Unknown impressionism

The first one and the main is a victory of December 2004 democracy elections in Ukraine – my native land, which only in 1991 has become an independent country. Until this time Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, a Socialist Republic, under the real pressure of Russia. Despite such circumstances Ukraine has the huge music heritage, beginning from the archaic folk songs and a sacred music to the modern computing pieces. All stylistic trends of music development were sensitively apprehended by the Ukrainian composers, having given interesting results. Unfortunately Ukrainian music yet is terra incognita in the world.

In this article my intention is to give special information about Impressionism in Ukrainian music, about its original face, composers Vasyl` Barvins`ky, Borys Lyatoshyns`ky, Lev Revuts`ky and their works.

The second reason of this article is to compare contribution to Impressionism made by Ukrainian composers and their British colleagues (Frederick Delius, William Baines, Cyril Scott) which at the same time – 1910–1920s – actively interested by ideas of this stylistic trend. Unfortunately in the above book by Christopher Palmer is absent an examination of some interesting works by Delius and absolutely is absent an analyze of pieces by Baines and Scott. So I`d like to amplify the chapter about British music just observations about some works by mentioned composers.

I`d like to give a great thank to Professor Jeremy Dibble for consultative sessions about British music given me during September 2004 in the University of Durham, England, UK. Also I must thank my dear husband, Sergiy Utkin, who has regarded with great interest and attention to my article and has helped me to provide it by corresponding music examples.

BAINES

William Baines has lived a very short life (1899–1922), having made some interesting contribution to Impressionism in the British music. A situation around his name has arisen interesting because Baines was a provincial musician (he was born in Horbury, Yorkshire and there in York so early died) but he has achieved to a considerable extent of national recognition in that time. Baines` formation as a musician has begun in a musical atmosphere in his family: the father of the future composer was a chapel organist and a cinema pianist. The first Baines` professional experience was playing in a cinema where he demonstrated a great success in improvisation. To the opinion by Fiona Richards, this experience has clearly affected on the improvisational character of his works¹. The next step was a professional study of composition at the Yorkshire Training College of Music in Leeds. His special interest to works by Scriabin has been ensured by access to J.E. Kennedy`s complete library of piano music and by possibility to study the peculiarities of his style in detail. From 1919 he began to establish himself as a solo performer, playing the modern compositions by Ireland, Bridge, Debussy, Ravel and also his own ones. Baines has began to enjoy a wide popularity, the publishers accepted a number of his pieces for publication, there appeared many favourable reviews of his concerts. The outstanding in Europe pianist Frederick Dawson (1868–1940, for origin from Leeds), having interested by Baines` works, actively was including them to his own programs since 1920 until his death.

Mainly his interests were connected with piano music since Baines was pianist, and “the piano remained his natural medium of expression”². I`d like to add, it has been the special laboratory of forming personal manner (unfortunately it has not flourish in full measure through early death of the composer), where was appreciable aspect of Chopin, Scriabin, Debussy experience. Next I examine some pieces by Baines where the features of Impressionism manifest themselves very clearly and originally.

“Paradise Gardens” (1918–1919). It is a large composition in single movement where a traditional idea of a complex ternary reprise form has been kept. The peculiarity is a principle of repetition which penetrating inside of this construction sections unites some contrasting episodes:

A B A₁

a+a₁ b c d c₁ d₁ a+a₂+c+a

In this case the opinion by Roger Carpenter is correct:

He possessed an inherent feeling for logical rhapsodic construction lending coherence to a string of seemingly unrelated episodes; to this is allied a very fine sense of climax³.