Trubenok E.A. Genre Signs and Archetypes in Versions of Te Deum (In Terms of Charles Pierce's Theory of Signs)

Abstract: The article is devoted to the Latin hymn Te Deum ('Ambrosian Hymn', the IVth century) that is still often used by composers as the source for creating concert adaptations (at the present time there are over thousand of versions of Te Deum). Despite the fact that each adaptation of Te Deum presents a composer's interpretation and has its own features that reflect the composer's style and epoch in general, genre archetypes and signs of Te Deum remain to be general features uniting similar compositions disregarding the time when they were created. In order to demonstrate genre archetypes and signs of Te Deum based on the analysis of its adaptations written at different historical periods, the author has applied the historical and comparative methods as well as the methods of analysis and synthesis, modelling, extrapolation and abstraction. In his article Trubenok has viewed the two genre archetypes of Te Deum, textual and melodic archetypes, and genre signs of 'icon', 'index' and 'symbol' acording to the theory of signs of Charles Pierce. Archetypes are often met in many leading genres of church music, however, Te Deum is unique because its textual archetypes combine themes from both the Old and New Testaments (unlike the Mass that appeals only to the New Testament). That feature is most likely to define the unique and original nature of the 'Ambrosian Hymn' and is the reason why composers have been creating new adaptations of Te Deum throughout seventeen centuries. 

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