International themes variations for harp

Harp music is still a ''blank'' in musicology. But it does not mean it isnot worth of some special attention from musicians. Recent discoveries in Russian and West European archives make us reconsider ourattitude to this type of musical instruments and to music written specially for harps as a whole. This article aims at describing its artisticand masterly features in a musician's opinion and in the context of different centuries, styles and national peculiarities. The time limitswere from the middle of the 18th to the middle of the 20th, which is connected with the creation of a modern pedal harp. The object ofour study is harp repertoire within a single genre. We have chosen variations as the most widely spread and demonstrative kind for thestated tasks. The subjects are variations on the topics of La Folia, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini and Russian folk songs; we applied historicalmethod and comparative analysis to study them. These topics are quite a rewarding field to work with as they have attracted muchattention of many composers and musicians. There are some similarities among them, which draw them together: like the simplestharmony (T-D-T and S in close), short deviations to major in flat topics, repetition of the main melody and rhythmic outline, as well asemotionality, dancing or imperative character, folk (or near folk) background, simplicity in its comprehension and performing by nearlyany instrument depending on the complexity of refinement either by amateurs or professionals. We could perfectly see the integrationprocesses between Russia and West Europe on the basis of these variational cycles. In the 18th - 20th cc. Russia did not only receivestrong cultural impulses from Germany, Italy and France, but it itself endowed them with ideas, which we can observe in harp music.Mutual enrichment tendency started in late 18th c., Sonata # 3 by Hartmann is a perfect example as we know it includes a song called''Cossack was going to the other side of the Danube''. This article studies the works of Hartmann, Cardon, and Dumour created in Russiawhere the topics of variations became La Folia and Russian folk songs, and some variations for harps created in France and based on thesongs ''Kamarinskaya'' and ''Cossack was going on the other side the Danube''. Special attention in the article is paid to the Russiancomposers. Creative work of Stroganov possesses all tendencies of Russian music of the early 19th century. Its variations were analysedthrough the themes, La Folia, songs ''Cossack was going on the other side the Danube''. This article shows a regular pattern based onhand bells theme by Papageno used by Glinka, which was previously used by different composers, such as Dalvimare, Desargus andothers. The comparative analysis of Dalvimare and DeVitt variations for a Cossack song has been carried out in this article. On thetheme of J. Haydn from Symphony #6 (with kettle-drum beats) variations by Bochsa and (in 100 years) by M. Grandjany. Examinationof their opuses and variations on the themes of Paganini's caprices by M. Magistretti and a Soviet teacher M. Mchedelov finish thearticle. Information and additional materials were taken and based on the documents and resources found in the archives in St.Petersburg, Tomsk and Moscow.

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