Later inspirations of the Master: “Lyrical music” for chamber orchestra and solo cello (after reading by K. Paustovsky) and Sonatina piccolo for string orchestra by Igor Kovach.
Problem statement and its connection with important scientific and practical tasks.In the study of Igor Kovach’s creative work there are many “white spots”: up to date, the genre palette of the composer, stylistic features of his work have not been stud-ied (criticism in most cases analyzed Igor Kovach’s works devoted to patriotic themes, limited to a number of newspaper publications, reviews, articles in reference publica-tions ) An exception is the unique monograph essay by N. Tyshko. The purpose of the articleis to make a musical analysis of two compositions by Igor Kovach – “Lyrical music” for chamber orchestra and solo violoncello (by K. Paus-tovsky’s reading) (1990) and Sonatina piccolo (1989) for string orchestra, which are the composer’s response to the neo-romantic and neoclassical tendency of music in the latter third of the twentieth century. These works concern to the last 15 years of the creative work of Igor Konstanti-novich Kovach (1924–2003), a Ukrainian composer of the twentieth century, who is an outstanding representative of the Kharkov composer’s school. Appeal to a democratic audience, a positive emotional tone of works, even tragically and sorrowful marked pages of the author’s expression, civil pathos, and the highest professionalism provided a broad public response to his music. For many decades, none of his premières have done without lighting in the local, but often all-Ukrainian musical-critical press.In the last 15 years of the composer’s life, the radical changes that took place in the sociocultural environment put I. Kovach in difficult conditions that stimulate the search for new means of composer’s expression, consistent with the most relevant trends of time. In quantitative terms, the productivity of its activity is somewhat reduced, but its plurality is preserved. Among the works written in these years are the vocal-sym-phonic work “Running on the Waves”, the literary-musical composition “The Country of GRINland”, works for symphony and chamber orchestra, chamber and instrumental music, compositions for choir, songs, plays for piano, the composer brings the result of creativity in all genre faces. On the background of compositions, one way or another continuing the creative ef-forts of I. Kovach in the preceding decades, two works are distinguished in which he came into contact with modern neo-tendencies: “Lyrical music” for chamber orchestra and solo violoncello (by K. Paustovsky’s reading), and “Sonatina piccolo” for string orchestra. Each of them reveals new facets of the spiritual and artistic world of I. Kovach, representing him, on the one hand, as a reflexive person, on the other as the Master, perfectly possessing his art. The composition “Lyrical music” for the chamber orchestra and soloing cello (as read by K. Paustovsky) (1990) is adjacent to the concert opuses of I. Kovach. His genre definition refers to the notation “Music for ...” typical for the twentieth century, which signals the freedom of the composer’s choice of instrumental ensemble, stylistic and compositional dramaturgical means. In this case, the performance staff is almost limited to a strings band, sometimes only vivified with a vibraphone. Perception is also pro-grammed by another word included in the title “lyrical””, deciphered through a subtitle (as it is known, K. Paustovsky entered Russian literature precisely as an artist of a lyri-cal, poetic composition). It seems that in “Lyrical Music” I. Kovach found his own approach to neo-roman-ticism in Ukrainian, more widely than the Soviet composer’s practice of the 1980s. He does not apply directly to artistic models of the nineteenth century, does not use a variety of intonational, timbral, figurative-semantic signs of late-romantic works. His way is connected with the recreation of the very atmosphere of “soulfulness”. The universal sign of romantic lyrics in the analyzed work is the waltz, which shows itself in the three-dimensional metric, the ductility of the melodic pattern, the general mood. The work of Sonatina piccolo (1989) is almost the only composer’s response to the neoclassical tendencies of the twentieth century. I. Kovach focuses on instrumentalism in the early and even pre-classical epochs, when sonatina, as well as sonata, was not as-sociated with a particular performing composition and composite canon. Everything here reminds us of the “lost paradise” of the eighteenth century: the sound of the string orchestra, the conciseness of the expression, the square of the con-structions, the homophone texture, the syntactic articularity of the form, the dominance of one topic, the emphasis on the expressive possibilities of motion, the clarity of the harmonic plan. The “classicality” of the opus accentuated in this way imparts him the features of soft irony, turns this “minute” work into a model of aesthetic play, but not ex-citable, as in concertino, but a love-contemplative one. An additional trait to the joking paraphrase of the classical style is the choice of the key: “Beethoven” c-moll. Conclusions.Thus, in the “Lyrical Music”, an expression of features of the author’s individuality associated with the deepening of the meditative sphere, the immersion of which involves a high level of expression, which is not inferior in its power to the emo-tional tone of slow (or leisurely) parts of symphonic cycles. Having freed himself of the “genre commitments”, the composer decided on a deeply intimate revelation. As for the Sonatino piccolo, its artistic concept is aimed at revealing the ambiva-lence of the game principle. Having honored the neoclassical tendencies of the twentieth century by the creation of Sonatina piccolo, I. Kovacs remains true to the nature of the genre, preserving its chamberness, both in terms of instrumental composition and in terms of manifestations of the personality principle.