ZNAČAJ MUZIČKOG GESTA U ŽANRU USPAVANKE

Abstract

The lullaby, as an established cultural practice and reproduction of culture in all nations, has also been used as a musical genre since the era of romanticism. Many composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, who were encouraged by children, included the theme of lullabies in their work as an inevitable source of inspiration. Given that it goes beyond the framework of one era, the lullaby genre builds a separate musical style, in which certain formal-expressive strategies can be recognized on an appropriate generalized level. The primary task in the paper will be precisely the identification of the modalities of musical meanings that are shown to be close in the miniatures called Lullaby, as well as in the pieces with the vaguer name Story. Recognized strategies will be categorized according to Robert Hatten’s semiotic approach to musical meaning, with an emphasis on the concept of musical gesture, which will therefore form the starting and basic analytical method. The correlation between the two opposing fields - musical structure and musical expression, which Hatten puts in the central place, implies, therefore, an illustration of the interdependence of hermeneutics and structuralism. Such a dual method proved to be very useful in order to show a high degree of similarity in the way of shaping thematically related musical material within a relatively small analytical sample.