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

INTRODUCTION
Boris Vladimirovič Asaf’ev 1 (1884─1949) was one of the most famous musicologists, a
prolific composer in the Soviet Union 2 and the most well known Soviet musicologist in
the West. 3 His writings on music theory and on music history have been influential in
Russian musical life up to this day 4 . Some of the early Russian musical scholars,
composers, musicians and cultural critics got a permanent voice in Russian cultural
history and in current Russian musicology within his works.
Within exploring his early writings and aesthetical preferences one cannot wholly
understand why he was chosen to be an official author of musical life in the Soviet
Russia, the first and only musicologist elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences
of the USSR. While a propagandist of the modernist works and a founder of Kružok
novoj muzyki (The Circle of New Music) he was silent when his friends, composers
Sergej Prokof’ev (1891–1953) and Nikolaj Mjaskovski (1881–1950) were prosecuted of
formalism during Stalin period. Despite Asaf’ev’s contradictory views he gained an
officially approved status as the “father of Soviet musicology”.
In general, this research attempts to view Asaf’ev’s disputed reputation and status in
Soviet musicology. The purpose is to examine the aesthetic-philosophical roots of
Asaf’ev’s fundamental ideas and concepts, and to specify the authors who have
influenced him in the early 20 th century. His youthful writings and biographical facts are
under evaluation, and to certain extent, mirrored against the ideological and
philosophical tendencies of the time, but the main focus of the study is in the analysis of
1 See the “Note on Tranliteration” on p. 113.
2 See for example a biography by Orlova & Krjukov: Akademik Boris Vladimirovič Asaf’ev 1984, pp.
264–265: Orlova and Krjukov speculate Asaf’ev’s heritage in the Soviet musicology. The book is from
now on marked as Biography 1984. (See the list “Note on Abbreviations of Quoted Material”.)
3 Some of his works are translated in English Russian music from the beginning of the nineteenth century,
transl. Alfred J. Swan. Ann Arbor: J. W. Edwards, 1953; A Book About Stravinsky, trans. Richard F.
French. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982; and James R. Tull, “B. V. Asaf’ev’s Musical Form as a
Process: Translation and Commentary”. Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, 1977. “The Great
Russian Composer” in Russian Symphony: Thoughts about Tchaikovsky. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1947.
4 A book Klassičeskaja muzykal’naja forma (Ruč’evskaja, E. A, 1998.), used by the St. Petersburg
Conservatory, is partly based on the writings by Asaf’ev. He has also been cited in concert programs. See
for example a concert brochure of Sankt-Peterburgskaja akademičeskaja filarmonija imeni D. D.
Šostakoviča, Bol’šoj zal. (14.4.2004).
1