"Epic sound patterns": sonata for harp No. 2 by Valery Kikta in the light of the peculiarities of the genre

Aldakov Il'ya Andreevich Postgraduate student, Department of Music Theory, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music 121069, Russia, Moskva oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Povarskaya, 30/36 ialdakov@gmail.com

This article is devoted to one of the most significant harp works by Valery Kikta. Kikta is a well–known Russian and Ukrainian composer, professor at the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory and the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, author of over three hundred works covering almost the entire spectrum of musical genres. Our appeal to this work is due to the composer's skill in using traditional means to convincingly recreate the sound of an ancient musical environment. In this case, we associate the concept of genre not so much with a sonata as with the imposition of epic content on a certain type of instrumental piece. The main attention, therefore, is focused on the genre of the epic.

Valery Kikta's creativity attracts many researchers who are trying to understand, among other things, how a completely "traditional" composer is able to create an innovative and bright-sounding work every time. Especially often people turn to his music when they want to study the timbre nature of compositions. Thus, E. Nikolaeva, the author of the first monograph devoted to the music of Kikta, focuses on "discoveries in the timbrospace sphere" ^{[1, p. 29]}, in particular, on the use of timbre resources of the harp ^{[1, p. 28]}. M. Tsukanova, the subject of analysis of which was the composer's choral music, notes the resulting chorus as a timbre unit "an exceptional "culture of sound", which allows the author to create "sound fields" rich in overtones by small quantitative means" ^{[2, p. 71]}. N. Gulyanitskaya's essays define the significant role of timbre as one of the parameters included in the circle of particularly significant for Kikta ^{[3, p. 146]}, and timbre intonation, which creates a "special sound world" of the composer's music ^{[4, p. 271]}.

So, in the center of our attention is the Sonata for harp No. 2 "Epic sound patterns" by Valery Kikta, which fully reflects the creative aesthetics and musical style settings of the composer. The composition is notable for the fact that the harp is one of the instruments in Kikta's timbre set, to which he addresses with a special feeling. The author uses the possibilities of the harp as a solo and ensemble instrument, as well as as an instrument that adds a unique color to the palette of symphonic music. Impressed by the playing of O. Erdely, V. Dulova, at the request and with the help of O. Voschak, the first opuses for this instrument appeared (V. Kikta's first work for harp, the suite "Ossian", was written in 1968 and dedicated to O. Voschak). Kikta is the author of a unique "Scottish" concerto for two harps (2000).

Currently, Kikta is a member of the Russian Harp Society, organized by him in 2004 together with V. Ulyanich and N. Shameeva with the aim of promoting Russian harp art. Thanks to the activities of the society, harp compositions by such contemporary composers as V. Kikta, V. Ulyanich, I. Kainova, K. Volkov, D. Polevaya, O. Evstratova, S. Chechetko appear. Nika Ryabchinenko, the soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, and other well-known harpists provide great assistance in the life of the festival.

One of the reasons for the birth of the sonata for solo harp "Epic Sound Patterns" (1982) is the composer's desire to resist the irrevocable extinction and transformation into an amateur performance of age-old traditions, which received a rapid pace at the beginning of the XX century. The Kikta Sonata is a one–part composition based on folklore themes collected in the 1970s in the Arkhangelsk region. One of the first performers of the work were T. Tower, as well as V. Dulova. It was with an eye on the virtuoso performing style of Dulova (playing octaves, tremolo, trills, etc.) that the composer built the edition of the sonata in which it currently exists.

Valery Kikty's richness of genre diversity includes works for orchestra, works for chamber ensembles and solo instruments, choral and vocal works, stage works. They are represented by such genre varieties as a symphony, a concert (instrumental, vocal and vocal-instrumental), a concert symphony, a concert suite, a short story concert, a concert piece, a symphonic chronicle, ballet and music for performances, a rhapsody (instrumental), an oratorio, an oratorical chronicle, a poem (instrumental, vocal and vocal-instrumental), cantata, liturgy, other vocal and instrumental cycles, ballad (vocal), choirs (accompanied by instruments and a cappella), as well as quartet, sonata, sonatina, fantasy, cadenza, and other chamber compositions.

V. Kikta's music for films and theatrical productions, works for chamber ensembles and solo instruments have undoubted artistic significance. The composer pays great attention to the orchestra of Russian folk instruments and the harp and organ, deprived of the attention of modern composers.

In the context of genre diversity, the instrument occupies a particularly important place. From the point of view of referring to the colorfulness of the harp, we will quote the composer's statement, where he notes that the timbres to which he refers give the individuality of the "figurative-artistic world" of each of his compositions. This is especially evident in his works written after the 2000s, where Kikta increasingly tends to the genre of instrumental concert, each subsequent concert presents its own solo timbre. He seeks to show the diversity of one solo instrument, its technical, tonal, textural features to delineate the circle of figurative and artistic embodiments of this instrument.

This is a one-of-a-kind Concert for four types of flutes "Volynsky naigrysh" (2001, ed. 2013), where each of the four parts of the cycle is marked by a change of timbre color in accordance with the program (the cycle is built according to the type of "Seasons": spring, summer, autumn, winter), and a Concert for oboe (English horn) No. 4 "Elegies of morning and night mists" (2008), in which the juxtaposition of two artistic and figurative spheres is realized, including with the help of timbre. Two concerts "in memoriam" deserve special attention – a lamento concert for the balalaika "At the Gates of Paradise" (2012) in memory of conductor N. Nekrasov and "Concerto-misterioso" for bassoon (2019), an author's bow to bassoonist A. Kozhevnikov. The musical space of these compositions is organized on the basis of instrumental features directly related to the personality of the objects of dedication.

The Kikta sonata, although it has a name that prepares the listener for a certain degree of programming of this music, but it does not contain a direct literary or other basis. By giving a title, but without presenting additional means for recognizing a musical text, its creator fixes an incomplete, incomplete creation, which especially needs the reader to be realized – to be interpreted ^{[5, p. 132]}. Thus, a piece of music is closed from the point of view of completeness and open from the point of view of interpretation. At the same time, there is an independent listening or performing interpretation of a musical text in the conditions of its own conditionality. At the same time, a special space-time field is revealed in which "the work and the world depicted in it enter the real world and enrich it, and the real world enters the work and the world depicted in it both in the process of its creation and in the process of its subsequent life in the constant updating of the work in the creative perception of listeners -readers" ^{[6, p. 402]}.

Most of Kikta's compositions have a program. As a rule, it is expressed by a concise title referring to the facts of the surrounding reality that inspired the composer. E. Savkina emphasizes a special way of building a dialogue with the listener in this way. It "allows <...> to be involved in the action, but at the same time the author does not seek to fully convey the "picture", leaving the vision more "generalized", thereby giving the opportunity to join and "feel" the idea" ^{[7, p. 39]}.

The epicness and modality referred to by the composer in the title of the sonata opens up a structural level that helps to interpret it. As a result, "Epic sound sequences", as an "open text" ^[8], give two characteristics, two musical codes that act as interpretants ^[9] and form complex internal connections: genre and medium.

By itself, the epic, like almost any genre of folk art, is the embodiment of tradition, and the epic–maker is its successor. In this case, he differs from the composer only in the degree of freedom invested in it. The folk storyteller relies more on tradition than his own creative potential. In this regard, according to the conclusion of Y.M. Lotman in the field of narrative texts, "the narrator resembles a weaver who can choose and vary patterns without going beyond the technical capabilities of the machine, forming, as it were, the potential sum of everything he can do" ^{[10, p. 16]}. The composer, on the contrary, contributes mainly an element of his personality, since in the act of creation "the share of personal author's creativity should be attributed only to the choice of certain elements, their combination, variation within certain limits of generally accepted patterns, the transfer of some traditional elements to other systems, etc." ^{[11, p. 21]}.

From the point of view of the genre, the reference to the epic informs about the general features formed in the work of previous generations. A sufficient number of Russian masters turned to the epic. It is enough to recall M.I. Glinka (opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila") and the composers of the next generation – A.P. Borodin (Symphony No. 2 "Bogatyrskaya"), N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (opera "Sadko"). The musical tradition of the epic accompanied the work of Soviet authors, such as R.M. Glier (Symphony "Ilya Muromets"), A.T. Grechaninov (opera "Dobrynya Nikitich"), etc.

All of them, in turn, as well as the Kikta, rely on such features contained in the tradition and typical for the symbolism of the epic, as the narrative nature of the presentation, wide chant, slowness and regularity of movement, declamation expressed in second-third intonations within narrow limits. In addition, the sonata of Kikta is characterized by the improvisational-variational nature of the musical text, melodic lines structuring the length of phrases and variable meter, helping to avoid monotony and giving flexibility to the narrative style. As a result, there is a convergence of two sign systems: speech and music. At the same time, the composer manages to turn the plane of a typical rehearsal theme for an epic song into an extraordinary technique, with the help of which the deployment of the content of several hundred lines always achieved heightened artistic communication, contributed to the management of the mood of listeners.  All the listed signs of the genre indicate the author's desire to bring the general sound closer to the original epic.

Shaping becomes an important aspect of musical language. The composer uses the traditional sonata form with an episode instead of a development, with its constituent elements lined up in a row, giving one of the foundations and an impetus to dramatic development. Within the form, the Kikta deviates from the classical relations of tonalities, replacing the dominant and parallel tonalities with their eponymous ones. As a result, the overall tonal plan gets a variety of shades thanks to the colors of the major-minor. The structure is based on a contrasting alternation of alternating episodes, each of which has its own mode: natural major (main part), variable fret (connecting part), Mixolydian fret (side part) and natural minor (development). Thus, a clear distinction is created between the components of the sonata included in the movement, which, on the one hand, contributes to the development, and on the other hand, creates a special orientation of the form to the listener. The latter parameter is especially important for the narrative, since "only when projected onto a person, events acquire meaning and are organized into a structured time series" ^{[10, p. 112]}.

Note that the original epic melody was used by the composer only in the central section of the sonata (development), which is a chain of variations. Like storytellers who allow themselves some freedom from a given performance model, the composer stylizes the remaining structural elements of the work "antique" with the help of diatonic frets found in these folklore themes, which are one of the fundamental components of the musical art of antiquity.

The peculiarity of the sonata is not the mixing of several frets, which is typical, for example, for Polish and Moldovan folk music, but their alternate exposure. This is probably also related to tradition. "The "intonational feeling" of a particular culture is curtailed or generalized in the fret" ^{[12, p. 320]}: neither the songs of the Bayan, nor the epic of the Nezhata or the song of the blind gusliars are based on the combination of the sound orders of several frets. The composer himself calls this way of working with the material a symbol of the archaic. The frets on which he relies are taken by him from the northern epics, for which it is the pure frets that are characteristic, which is connected with the tuning of the gusli. "The master tuned the sonorous harps to a pure tune, you can't go further than that," explains Kikta. O. Begicheva notes that such a principle of the composer's fret organization serves as an additional means of describing "otherworldly beauty" ^{[13, p. 167]}. It also helps to recreate the atmosphere of the epic time in this sonata. The very same iconic principle of identifying various characters or events of the epic with the help of structural and ladotonal features is characteristic, for example, for Southeast Asia.

The epic in the Kikta sonata is also revealed in the way the musical fabric is formed. Harp busting is a kind of epic sign-index ^[9], imitation of the harp – a mandatory attribute of the narrator. And this technique, which is still found in Rimsky-Korsakov and Glinka, is also used by the modern composer in his own way. Along with the homophonic-harmonic type of texture, he resorts to polyphonic, sonorous and repetitive techniques that allow building development using minimal compositional means (varied repetitions, canons, inversions, combining the theme with its own increase).

So, the appeal to antiquity, coupled with modern ways of embodiment (form, technique), testify to the composer's method, which is in close connection with neo-folklore, and he, in turn, according to E. Nikolaeva, about the desire to "revive the spirit of national musical traditions" ^{[1, p. 21]}. In the interpretation of the Kikta, the description of the national culture is impossible without referring to its everyday component. The musical personification of the way of life gets its identity, but does not lose its origins with the simultaneous complementarity of different cultures and eras.

Setting himself the task of "describing" antiquity and using traditional musical components, the author creates an essay that sounds fresh and original. The resulting "syntactic dimension" ^{[14, p. 45]} of Valery Kikta's "Epic sound orders" is provided by the combination of several elements of the musical language. The semiosis field contains the texture and meter inherent in the ancient era. But the main components in the system of musical and poetic means that create an authentic sound are genre, mood and timbre. These components reproduce a certain epic image that exists in the listener's perception and formed by many years of experience of Russian music. Being somewhat forgotten, this layer of musical culture is revived anew by the composer in this composition.