Conversion of Traditional Mythologemes in the Symphonic Music by Nikolai Mentser

The present article studies the combination of folk and original music from the point of view of \nconceptual interaction of the two artistic systems. The study is made from the specific theoretic and \nmethodological angle of intertextual ideas typical for music by Nikolai Mentser, a composer who \ninterpreted the folklore of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East in many diverse ways. The \ncomposer smoothly integrated this complex of concepts and styles into the system of academic genres \nof European composing professionalism. The presence of a distinctive plot and dramaturgy of his \npieces is remarkable for the stability of patterns, images, and plots, researched by K.G. Jung on the \nbasis of archaic mythology and mythologemes belonging to the class of archetypes. To reveal such \nmythologemes, a series of symphonies by N. Mentser with great generalizing potential is studied from \nthe point of view of mythopoetics. In the plot and imagery of the music there is a cultural protagonist, the \nrole which undergoes multiple transformations in modern mythmaking. Musical dramaturgy reveals the \neffect of general mythopoetic tendencies, such as binary opposition, and action-orientedness (normally \nharmonizing the initial situation) of the mythic-ritualness. These general rules are implemented in the \nmusic stylistics, the “ folklore character” of which is achieved by means of folk tune quotations and \nfree re-intonement of traditional music microstructures

Art · Literature · Symphony · Diverse Musicological Studies