KUDRIAVTSEV V. Chamber-vocal work of J. Massenet: genre and style dominants

The dissertation is devoted to the study of chamber and vocal creativity of J. Massenet in the aspect of its genre and style dominant. The general trend of European, Russian and domestic musicology of the late XX early XXI centuries is the study of the creative heritage of J. Massenet as an opera composer, in research works the chamber-vocal work of French man of art remains poorly understood as less costly. Meanwhile, the creative legacy of J. Massenet is quite extensive: it includes various musical genres that shaped the development of genre and style system of musical art of the second half of ХІХ early XX centuries. The chamber and vocal works of the French composer are represented by genres of vocal cycle, song and romance, in total more than 200 samples. It was in them that those features of the Master’s style were manifested most systematically, namely the chamberness, sophistication, and ingenuity that he so highly valued in the legacy of his contemporary and compatriot K. Debussy. To prove the importance of chamber-vocal creativity of J. Massenet for the musical culture of our time, and in particular for such areas as musical performance, education, musicology, is an urgent task of modern Russian science. In the dissertation work the historical-theoretical substantiation is carried out and the ways of the decision of a problem of definition of essence of genre and style dominants of chamber-vocal creativity of J. Massenet are offered. Among the samples of chamber-vocal creativity of French man of art, the main research attention is paid to vocal cycles as a cross-cutting genre in the composer's work, which acquire the value of a prism through which you can observe the characteristic genre and style features of not only J. Massenet’s chamber-vocal creativity, but also to find figurative and meaningful connections with the opera heritage of the Master. Based on the involvement of voluminous critical and research materials, the historical volume of which covers more than a hundred years, the dissertation explains the reasons for the underestimation of chamber and vocal creativity of J. Massenet in the scientific literature and the performing tradition. As a result of studying the history of Massenet science, it became possible to distinguish two unequal periods: life (1907 - 1912) and posthumous (from 1912 to the present). The analysis of changes in assessments of the composer's personality and creativity in posthumous Massenet science allowed to distinguish the following stages: 1950s; 1960s; 1970s 1980s; 1990s; the first two decades of the XXI century.