The figure of an accompanist in modern musicological discourse: vectors of comprehension

Statement of the problem. In the space of the musical art the creative work of an accompanist is one of the cornerstones of the professional education and upbringing the talents, of crystallization and creative realisation of the musical piece’s performance conception in a concert or stage representation. Modern day tendency of elevation of the significance of performance art, the changes occurring in artistic practice and artistic education call for generalisation of musicological experience of comprehension of the essence and the specifics of the accompanist’s activity. Recent research and publications shows both, a permanent attention of the musicological research towards the abovementioned problems and a great diversity of scholarly approaches, with two main ones: applicable modus (connected to a problem of the musician’s professional growth and comprehension of the accompanist’s role as secondary), and self-sufficient modus (marked by accentuation of performance dimension of the accompanist’s work, underscoring of its significance as a basis for creation of the artistic integrity). Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to consider the modern tendencies of musicological discourse regarding comprehension of the specifics and the role of the accompanist’s art. The set goal involves reliance on the methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as the guidelines of a systematic research approach. The novelty of the study is caused by the generalisation of the most recent scholarly results in the national musicology on the essence and specifics of the accompanist’s work. Research results. The article reveals that modern musicological discourse on the art of an accompanist could be characterised by: retention of the applicable modus of its research and intensification of the self-sufficient modus, the one declaring integrativity, poly-functionality, self-sufficiency and fundamental place occupied by an accompanist in the creative comprehension of the world; tendency to clarification of the definitions regarding the essence and specifics of the accompanist’s activity; direction both towards substantiation of systematic specifics of the accompanist’s activity while preserving the diversity of the definitions of its structural components and towards formation of integrative comprehension of the accompanist’s figure based on the term ‘thesaurus’. It is shown that the modern musicological research is represented by such innovative problematic domains as: comprehension of psychological foundations of the accompanist’s poly-functionality; declaration of the significance of psychological and communicative competences and their structurization; substantiation of the new competences, aspects of activity and significance of the controlled anticipation, accompanist’s intuition, prognostic function and the system of the levels of its realisation in the conditions of digitalisation and modernization of the artistic education. Conclusion. The article proves that the modern musicological discourse on the accompanist’s art resonates with such markers of his activity due to a wide diversity of the scholarly approaches, as integrativity, poly-functionality and multi-dimensionality and is characterised by being directed at a radical re-comprehension of the accompanist’s mission as a fundamental basis of the artistic processes and grasp of the new trajectories of its realisation in the space of the musical art.