16th and 17th centuries Translated by
Mykola Lukash" for soprano and piano based on
poetic texts (haiku) by Matsuo Basho (another
pseudonym - Munefusa, real name – Kinsaku,
1644-1694), Sengin (real name: Todo Eshitada,
1642-1666), Kobayashi Issa (real name: Yataro
Kobayashi, pseudonym: Issa, 1763-1827), Horo,
Kyoroku, V. Antonyuk composes a series of solo
songs that have their own drama and form a
narrative circle: the lyrical hero offers the listener
memories of his life expressed through vocal and
instrumental means.
Haiku poetry uses the aesthetic principle of Sabi.
The meaning of the Japanese concept of sabi
cannot be literally translated; its primary
meaning is "the sadness of loneliness." Sabi, as
a special concept of beauty, has defined the entire
style of Japanese poetry. Beauty, according to
this principle, was supposed to express complex
content in simple, strict forms that were meant to
encourage contemplation. Calmness, restraint of
colors, elegiac sadness, harmony achieved by
sparing means - this is the art of Sabi, which calls
for concentrated contemplation and rejection of
everyday fuss. Similarly, the first five poems of
V. Antonyuk's vocal cycle "Ten solosingings on
Poems by Japanese Poets of the 16th and 17th
Centuries, translated by Mykola Lukash" for
soprano and piano describe a state of mind that
corresponds to the concept of sabi. Only the
reason and means of expression change.
The main artistic and aesthetic task of haiku is to
overcome the boundaries between the natural and
human worlds, between the micro- and
macrocosm, to reveal their unity and
interconnection. Therefore, traditionally, the
subject of haiku is the world around us: natural
phenomena and objects, and even a person
speaks everything, describing not an action but a
state in words, thus determining the coordinates
of the hero's soul considering everything that
exists. This poetic form is not characterized by
the active use of tropes and figures of speech.
The authors presence in the poetic text is
expressed cautiously and indirectly. As for V.
Antonyuk's music in these solo chants, it also
follows the word, but performs not the function
of echoing, but creates a certain counterpoint
with its means of expression, emphasizing the
declared emotional orientation, providing certain
clarifications, placing and strengthening
semantic accents, modeling certain passionate
dominants. Such a literary and musical
correlation in turn makes it possible for a
performer-singer to interpret the characteristics
of the image created by the composer, who
develops a complex of textual invariants.
Creating solo chants for haiku texts, V. Antonyuk
undertook a complex phonosemantic task: to
highlight and emphasize the inexpressible in
music by instrumental and vocal soundscapes. To
do this, the composer carefully studied the
complex system of Japanese symbols,
reflections, emblems, signs, and indices. After
all, over the centuries of their existence, ancient
haiku have been overgrown with layers of
commentary, but they are more suggestive than
specific. Hint, understatement has become an
additional means of poetic expression. For
example, a pine tree is a traditional image of
waiting, a constant homonymous metaphor:
matzah, "pine tree," is associated with matzah,
"to wait." Ancient pine trees are a constant poetic
image, a symbol of loyalty, devotion, and
reliability in love.
Let us now analyze the solos of this vocal cycle.
"A clear waterfall... / Three virgin pines falling
into the water/in a line" (Matsuo Basho) (Lukash,
1990).
The first solo song of the cycle has a graceful
introduction that imitates the sound of a
waterfall. The downward direction of the
melody's flow - on a quartal progression followed
by a tetrachordal addition to the instrumental
accompaniment - is superimposed on the upward
contrast of the vocal part. Separate dissonant
inclusions personify the clay that, falling, slightly
pollutes the crystal water. But the clay also falls
"in harmony"; the dissonant formations, although
not resolved, are quickly replaced by further
consonant sounds. The solution of the vocal part
is interesting: its ascending line toward the
waterfall stream seems to make us pay attention
to the tops of the pines. And the oyster mushroom
falls, and the voice goes up, as if it were not
falling but soaring, because this oyster
mushroom is a symbol of hope, and hope always
lifts us up. Contrary to the haiku genre, the
composer does not divide the solos into two
parts: music full of hope unites, so the integrity
of the expression is a priority here.
"Our age is like dew:/ even if the dew is small, /
but even that is a pity..." (Kobayashi Issa)
(Lukash, 1990).
The second soliloquy of the cycle is written in the
words of a poet who grieves for a dead child
(Kobayashi Issa outlived all his children). Dew is
a common metaphor for the frailty of life, just as
a flash of lightning, foam on the water, or quickly
falling cherry blossoms are a constant image of
the transience and ephemerality of life. Melting