Диалог русской и западноевропейской музыкальных культур в формировании индивидуального композиторского стиля Николая Метнера (на примере жанра фортепианной сказки)
Dialogue of Russian and west-European music culture in the formation of individual composer 's style of Nikolai Medtner (on the example of musical piano tale’s genre)

Summary/Abstract: The article is dedicated to personality N. Medtner’s creativity, which penetrates Russian & West-European music cultures. Biographical details of composer's life which affected on formation of individual style of the artist were examined. Composer's individual features of N. Medtner style were revealed with the help of musical piano fairy tale genre, created by him. The main aim of the article is to study an individual composer's stile & it reflects Russian folk imagery and features of West-European musical culture. There were proposed such problems for achievements of the goal: – to highlight the archetypal influence of cultural and biographical roots of N. Medtner on the formation of the individual composing style of the artist; – to identify stylistic originality of the music genre of piano fairy tale created by N. Medtner. Every composer in the process of his creative formation develops his own special intonation and melodic complex with favorite colorful structure, which in due course becomes some type of his mentality. So, such complex of abilities and skills transforms into the personal stylistic manner, definitely characteristic for the artist. On the forming of N. Medtner’s person as an artist his relative roots consisting of Russian and German nations exercise influence on him (N. Medtner was born in Russia, in German family, who lived in Moscow that time). His roots also exercise influence on his thirst and interest for music by J. Bach, W. Mozart, L. Beethoven, R. Shuman, F. Chopin, R. Wagner, poetry by G. Goethe and so on. On opinion of a researcher Apetyan in his work "N. K. Medtner. Memoirs, articles, materials" gives very interesting facts, touching the symbiosis of West-Europenian and Russian culture of N. Medtner creative activity. For 1912, when the first time N. Medtner's songs on poems by Russian poets Tyutcev and Fet were sounded in concert, it was noted in press the beneficial influence of Russian spirit. However, only to the end of the second decade N. Medtner's creative activity the critics began to talk about his Russian nature. One reviews concentrated the attention on his arts as an example of deep synthesis of German and Russian culture, others emphasize that on the ground of "modern Germanium", "from the depth of poor German culture" there was not be born such beautiful, spiritual composing as his "First Concert". Further analysis of the ground of N. Medtner’s art led critics to correct reasoning that N. Medtner organically connected with Russian melodies subconsciously abstaining from the borrowings of folklore. Here it need to be noted that father of N. Medtner (Karl Petrovich, who was born in Parnu, Estonia) was very educated person. He was fond of philosophy, Russian and German literature, poetry, valued poetry of Goethe and this love gave to his children. His passion to Goethe's poetry reflects in future on the creative activity of his son. Composer would write four vocal cyclists on verses by this author, and in 1909 N. Medtner receive Glinka Reward for one of the cycles of the songs on great German poet poems. N. Medtner’s mother was a sister of another great composer F.Gedike, which in turn was an uncle for Nicolay Medtner and studied and prepared him for entering into Moscow conservatory. The fact, that N. Medtner was Russian in his attitude to the world and has German roots, became the reason of the critics and contemporaries called him "Russian Brahms". In fact, these two composers have a lot of general, holding on to the same artistic principles. The base of their composer's mental activity was variability as the most important method of developing themes and polyphonic ways of manners and also improvised metro-rhythm. All the creative activity of those artists was penetrated by impulse of nation and songs. But genesis of N. Medtner's creative activity is not bordered by relationship with German musical culture. In his works he uses classical traditions and principles with romantic. From one side, this is a polyphony of writing, clear form of play, classical seriousness of idea, concentration and exactness its realization. From the another side, it is significant for his composer's style to appeal for genres, typically for romantic creativeness, for example, to a miniature, an interest to folklore arts, which was the favorite program for romantic composers. N. Medtner gave some program name to many fairy tales, parts of sonatas and majority of the sonatas, fairy tale colorize. The most thin lirism have to be related to romantic features of composer's creativity, which becomes complicated by polyrhythm, metro rhythm, satiated with rich and complicated harmony, difficulty of piano facture, intensive employment of chord alliteration and other indications of romantic method of mentality. The conclusion of the article is that N. Medtner’s creative activity have to be studied more carefully.

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