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

4.1.1 Symbolism and Music: Anderej Belyj and Boris Asaf’ev – the Problem of
Interchange of Terminology
The Symbolist thoughts appeared in the letters, written by Asaf’ev in 1917, when he
was planning the journal Muzykal’naja mysl’ with Suvčinskij. Orlova has maintained
that Asaf’ev’s words at this point show clear evidence that refers to the literarysymbolist
movement, particularly to Aleksandr Blok. 197 According to her, the theurgical
idea of the Symbolists of that period was clear in the pages as it stated “[t]he ultimate
goal of all arts becomes formed in its relationship to religion – the final achievement of
all strength of personal as well as social will [which] already now far ahead opens its
most boundless religious abilities and on the way there – artistic.” 198 Orlova writes that
similar ideas, which were mostly due to the time-period, can be found in Asaf’ev’s
articles and personal letters 199 .
The influence of the texts of Russian modernists is quite easy to trace in Asaf’ev. A
typical trend of the Symbolist era was interchange of terminology between different
fields of art and a so-called “union of arts”. This feature came from the Romantics’ urge
to break out of the confines of a particular art form and to graft one form to another. 200
This causes confusions in meaning. For example as Steinberg states, the relationship
between music and Symbolism has always provoked differences of opinion among
critics: how the music and verse are related, can these two art forms be compared, or is
it simply a matter of them sharing common terms. 201 The same problematic question is
stressed by Boris Kac in his study of music in poetry: for a musicologist it is rather
unconvincing, when a poet uses musical terms (in musical sense) in his literal work. It
invokes often mistaking images, which means that the words have different meanings in
a musicologist’s mind from that of a poet’s mind. The major problem appears especially
197
“Maintaining music its privilege, – to communicate in annotation, – ‘Muzykalnaja myzl’’ will not,
however, present the rest of the art as subordinate to its position. It will state in its pages different kinds of
questions in the broadest understanding, regardless of their indirect connection to music [--] there will be
articles in relation to other spheres of arts besides music, but only as far as musical principles appear in
them, which means the laws and the character of musical thought.” (Asaf’ev’s letter to E. V. Bokoslovskij
in May 1917; quoted in Biography 1984, p. 83.)
198
Ibid., p. 84.
199
Ibid.
200
Steinberg 1982, p. 15.
201
Ibid., p. 3.
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