"Veni Sancte Spiritus" by Alexander Vustin: on the problem of updating the technique of writing on cantus firmus in modern choral composition

Koshkareva Natalya Vladimirovna PhD in Art History Professor, Head of the Department of Conducting an Academic Chorus, State Musical and Pedagogical Institute named after M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov 109147 Marksistskaya street, Moscow, 109147 Russian Federation nkoshkarevav.@gmail.com Other publications by this author

The modern stage of art development testifies to the great interest of Russian composers and performers in polyphony. The phenomenon of choral polyphony has been forming in Russian culture for many centuries, consisting in enriching the national musical folklore with Western European trends. To date, composers have created many polyphonic compositions that have been included in the world's Golden Fund of choral Music.

In choral music of the XX-XXI centuries, polyphony performs at all levels: as a genre, as a form, as a writing technique. The polyphonic thinking of Russian composers is demonstrated by the attraction to synthesis, the development of a new sphere of expressive means associated with the poetics of affects, allegory, and so on. Since the second half of the twentieth century, polyphonic techniques have undergone quite significant changes. The technical and stylistic factor determining the essence of these changes was reflected in the form, structure, ways of embodying the poetic text and new timbre solutions, as "updating within the canon" (A. Aranovsky) ^[1]. The traditional principles of polyphony begin to interact with the writing techniques of the twentieth century: dodecaphony, pointillism, sonorica.

The renewal of ancient forms by means of modern musical language is characteristic of the style of many modern authors, in particular A. Schnittke, S. Gubaidulina, V. Martynov and many others. It becomes a kind of sign of the times. In this perspective, the choral compositions of Alexander Vustin (1943 – 2020), representing synthetic genre phenomena in modern music, are particularly interesting. A. Vustin is one of the most famous contemporary Russian composers. In the 1950s, he studied composition with Grigory Frid, and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1969. He was an active participant in the Association of Contemporary Music (ASM-2) founded in the late 1980s. His music was performed by famous orchestras and musicians of Russia and the world. In recent years, A. Vustin has collaborated especially often with conductor Vladimir Yurovsky. Among the works of A. Vustin are the opera "The Devil in Love", "Three Poems of Moses Teif" for voice and piano (in Russian translation by Yunna Moritz), vocal and instrumental works based on texts by Andrei Platonov, Boris Pasternak, Olga Sedakova, Yuri Olesha. There are not so many compositions with the participation of the choir in the composer's legacy of A. Vustin. The most famous are: "Holiday" (1987) ? a work for children's and mixed choirs and symphony orchestra and Veni Sancte Spiritus (1999) for choir and ensemble.

Separate articles by V. Tsenova ^[18], I. Severina ^[10], R. Farkhadov ^[16] are devoted to the general characteristics of A. Vustin's creativity, dodecaphony as a creative method of A. Vustin was studied by D. Sardaryan ^[9]. Among the domestic studies of recent years, the monograph "Musical Truths of Alexander Vustin" stands out. D. Shulgin ^[20]. She continues a series of musicological studies previously published by D. Shulgin in the genre of "monographic conversations" with A. Vustin about his social life, views on various aspects of musical art, on the creative activities of individual domestic and foreign composers and performers. The book presents detailed analyses by A. Vustin of his own compositions, his positive and critical assessments of these compositions, tells in detail about the history of their creation, about the first and subsequent successful or, on the contrary, not always successful performances, and much more. The whole book is written on the basis of materials taken from the exclusive conversations of its author with Alexander Kuzmich Vustin, which took place over many years, starting in 1998.

However, the inexhaustible depth and bright individuality of the author's style of choral music by A. Vustin have not yet found proper understanding in scientific works, this determines the relevance of the chosen topic. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that it offers a different interpretation of A. Vustin's choral heritage from the existing ones. The object of our research will be the composition Veni Sancte Spiritus (1999). The purpose of the study is to determine the techniques of updating the ancient form and technique of polyphonic writing with modern musical means. The methodology is based on the interaction of two fields of musical science: musicology and choral studies. In this regard, we note that the solution of the tasks required the study of theoretical works devoted to various issues of polyphony: T. Muller ^[8], Y. Kholopov ^[19], V. Fraenov ^[17], Y. Evdokimova ^[4], T. Dubravskaya ^[6], N. Simakova ^{[11, 12, 13]}, I. Kuznetsov ^[7], N. Tarasevich ^[15].

Veni Sancte Spiritus, for choir and ensemble by A. Vustin, premiered in 1999 in Moscow by the Ensemble of Soloists "Studio of New Music" under the direction of Elena Rastvorova, sustained in the ancient technique of writing on cantus firmus. This composition is a vivid concert work, an example of synthetic genre phenomena in modern choral music. Its performing composition reflects the trend of genre mixing inherent in modern music: chorus, percussion and instrumental ensemble. Symbolizing various genre-style directions of spiritual Christian music, the polyphonic technique in this composition appears in combinations of layers (choral and instrumental): in the sound of a mixed choir, the tradition of Gregorian singing and an expanded group of percussion instruments are traced, where jazz melodic-rhythmic intonations evoke allusions to spirituals or gospel.

In this regard, it is advisable, in our opinion, to introduce the concept of "generalized concertina" (G. Grigorieva's term) ^{[3, p. 20]}, focusing the essential features of the modern choral style and affecting far beyond the genre of choral concert as such. The principle of "generalized concertina" consists in a developed choral texture, including branched divisi parts, contrasts of groups. An essential factor of concertness is the alternation of constant and variable polyphony, frequent changes of texture types, the presence of contrasting episodes in the structure and dynamics of the work, the free development of fragments of the theme as a counterpoint to the main voice and as an intonation element of the construction of the section of the form.

The composition is made in the ancient technique of writing on cantus firmus. Attributing the original source, it became clear that the thematism, free from direct borrowings, was presented, most likely, "based on" the ancient sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus (Lat.Come, Holy Spirit), perhaps this is her very free paraphrase. This was also found in the music of the XVI century, when you can meet conditionally free from borrowing themes, but they are often so indistinguishable in style from chorales or songs that we do not feel the difference between the author's thematism and cantus prius factus.

Note that Veni Sancte Spiritus is a sequence prescribed in the Roman liturgy for the Mass of Pentecost and its octave, with the exception of the following Sunday. The text of the sequence is usually attributed to Pope Innocent III or Archbishop of Canterbury S. Langton, as well as other persons, for example, Robert II the Pious; the author of the music is unknown. The sequence is written in the first church tone, with the typical variability of b and h. The regularity of the ambitus (from c to d) and cadences (only on the finalis and repercuss), the ordering of the textual musical form (new music for every two stanzas) – all these compositional techniques indicate the late origin of the sequence (XII or XIII centuries). The sequence was included in the works of a number of composers, especially in the Renaissance, including G. Dufay, J. Despres, A. Willart, J. Palestrina, J. Dunstable, Orladno di Lasso, T.-L. de Victoria and W. Byrd. Later composers include A. P?rt, M. Lauridsen, Frank La Rocca, J. Fenton, S. Webbe, and others.

In the composition of A. Vustin, the use of the technique in c.f. is concluded in the sequential conduct of the chant. The author's thematism (p.f), based on the textual structure of the old sequence, is presented in full, divided into ten phrases (taking into account the repetition of all five phrases with a new text, which corresponds to the peculiarities of the bar form), which follow each other, separated by pauses.

The melody of c.f. sounds at the very beginning of the piece in the part of bells, undergoing further timbre and rhythmic variation. The composition clearly distinguishes three sections of the form: exposition (tt. 1-80), development (tt. 81-160), reprise (tt. 161-208), similar in structure. Thus, in the first section in the choral part, four sections of S. F. are held, which correspond to four stanzas of the Latin text

The melodic line of the cantus firmus is characterized by the main progressive movement, broken by quarto moves, the use of large durations (half, whole) with the introduction of intrasyllabic chants (quarter durations). Cadences of twelve-stroke stanzas occur on the basic tones of Mixolydian C (respectively: g, g, g, e).

In the first section, each section of S. F. – the sound of the choir, duplicated throughout the composition by the wind instruments (oboe, bass clarinet, French horn, trumpet) - is preceded by conducting this fragment in the percussion instruments in double reduction (initially only the bells sound – the first and second sentences, then they are duplicated by bells, in in the fourth sentence, they are joined by a marimbaphone and a bass guitar). Initially, the melody of S. F. is conducted in the upper voice (soprano), then it is fragmentally transmitted from one voice to another. In the choral texture, a chordal writing warehouse is used (simple chords – triads, sextaccords, quartsectaccords – in voice science, the parallelism of pure fifths and octaves associated with archaic sounding is used), the principle of using the text is a note–syllable, rarely broken by intrasyllabic chanting (usually in the middle of a stanza), every four bars of choral sonority are interrupted by instrumental the loss of percussion, which corresponds to the caesures of the musical phrase. The counterpoint to the main choral theme is the individualized melodic and rhythmic ostinatos based on the principle of complementary rhythmics of the instruments of the percussion group, based on the organ point in the tom-tom part and the big drum. The composition also has concert features: the expressiveness of the timbres is emphasized by the use of solo high (tt.41–50) or low (tt.61–69) timbres with a contrasting tutti sound.

In the second development section of the composition, four exposition departments correspond to four constructions in different writing techniques, voicing each time a new stanza of the text (stanzas 5, 6, 7, 8):

1) a double canon (Piu leggiero, vol. 81-91), where the proposta of the first theme (soprano) is the second division of the c. f. in double reduction, and the proposta of the second theme (tenor) is the third division in double reduction from the main tones; the risposta is given in reverse order (first on the second theme – in viola parts, then the first one – for basses) and allows some changes in the rhythmic and interval structure. The high voices (tenor and soprano) that complete this section perform the fourth sentence of c. f. in the main form;

2) canonical imitation introduction of voices (tt. 101-111) – bass, alto, soprano – on the intonations of the first section from the sounds a, c, a with the final holding of the main type of the third sentence of the theme from the sound es (unison of low alto and bass timbres);

3) four–voice canon (Piu dolce, tt. 121-131): soprano and tenor – theme on intonations c. f. in the main form from the sound es, the answer is in the part of violas and basses in a mirror treatment from the sound d. The end of the fragment is an octave unison of soprano and tenor – the fourth sentence in the main form from the sound f;

4) the quarto course of the melody c. f. is being developed – a four-voice canon sounds: basses, violas (from tone c), tenor, soprano (from sound d) and the final fourth sentence c. f. in unison presentation of violas and basses.

The reprise section of the composition also consists of four sections, where two stanzas of the poetic text (the ninth and tenth) are preceded by two instrumental episodes. Thus, in a large instrumental episode (Piu energico, vol. 161-177), two layers of musical fabric are combined – a rhythmic organ point in the tom-tom part and a large drum (similar to the exposition), a four-voice canon in unison with wind instruments, duplicated by a marimbaphone, vibraphone, bells. The gradual dynamic development from mp to ff, the introduction of new instruments (timpani, bells, wooden bells, bass guitars), the accents used in the unison presentation of the theme emphasize the solemn nature of the sound and prepare a choral fragment (Maestoso, c. 9), where the first sentence of the c. f. in the unison sound of the choir, wooden and brass instruments, accompanied by the chime of percussion instruments. Following this, an episode of Religioso (c. 10 of the score) is highlighted in sharp contrast: subito piano, timbres of mixed choir, bells, moles – this is how the second section of c. f. is "instrumented" (with a cadence in the tone of c). The code stanza of the Amen text is also prepared in the form of an imitation introduction of tom-toms, a large drum and wooden bells. Alleluja: octave unison of the main tone with the chorus and wind instruments, complemented by the "bell-like" percussion (emphasizing the Mixolydian fret).

Let us summarize in Table 1 the forms, timbres, writing techniques, and features of the choral texture used in each section of the composition.

Table 1

 So the old forms are updated by modern means: an expanded group of percussion instruments, the presence of contrasting episodes in the structure and dynamics of the work, the free development of fragments of the theme as a counterpoint to the main voice and as an intonation element of the construction of the section of the form.

Summing up, we emphasize that a characteristic feature of modern choral music is the interaction of multidirectional, sometimes contrasting, even mutually exclusive trends. Since the second half of the twentieth century, composers have been involved in the development of radical techniques of the middle of the century in line with the avant-garde direction. Referred to as the second avant-garde, this direction has since the late 1960s moved to the path of synthesis of different techniques, styles, genres. As G. Grigorieva notes, "the false interaction of stylistic trends has entered the mainstream of postmodernism – a new quality of artistic thinking and marked the stage of anti-avant-garde" ^{[14, p. 23]}.

In this perspective, A. Vustin's choral work occupies a special position in the musical culture of the second half of the XX-XXI centuries. It can rightfully be attributed to the original and most interesting phenomena of modern culture. The artistic consciousness of the composer is universal. A. Vustin's music organically intertwines secular and spiritual, professional and folklore, rational and irrational principles, synthesis of ancient methods and techniques of writing with modern means of musical language. The musical language of A. Vustin is characterized by extreme restraint, depth, semantic concentration, intense experience of time as a kind of space of actual musical action, common to the author, performer and listener, and in this sense it can be called the heir to the traditions of Anton Webern.

Possessing an original compositional appearance, A. Vustin sensitively responded to the general trends of modernity, but always followed his own path in the musical art. The study of A. Vustin's individual choral style, which arose on the basis of a peculiar correlation of traditional and innovative expressive means and techniques, seems very promising. Here, the interest in ancient genres, forms and techniques of polyphonic writing, as well as the lyrical and poetic principle associated with the romantic perception of the surrounding world, the trends of genre synthesis and polyphonization of texture are of particular importance.

Choral works by A. Vustin can already be assessed today as bright and socially significant artistic phenomena. Their versatile study – both in the aspect of everything new that this composer brought to the national culture, and in the aspect of his content as original and multifaceted author's embodiments of modern compositional technique at the level of the most diverse components of the musical fabric, seems to be an urgent task of modern choral performing art, promising in scientific and practical terms.