UDC 78.071.1
DOI: 10.36871/hon.202401117
Authors
Andrei B. Kovalev,
Academy of Choral Art named after V. S. Popov, Moscow, 125565, Russian Federation
Abstract
The article focuses on analysing the figurative content and composition of Yu. B. Scherling’s oratorio “Exodus Triada”. This work, the title of which appeals to the Old Testament book “Exodus”, raises one of the eternal themes in art — the theme of protest against violence, enslavement and humiliation of one people by another. The article analyses the verbal texts taken from different, sometimes opposite ideological sources (quotations from books of the Old Testament and philosophical works of F. Nietzsche), the role of the cast of performers (orchestra, choir, soloists), the genre, style and compositional features of the oratorio. Each of the three parts has its own title, referring to different historical periods (the Israelis in Egypt, the first Crusade, Nazi Germany), an independent programme motivating the selection of verbal texts, techniques of orchestral and choral expression. The musical and stylistic basis of the oratorio is characterised by a combination of folklore sources, allusions to Jewish folk musical culture with the author’s compositional techniques based on the experience of Western European musical culture of the second half of the XXth century (rhythmic intensity, speech singing, aleatorics, glissando in choral and orchestral parts, vertical dissonance). The general conclusion is that all means of musical and artistic expression contribute to the disclosure of the deeply human content of this work.
Keywords
oratorio, Old Testament, Exodus, Jewish musical culture, shofar, Yu. B. Sherling
