The 21-st and 129-th psalms in reading by F. Mendelssohn and A. Schönberg: the artistic and compositional parallels.
The article deals with the 21-st and 129-th psalms by F. Mendelssohn and A. Schönberg.The main object of the articleis a description of the community in general artistic and com-positional methods of the psalm treatments: Biblical sources, the composition of the choir, the strophic principle of the musical deployment of the text, the respon-sorial and the antiphonal facture etc. It is noted the presence in both choral works of the idea of spiritual ascent. The genre tradition of the musical reproduction of the Psalter in the works for the choir a capella has long and very strong roots in the European, in particular German, musical culture. The goal of the article is to identify the commonality in the artistic and compositional methods of the musical interpretations of the 21st and 129th Psalms, which belong to the two composers of the German (and simultaneously Jewish) culture, namely Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Ar-nold Schoenberg. Piece No. 3 from the cycle «Drei Psalmen» op. 78 for the chorus and soloists of F. Mendelssohn is written on the text of one of the most tragic psalms of David «My God! Oh my God! why did you leave me?» (No. 21 from the Book of the Psalter in the Synodal translation). The increased eventful density of the text of the biblical source, as well as its scale (the 21st Psalm of David contains 32 poems) obliges the composer to search for appropriate compositional methods. Thus, in accordance with the principle of binary division of each poetic syntagma into two hemistichs in the poetic structure of the psalm, in the polyphonic texture of this work the interaction of the responsorial and antiphonal principles becomes of par-amount importance. At first glance, the proximity of the compositional method underlying the Psalm op. 78 ¹ 3 of F. Mendelssohn with the method used by A. Schoenberg in Psalm 129 (op. 50b) seems surprising. First of all, it is necessary to note the great dramatic significance of the responsorial, as well as the antiphonal principles. In a short annotation preceding the first (posthumous) publication of the psalm of Schoenberg op. 50b, the editor of the anthology Ch. Vinaver gives several very valuable excerpts from the letters of the composer, which shed light on the history of the creation of the work and attest to the significant role of the authentic Jew-ish liturgical melody in it. Note also that the text of Psalm 129 op. 50b is written in transliterated Hebrew in full accordance with the liturgical monody, and this authentic sounding of the Old Aramaic language, chanting or speaking, attracts attention first. The author also strives to reflect the peculiarities of versification, the location of internal cadences (caesuras) between individual eight text verses (hemistichs) and general compositional architectonics. Such exact reproduction by the composer of the text-musical structure of the ancient Jewish psalm convinces that the specific properties of the latter were adopted by A. Schoenberg, so to speak, as a definite dogma. The pitch potential of this very expressive piece is actually contained in the 12-ton series, which, in its perfect structure, approaches the so-called «miracle-se-ries», which is differing the almost ideal mutual symmetry of the two components (6 + 6), which, at the same time , sound only apart. All of the above to a certain extent contributes to the possibility of considering the series – in connection with its functions – as a kind of theme. The general composition plan for the dodecaphonic Psalm op. 50b is associat-ed with various embodiments of the four basic forms of the serial initium using the variational-strophic form. As a result, an almost visible process of gradual ascent, ascension is formed, it is not by chance that this psalm has a subtitle «The Song of the Ascension». The leading role in compositional technique here belongs to the canons (direct and inverse, in their various combinations) and a variety in compo-sition and density of antiphonal techniques, which causes certain associations with composition principles of the motet. The results of the intonational and compositional analysis of two psalm works belonging to Mendelssohn-Bartholdi and Schoenberg, representatives of different composer schools, temporary epochs, creeds, allow us to establish the existence of a certain commonality between them, in particular, in the artistic-compositional method. Briefly summarizing the above, we note the essential points of intersec-tion between the two works: the commonality of the content’ «determinants» at the level of the artistic concept of the work (the biblical sources), the general compositional principles (due to the text’s strophic unfolding), and some enduring ancient liturgical techniques (a responsorial and antiphonal narration, choir a ca-pella, etc.). Finally, we emphasize that in both choral plays there is, first of all, the idea of spiritual ascent, which, in fact, potentiates at first glance the paradoxical similarity of approaches to the realization of the joint main idea of such different masters who were created the history of the world musical culture, like F. Men-delssohn and A. Schoenberg.