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

Asaf’ev, a member of NARKOMPROS, wanted to rearrange the whole training of
musicologists into comprehensive musical studies containing both theory and practice at
the Institute of Art History and Leningrad Conservatory. His radical and modern views
caused some splits at the traditional Conservatory. Glazunov wrote on Paris in 1928: “It
is very hard for me to part with faculty members of the performing division with whom
I have never had any friction, but the prospect of being in the hands of the composers’
faction headed by Asaf’ev is not to my liking.” 149 No wonder about that because
Glazunov’s education was western oriented and traditional. Asaf’ev on the contrary
criticized the blind admirers of Western education:
I believe that the time will come when in conservatories there will not be taught blindly
what they teach in Leipzig or in Berlin, but they will understand that for us to write down
counterpoint of Gregorian Cantus Firmus does not give anything. We have different
assignments than Germans or French. We cannot forget the existence of Russian songs
which need to be adjusted to our present conditions. 150
Although Asaf’ev’s ideas did not succeed totally as he had planned, he became a mentor
of musicians and future musicologists in the Soviet Union for generations. 151 Among his
post-doctoral students were Roman Gruber, Semjon Ginzburg, Aleksei Finagin, Ivan
Sollertinskij, Juri Tjulin, Mihail Druskin, Arnold Alšvang, Aleksej Olkhovskij and
Anatol Butzkoj (1892–1965). All of them became famous musicologists in the Soviet
Union. Asaf’ev’s research acquired, as Schwarz has put it: “cohesion of thought and
method bearing the indelible imprint of the leader’s personality”. The subjects ranged
from the late 18 th century and 19 th century music till the modern contemporary music.
149 Glazunov. Izledovanie, Materialy, Vol. 2, p. 29; quoted in Schwarz 1983, p. 99.
150 Although Asaf’ev’s line is quite provocative in tone and a clear attack to old academic tradition, he has
also a constructive point of view towards the past authors such as Taneev and he builds bridges. His main
point is fruitful from the etnomusicological point of view: the Western methods won’t do justice when
transcribing Russian folk songs. See Asaf’ev 1926, “O polifoničeskom isskustve, ob organnoi kul’ture i o
muzykal’noj soveremennosti” (On Polyphonic Art, the Culture of Organ, and Musicl Modernity) in
Polifonija i organ v sovremennosti [Polyphony and the Organ in Modern Times]. (Program booklet to
organ recital, given by Isai A. Braudo, 21. Feb. 1926.) Leningrad: State Institute of Arts History,
“Bahovskij Circle”.
151 See Olkhovsky 1955; Scwartz 1983; Tull 1976, pp. 32–39.
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