XIX centuries at the end of the nineteenth century. For this purpose, they created many choral arrangements for sacred songs. The attention is drawn to the fact that the most fruitful stage of the work of Ukrainian composers on the arrangement of sacred songs falls on the period from the 90-s. XIX and until the middle of the twentieth century. During this period of time most often the texts of sacred songs were treated by O. Nyzhankivskyi, Ol. Koshyts, K. Stetsenko, St. Lyudkevych, M. Haivoronskyi, V. Barvinsky, and others. One of the first who legitimized this genre of choral music in Ukrainian culture was M. Lysenko. His masterful arrangements of the sacred song in honor of the miraculous icon of the Virgin in Pidkamin in the Brody district (“Oh, The Blessed Virgin, Mother of the Rus’ Land”) became very popular. Also, the article states that the process of studying of sacred songs in composers’ arrangements in Ukrainian musicology is just beginning. By today, there are several significant studies, but there is no holistic scientific vision of these texts, there are no monographs, dissertations, etc. The article focuses on the issues of the analysis of the essence of poetic texts of sacred songs, their religious-didactic, theological and catechetical significance. For this purpose, the selected texts of the esthetic cycle and the so-called repentance songs are analyzed, which refer to the essence of the earthly life of man, his faith in Christian values, according to the canons of church hymnography and dogmatics. It is also emphasized that anthology of choral arrangements of sacred songs in the works of Ukrainian composers would become a reliable musical source-textural material for the study of this genre. This anthology should include not only choral scores of the stage of formation and development of the genre (end of the XIX – mid XX centuries), but also the works of Ukrainian composers of the second half of the XX – begining of the XXI century. (M. Skoryk, G. Havrylets, L. Dychko, V. Stepurko and other). The main material for the analysis of poetic texts has been the monographs by Yuriy Medvedyk, together with facsimile reprints of Pochaiv singers of 1773 and the “Bohohlasnik” (Pochaiv, 1790–1791). The analysis of the selected poetic texts of the treatment of sacred songs allows the author to conclude that their canonical religious themes are common to all of them, as well as the dialogue of the singer and songwriter with God. The systemic analysis of poetry texts of sacred songs has just begun, and in the future it will be possible to make more qualitative theoretical generalizations, but for this an interdisciplinary cooperation of both musicologists, theologians, literary critics, and culturologists is necessary.