Lyashenko L. Phenomenon of Talent in the Cultural Discourse (Based on the Course of Life and Creative Development of Erich Korngold)

The dissertation for the first time in Ukrainian culture science researches the phenomenon of talent of the composer Е. Korngold. It clarifies the role of social, bio-logical, sociobiological and personal factors in the development of talent of musician in cultural society, and traces the history of ideas concerning the «Steps of gift». The analysis and systematization of mentions of composer’s contemporaries, artists and theorists of the second half of the 20th — beginning of the 21th century was carried out with the purpose to discover in scientific works of that period the ba-sic tendencies for understanding the development of the phenomenon of talent of Erich Korngold and process of inculturation of his creative work leads to the follow-ing conclusions: transatlantic acknowledgement of creative work of the Austrian art-ist is proven, because as early as at the age of thirteen the name of Erich Korngold was known not only in Europe, but also in the United States of America. Music theo-rists and well-known musicians pose in their arguments a wide circle of questions concerning the phenomenon of Viennese wunderkind, namely: defining of sources of his unique gift, specific character of his creative process and interconnection of his course of life and creative work in «culturography of talent» and purely musicologi-cal questions such as features of musical style and innovative traits peculiar to works of Austrian composer, description of his orchestration, thematic plan, etc. It was put on the question of the definition of status of E. Korngold’s gift tak-ing into account the certain criteria adopted by modern social sciences: a rank of tal-ent or a rank of genius? There were found factors which give a right to view the crea-tive inheritance of the artist as a national acquisition (a criterion of talent) with poten-tial possibility of gradual evolution to world acknowledgement (a criterion of genius).