Maksym Rylskyi as a Composer: Musical Stylistics of the Piano Improvisations

Author

Sheremeta Iryna

a junior research fellow at the Musicology and Ethnomusicology Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8484-2026

Maksym Rylskyi as a Composer:
Musical Stylistics of the Piano Improvisations

Abstract

Two piano improvisations by the Ukrainian poet Maksym Rylskyi are analyzed in the article. He has enjoyed creative musical experiments, but he did not notate them. In the late 1940s some of them have been recorded on magnetic tape by Polikarp Baranovskyi, a specialist in electrical sound recording. These recordings are preserved at the Archival Scientific Funds of Manuscripts and Audio-Recordings Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology. There are piano improvisations, melodized recitations, and accompaniments to folk songs among them. In the mid-1980s, K. Luhanska and B. Filts have published several articles devoted to M. Rylskyi’s talent as an improviser, the characteristics of the recorded musical compositions, and the figure of sound engineer P. Baranovskyi. B. Filts has also transcribed two of these phonorecordings into musical notation, that forms the basis of the suggested study.

The first piano improvisation has been published in 1985. It is a melodized recitation created by M. Rylskyi for his own poem «To Pushkin». The composition follows a through-composed form, with each structural section carrying a distinct compositional significance. The elaborate piano texture, as well as flexible agogics, evoke associations with the works of Romantic composers, particularly F. Chopin. The final apotheotic chordal movement is connected intonationally with the Ukrainian song tradition. The emotional intensity of the performance corresponds to the reciter’s state, while the music as a whole conveys subtly the semantic nuances of the poetic text.

The second piano improvisation by M. Rylskyi is published in 2011. This lyrical-epic piece, close to the rhapsody genre, is built on a variational development. The music is dominated by Ukrainian essence. The spirit of the kobzar tradition is conveyed through echoes of folk performance: melismatic ornamentation, instrumental runs, arpeggiated chords, flexible metric-rhythmic patterns, mode-harmonic features, and general expressive manner of performance.

These works demonstrate brightly M. Rylskyi’s instrumental type of composer thinking typical for him. Within the framework of the classical-romantic tradition, he has used creatively the stylistic influences of his favorite composers – L. Beethoven, M. Lysenko, F. Chopin and P. Tchaikovskyi. Studying M. Rylskyi’s musical activity can provide deeper insight into his poetic heritage. It is essential to transcribe and publish all of the poet’s musical improvisations, as they constitute an integral part of Ukraine’s cultural and artistic heritage of the 20th century.

Keywords

M. Rylskyi, piano improvisation, musical stylistics, means of musical expression, holistic musical analysis.

References

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