Features of Ivan Karabyts’s Composing Style and the Specifics of Their Manifestation in the Genre of the “Academicized” Pop Song

Author

Horbunova Iryna

a Ph.D. in Art Studies, a research fellow at M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID ІD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6302-4366

Features of Ivan Karabyts’s Composing Style and the Specifics of Their Manifestation in the Genre of the “Academicized” Pop Song

Abstract

The author presents a creative portrait of I. Karabyts, identifying among the characteristic features of the artist’s style an organic synthesis of various stylistic models (neo-Baroque, neoclassical, neo-romantic, neo-impressionistic, neo-folklore, among others.), as well as keeping the “golden mean” between “traditionalism” and “avant-garde”. I. Karabyts’s pop songs are recognised as one of the most illustrative examples of the “academic stylization of the pop scene” in Ukrainian musical culture, and at the same time as a genre that is quite representative of the composer’s style, as it can be seen in the context of an organic synthesis of folklore, academic and pop components, that is, in the light of the category of ambivalence (multi-vector, multi-directional).

The article traces the stylistic determinants of I. Karabyts’s creativity on the example of his several “academic” pop songs of the 1970–1980s, which became hits. The features of the figurative content, structure, dramaturgy, musical language of the selected works, as well as the “proportion” and ratio of pop, academic and folklore elements in each of them are highlighted. The cases of using a non-standard structure for a pop song are traced, the methods of creating a through dramatic development in a number of songs are revealed, and various genre components in the music of many of the analysed works are singled out. The characteristic manifestations of I. Karabyts’s style in his pop-song creativity are highlighted: first of all, neo-romantic features, as well as signs of neo-folklore, neo-impressionism, and polystylistics.

It has been proved that a number of the most important stylistic determinants of the composer’s work are convincingly reflected in his pop songs, namely: individual selection and organic synthesis of heterogeneous components of world and national, ancient and modern musical heritage, a clearly maintained balance between “lightness” and “seriousness”, among others. One of the significant indicators of the ambivalence of I. Karabyts’s pop songs is the possibility of their performance by singers of different directions: pop, academic, amateur, folk.

Keywords

pop songs, academic stylization of pop, ambivalence, hit song, genre, style.

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