Danse macabre concerto for viola and orchestra by Vlad Burlea: the problem of existentiality through the prism of the danse macabre genre

Over the course of many centuries, a number of "eternal" themes have been developing in art, acquiring the status of mythologeme. One of them is the danse macabre ("dance of death"), which appeared during the Middle Ages and received a new interpretation in modern music. Its use in the Concerto for Viola and Orchestra by the famous composer of the Republic of Moldova Vlad Burlea demonstrates a bright artistic solution, due to a deep philosophical interpretation of the image and its masterful embodiment by musical means. The composer gives program headings for each of the three parts of the work ("Quo vadis?", "Misterium", "Quemquaeritis?") and builds a single dramatic line of development from the images of the whirlpool of time in Part I to the danse macabre in the finale. By dedicating the work to the Romanian poet Nikita Stănescu, the author "draws" into the orbit of cultural dialogue the images and meanings that resonate with the Concerto. Using motifs-symbols, leitintonations, genre formulas, timbre means, the composer implements the method of conceptual programming and reveals the drama of the finitude of existence, presented in the understanding of a modern artist.