“The Polyphonic and monodic forms of transposition of imitation structures in Komitas' works”

Abstract

Imitation, which significantly contributes to the melodization of polyphonic musical fabric, and thereby the linearity of its presentation, is a typical feature of Komitas' music - a circumstance that is revealed already at its first auditory perception. Komitas 's appeal to imitations is not accidental, but seems to be one of the key and fundamental positions of the creative method of Komitas-composer, which, in our opinion, is conditioned by various objective and subjective factors. This is an excellent knowledge of classical polyphony, including the imitative one, acquired by the composer during his years of study in Berlin. These are also imitative forms characteristic of Armenian monodic music, its folk (especially peasant) and spiritual branches in particular, polyphonic arrangements of samples of which form the basis of composer Komitas 's creativity. This is Komitas's obvious predisposition to melodize the presentation of polyphonic musical material, associated with his genetic monodic thinking (monody is a musical work (composition), in the formation of which the self-sufficient melody dominates) etc. Imitations appear in almost all of Komitas's works with extremely rare exceptions and in their various manifestations. This compositional technique, equally characteristic of European music and Armenian monody, was considered by Komitas as an acceptable means for polyphonic processing of Armenian monodic music, which does not create stylistic "bilingualism", incompatibility of voices in polyphony, but, on the contrary, organically merges with the melodic and performing features of Armenian monody. Komitas uses classical imitations related to polyphony. These are imitations with melodic opposition (counterpoint to the theme of imitation). Meantime, he prefers the so-called "monodic" imitations, the prototype of which is the imitative forms of Armenian monody, in which opposition is either absent or pedalized. This article is devoted to the consideration of the noted types of imitations in the works of Komitas.