Zhdanov M. Interpretation of the cantata genre in Ukrainian choral music of the last third of the 20th - 21st centuries

The thesis is to reveal the specifics of the interpretation of the cantata genre in Ukrainian choral music of the last third of the 20th - early 21st centuries based on the composer's creativity and performance representations. The author conceptualizes the cantata genre, rationalizes its genesis, species essence and specificity from the standpoint of complex methodology, general scientific approaches, in particular systematic, historical, interpretive research methods based on fundamental theories and concepts of musicology (theories of musical genre, musical style, musical semantics and interpretation of music). Cantata is studied here from historical, theoretical, interpretive aspects and in its individual stylistic manifestations. The author reveals the crystallization specificity of the cantata in European and national musical art, provides a panoramic review of its historical evolution in Ukrainian music as an artistic phenomenon and genre with national characteristics, and discusses the functioning regularities of the cantata in Ukrainian musical culture at the current stage. The author presents an intra-genre classification of the cantata and rationalizes the definition of the two leading types (a Sarrel-choral and orchestral-choral) formed in the choral sphere on the basis of timbre-performance differentiation. He singles out genre-stylistic varieties of the cantata with the participation of the choir (neo-folkloric and neo-sacred) according to content and stylistic criteria of typology and rationalizes their specificity in the context of stylistic trends of neo-folklorism, neo-sacralism, actualized under the influence of the idea of national spiritual revival and artistic determinants. The paper determies the expansion trends of the semantic space of the cantata in the Ukrainian choral music of the studied period and presents the main vectors of the genre-stylistic modification of the genre, which characterize the current state of the cantata-choral work of Ukrainian authors and testify to the originality of the manifestations of the composer's interpretation of its original structural-semantic model. The author shows the ways of modernization, as well as diffusion and mixing of the cantata in the context of transformation processes in the musical culture of the outlined period, influencing the dynamics of the artistic development of the vocal and choral sphere of creativity. The objective is to reveal the specifics of the interpretation of the cantata genre in Ukrainian choral art of the last third of the 20th - early 21st centuries. The research object is the Ukrainian choral art of the 20th - early 21st centuries. The research subject is the specifics of the interpretation of the cantata genre in Ukrainian choral music of the last third of the 20th - early 21st centuries.