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

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103 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.
104 verbal speech had no need for it. 387 Yet he makes another distinction between their intellectual and emotional emphasis: [T]he tonus of the human voice – the manifestation of psychological reality in sound – is always “coloured” with emotional meaning and more or less emotionally tense, depending on the extent of the pitch range. But the formation of sensations exposed in sound – i.e., intoned – is always controlled by brain, by the intellect; otherwise music would be some sort of “art of interjection,” and not an art of the reflection of reality in sound images by means of the human vocal apparatus, and with a musical instrumentation which reproduces to a significant extent the human process of intoning, especially in the formation of melody. Because melody, in its emotionally meaningful expressiveness, is wholly a creation of the human consciousness, and its basis is a strictly rationalistic system of intervals. 388 Asaf’ev’s emphasis on intellect in the process of musical intoning is interesting, or as he says elsewhere in Intonation: a composer makes a rational selection of intonations. Emotional aspect to music is replaced here with a concept of artistic quality, which is explained through intonational sensitiveness, an ability to select the best intonations. According to Asaf’ev, intonational sensitiveness needs to be recognized by a composer because it is the key to the comprehension of the realistically meaningful bases of musical art. 389 Asaf’ev writes that “Intonational sensitivity, in the relation of melodic and harmonic content and the construction of cadences, constitutes a characteristic sign of stylistic intellectual activity, intelligent mastery, and disclosures of the ‘personal handwriting’ of the composer [--]” 390 These kinds of instructions to composers were typical for the Soviet time musical critics. They said practically nothing. 5.2.3 Speculations It is difficult to estimate whether Intonation was really something that Asaf’ev himself considered a theoretical or philosophical cultivation of his ideas. Had there not been a 387 Asaf’ev: Intonation 1977, p. 931. 388 Ibid., p. 905. 389 Ibid., p. 907. 390 Ibid., p. 928.
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ORIS aSAF’EV AND THE sOVIET mUSIC
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5.2 The Second Literary Period: Int
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the aesthetical and musico-theoreti
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Haas has noted: he used “shaky an
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“leftist” 11 mark on his works
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The Chapter Four and Chapter Five f
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The younger generation, Aleksander
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them to some degree in 1918-1919, h
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produced’, or as ‘the socialist
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conservative writers. 43 This aspec
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authorities and formulators of soci
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control the society according to th
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and “neo-nationalist” Igor Stra
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“mass songs” with ideological t
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possible. As a composer you could n
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thoughts is to be given, living tra
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confusingly obscure and dependent o
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Table 3. HISTORICAL FORMATION Histo
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3. BORIS VLADIMIROVIČ ASAF’EV’
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Iskusstvo (The World of Art) 108 an
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”Soblazny i preodolenija” (Temp
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can one compare these works with th
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Soviet Composers. The new directora
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Asaf’ev emphasized musicology as
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content of musical art. 162 McQuere
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A cause of many negative traits was
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4. THE FIRST LITERARY PERIOD OF BOR
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Boris Asaf'ev and the Soviet Musicology - E-thesis

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