Maxim Shalygin’s accordion creativity: a combination of tradition and innovation

Statement of the problem. Nowadays, the field of accordion music continues to be constantly replenished with new composer names. Maksim Shalygin is a composer, whose career has lasted for almost a quarter of a century. He has written a number of works for solo accordion, which still remain outside the attention of scholars in the field of accordion art. There are studies in other areas of his work, namely chamber and instrumental, vocal, opera and ballet. Among the researchers are T. Kohut (2019), who examines the originality of the musical embodiment of the image of Carmen in the ballet “Case Carmen”; E. Jabrailova-Kushnir (2017), who studies the function of ostinato in the solo piano part in interaction with the instruments of the symphonic orchestra; O. Naumova and G. Rizaeva (2023), who analyze the traditional and modern in the composer’s principles in the field of vocal music; V. Zinchenko (2020), who reveals the semantics of foolishness in the ballet “Traces”, analyzing the relationship between the poetic text and music. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of this study is to analyze the works for solo accordion by Maksym Shalygin, to determine the specifics of the combination of traditional and innovative means in his work, to outline artistic, figurative and compositional features, and to reveal their significance for the development of contemporary accordion art. In the presented study, for the first time in the world and Ukrainian musicology, the object of research is the accordion works by M. Shalygin. The methods are used: systematization and generalization – in processing information about the composer from various sources; historical, biographical and chronological approaches – in describing M. Shalygin’s biography and creative work; special methods of musicological analysis, in particular performance one – in characterizing the composer’s musical works. Research results. The works of M. Shalygin of different periods of his career differ in scale, level of complexity, genre and style, etc. However, these are always high-quality artistic works with a peculiar imagery, psychological and emotional content and bright timbre colouring. The analysis revealed that from the earliest stage of creativity, the artist’s own compositional style is felt. The first stages of his creativity were associated with an appeal to the traditions of classical accordion composers. Gradually, M. Shalygin’s work acquired original, individual features. This was embodied in the desire to achieve unusual, colourful sounds, using immanent accordion means and techniques. Conclusion. Thus, we have considered the accordion works by M. Shalygin in the aspect of genre and artistic and expressive specificity. The combination of new expressive sound finds and an extended interpretation of the traditional expressive possibilities of the accordion characterize the bright originality of M. Shalygin’s composer language. We consider this study to be relevant and promising for further research.