PECULIARITIES OF FORM BUILDING IN CHORAL COMPOSITIONS BY JĀNIS KALNIŅŠ

Abstract

Jānis Kalniņš (1904–2000) is one of the brilliant and original composers in Latvian music, who after emigration from Latvia in 1944 spent the most of his life in Canada (from 1948). He has shown his worth in various genres but appealed to choral music almost during his whole creative development of an artist. In this field one can mark out two groups of compositions: arrangements of Latvian folk songs for different choirs and original choral works. It’s the last group and namely original choral compositions a cappella, that is the object of analysis in this article. Peculiarities of form building of vocal compositions are connected with interaction of two kinds of art in compositional structuring independent both in means of expressions and logic ones: art of a word (poetry) and art of a sound (music). This is why a form building process in vocal compositions including choral works is of a particular interest in each specific case (in a style of each composer). That’s because, firstly, the so-called vocal forms do not process that degree of stable systematization which is so characteristic of instrumental music and, secondly, the way the composer reads types of vocal forms which possess their own traditions, is always notable by a unique and distinctive feature. This is very typical of chorus opuses by Jānis Kalniņš. In the centre of attention of the present article there are works written in different years and for various choirs: mixed, male and female choirs. Out of 51 compositions only 19 ones were considered in detail.