INTERTEKSTUALNO ČITANjE TONALITETA U VOKALNO-HORSKIM DELIMA NIKOLE HERCIGONjE

Abstract

The paper considers the basic postulates of the harmony language of Nikola Hercigonja (1911–2000) in his vocal-choral pieces of the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties of the last century, pointing out the necessity of the intertextual readings of the composer’s musical expression. In the area of the realistic musical discourse, the permanent ideological definition, and the unique brand of the composer in his whole creative musical opus, the idea of the national, presented through the two types of musical expression, is clearly marked off: the bellicose musical expression, present in the form of then popular mass choral songs in the Thirties and the Forties, but also the satirical musical expression, present during the Fifties of the last century – as a symbol of the liberated country and the first critiques of the current political regime. Hercigonja profiles his unique creative poetics with the extremely transparent tonal relations in the simplified romantic tonality, along with the frequently “barren” harmony formula T-S-D-T and the triad as a primary bearer of the intertextual meaning. The analytical sample includes the composer’s ten vocal-choral pieces created in 1936–1953, where the bellicose musical expression is present in then popular mass choral songs (The Red Poppies, To Matija Gubec, Comrade Tito, White Violet, Our Song, To Our Army, To New Yugoslavia, The Song of the 1st May, To the Republic, The Song of the Builder of New Belgrade), while the satirical musical expression is identified in the cycle of The Six Zmaj’s Satirical Songs for Bass and Piano.