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

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tonal tension which is present in both kinds of intonations 383 . The condition of tonal
tension means practically intonation in general sense:
[T]he life of tones and words (which the content of speech is grasped depends) is fused
into the fluidity and continuity of an emotionally vocal, “tonational” effort and tension,
closely united with breathing. This tension, by its fluidity reflects the continuity of
thinking, for thinking as an activity of the intellect is only partially expressed in the
flashing in the consciousness of the “intermittence of words,” but, in essence, it is
“melodic”, “tuneful”, fluid , and conditioned by a kind of “mental breathing” and rhythm,
appearing as “mental intoning”. 384
The condition of tonal tension is one of Asaf’ev’s most mysterious and confusing
explanations in Intonation. Nevertheless, it is part of his theoretical explanation of
intonation as a general phenomenon. It is one of the main stimulus for the constant
process. The concept of tension becomes more understandable when one remembers
that intonations cannot exist independently. Thus the tension could be seen as a result of
the context. In my understanding, it is something that at the same time is a result of
opposite poles, i.e. different materials of the composition and at the same time binds
them together 385 . In relation to musical works Asaf’ev talks of linear tension, which is
inherent in intonation and present in musical works of so called “process” type. Haas
has written that “[t]he term linearism, already used to describe much Western European
music of the 1920s, had for Asaf’ev an added connotation: It described the tensions
within a melodic line or several lines in interaction, including, but not limited to, the
force of tonal centers.” 386
Asaf’ev explains the distinction between speech and musical intonation Asaf’ev
explains through the expressive phenomenon of interval that is according to him the
precise determinant of the emotionally meaningful quality of intonation. According to
Asaf’ev, interval is developed in public consciousness and is present only in music, for
383
“This phenomenon or “condition of tonal tension,” which conditions both ‘verbal speech’ and ‘musical
speech’, I call intonation.” (Asaf’ev: Intonation 1977, p. 931.)
384
Ibid., pp. 930–931.
385
The result and the meaning of musical piece depend on whether the materials of the combination are
well selected from the given epoch.
386
Haas 1998, p. 79.