THE SACRED AND ETHICAL COMPONENT OF MUSICAL POSTMODERNITY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF J. TAVENER’S “THANKSGIVING AKATHIST”)

Abstract

The study summarizes the genre and intonation specificity of J. Tavener’s «Thanksgiving Akathist» in the context of spiritual searches of the postmodern era. The purpose of the work is to identify the genre-stylistic and poetic-intonational uniqueness of J. Tavener’s «Thanksgiving Akathist» in the context of the composer’s religious and ethical positions and the spiritual guidelines of postmodernism. The methodology of the work is comprehensive and is based on a combination of the principles of interdisciplinary, historical-typological, hermeneutic, and genre-stylistic research methods. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by the fact that it is the first in Ukrainian musicology to summarize the genre and intonation specificity of J. Tavener’s «Thanksgiving Akathist» and its contact with the spiritual guidelines of postmodern culture and music. Conclusions. Postmodernism emerged as an intellectual movement designed to comprehend the political and culturalhistorical problems of the present day. Postmodernist sentiments are characterized by disappointment in the ideals of the progressive path of human development with its belief in the dominant role of the human mind. The avant-garde focus on the constant discovery of «new shores» is opposed here by the desire to involve the entire experience of world art in contemporary art by quoting it. One of the common features of postmodernism in music is the idea of returning to beauty as reality, expressive melody and tonal harmony. The latter is also connected with the search for spiritual and religious foundations of existence, which appeal not only to confessional and ecumenical synthesis, but also to the creative revival of the Eastern Christian (Byzantine) spiritual and ethical and musical tradition, which becomes the background for the formation of the phenomena of “sacred minimalism”, “new simplicity”, “poetics of silence”, “meditative music”. The legacy of J. Tavener, as well as his creative and spiritual biography, testify to the artist’s involvement in these spiritual and artistic processes. The poetic and intonation specificity of the composer’s “Thanksgiving Akathist”, created during the period of his adoption of Orthodoxy, reproduces a synthetic type of artistic thinking typical of postmodernism. Within the liturgical genre of the akathist with its indicative structure, J. Tavener organically combined the traditions of Byzantine liturgical singing, the intonations of the later Orthodox Holy Week service, and the timbre-expressive possibilities of the vocal art of countertenors and tenor singing in the conditions of Western Christian Gregorian chant. They are complemented by the author’s appeal to high polyphony, musical rhetoric and the symbolism of the timbre of the organ, bells, and string orchestra, which together form a monumental symphony-mystery, a universal hymn that overcomes time and confessional divisions, ultimately uniting humanity and becoming the key to Universal Harmony-Order.