Works of Mykola Leontovych in the Performance Traditions of the Odesa Choral School

The purpose of the research is to identify the peculiarities of performing reading and conducting-methodical mastering of choral works by M. D. Leontovych in the activities of outstanding representatives of the Odesa choral school. The tasks of the work are determined: coverage of the concept of a performing school, in particular, the Odesa choral school; identification of the poetical-semantic features, intonational-expressive factors that influenced the performing approaches to the works of M. Leontovych; determination of the creative continuity’s features of generations in the context of interpretations, intonation and artistic images’ embodiment of M. D. Leontovych’s works in choral sound. The research methodology is based on the use of general scientific and special chorological approaches. An analytical-abstract approach was used to study the scientific literature on the outlined issues; in working with the memories of contemporaries, graduates – analytical and historical; in work with musical texts – choral, textual and selective methods; The system-structural method helped to present the phenomenon under study as a generalization of various research and practical tools – it became a unifying factor in the holistic understanding of experience. The scientific novelty of the research is due to the fact that for the first time an original view of the performing interpretation of individual works of M. Leontovych from the standpoint of performing, conducting, research experience of the Odessa Choral School; figurative-associative approaches in the context of chorological elaboration of the author’s text are covered; emphasis is placed on the relationship between musical and historical facts and current trends in the development of choral performance. Conclusions. M. Leontovych’s choral works are an original example of an individual author's concept of the folk song idea in choral elaboration, which forms multiple semantic vectors for performing interpretation. Genre-style, intonation-expressive priorities of the composer in the processing of folk song material become a kind of ‘guide’ in the interpretive strategies of performers and provoke them and the listener to certain reflections of associative, musical-semantic, theatrical and figurative composition. At the present stage of its development, the Odesa Choral School, declaring historically established approaches to the works of M. Leontovych in the repertoire of the student choir at the same time demonstrates their living performing tradition.