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CONTEMPORARY COMPOSITION AND ARRANGEMENT: THE YOUNG MAN AND DEATH BY CONSTANTIN RIPA

Nelida Nedelcut

Abstract

The Romanian composer Constantin RГ®p? is an outstanding personality of contemporary music who seeks to integrate myths of the universal philosophy and mythology by means of his last opus: the ballet The Young Man and Death. The performance is a synthesis of all its constituent elements: music, literary content, choreography, and scenography. Through a vision evoking total theatre, and a remarkable conceptual unity, the composer confers this ballet a dramatic character, extending its duration from one to three acts (The Wounded Ephebus, The Young Sweeper and the Naiad of the Seine, Solar Sacrifice), developing in three different units of time, place, and action. This research paper proposes an analysis of the balletВ’s creative concept on distinct levels: poetical, musical, and dance content, features of compositional language and highlighting archetypes with origins in Romanian folklore. A specific aspect of the compositional language employed by C. RГ®p? in his ballet is harmony, a system evincing multiple elements of autochthonous folklore, as well as direct influences of the universal music of the 20th century which emerge in: fragments with heterophonic writing, textures, musical parameters created by controlled improvisation, avant-garde elements dissolved in a unitary harmonic concept, related sonorous structures obtained by adding a magnetic tape or cinematic elements. The themes of the Miori?a, specific to Romanian mythology, represent the source of inspiration for the pieceВ’s finale, where the composer expresses, by music and choreography, the myth of death that develops based on archetypes specific to Romanian folklore.

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