Boris Asaf'ev and the Soviet Musicology - E-thesis

Works) (1952-1957). However, it was his book Intonation, which got the highest
estimation among Soviet critics, and it was lifted up as the most valuable study book on
musical aesthetics for generations of musical students. It is difficult to estimate
objectively add of Intonation compared to his other works. It is, more than any other
work of Asaf’ev, Marxist-oriented – as if his former theories had been dipped into
materialist philosophy.
Book II, Intonation was announced almost immediately as a national treasure after its
first publication in 1947 in the Soviet Union. Whereas in the first book the emphasis
was in “how” the musical formation occurs, in the second book Asaf’ev tries to answer
the question “why?” The main essence of the volume is to explain the social and
historical causes of the evolutionary process of musical formation. This means
explaining what the principles of intoning are, in which way they are manifestations of
thought and how they are related to verbal speech. 360
5.2.1 Asaf’ev’s Intonation in Process
As Tull has noted, Asaf’ev’s concept of intonation has little to do with the traditional
Western interpretation of the term. He acknowledged the traditional definitions given at
dictionaries, such as “accuracy or inaccuracy of pitch relations”, but considered them
peripheral. As Tull has emphasized, Asaf’ev’s broad definition was associated with a
linguistic concept of intonation as a “meaningful expression in sound”. 361 Below there is
a list of Asaf’ev’s definitions of intonation from different periods in a chronological
order. 362 The list shows some of the changes that occurred in his concept and helps to
understand Asaf’ev’s aesthetical development. In viewing Asaf’ev’s whole production
one may ask what was the result of Asaf’ev’s many years explication towards the
Intonation. Soviet authors called it the “cultivated” or “crystallized” form of Asaf’ev’s
thought.
360
Asaf’ev: Intonation. 1977, p. 600; see also Tull 1977, p. 145; McGordon 1983, p. 235.
361
Tull 1977, p. 152.
362
The list has been initiated by David Haas and continued by me. I have modified some of the Haas’
translations, for example intonatsija is always translated here as intonation. However, Haas’ Russian term
is actually better, because intonation is not understood conventionally by Asaf’ev.
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