Imagophony as a Postmodern Concept

The purpose of the study is to substantiate the concept of imagophony within the postmodern perception of the imagological aspects of musical creativity. The research methodology is based on the search and analytical, semantic and musicological methods of intonation, harmony and instrument analysis. The scientific novelty of the study is the introduction of the term imagophony and its definition into the scientific discourse. Conclusions. The article examines the use of the term imagology and its derivatives (imagemes, imagothemes, imagotypes, etc.) from the literary discourse to the multidisciplinary one, shows the transformation of the semantics of the term imagology from a reference to the image of the Other as belonging to a different (concerning the author) national culture to a flexible one that adapts to the intentions of the author of the study. The article analyses the range of musical works that have received imagological coverage in scientific discourse and applies the terminological apparatus to them. Based on the analysis, the author proposes to introduce the term imagophony to denote sound images representing the established ideas in the musical culture of one nation about the musical culture of another nation. The stages of the historical evolution of imagophony are outlined: protoimagophony (some works by G. F. Handel), early imagophony (W. A. Mozart’s Turkish Rondo, L. van Beethoven’s song cycles of European peoples), classical imagophony (G. Puccini’s operas Turandot and Cio-Cio-San and some other Romantic and post-Romantic periods), post-imagophony (works of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century of the neo-folklore tendency), overcoming imago-phony (folk rock at a mature stage of development). The article shows the peculiarities of the imagophonic composer’s approach in interacting with ethnophonisms and modern instrumental techniques. Prospects for further branching and semantic expansion of the imagological terminology are outlined.