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

They contain views that were typical for Russian modernists. 309 However, Asaf’ev’s
writings on modern composers, such as Stravinskij are interesting because of the
historical contradiction: they were forbidden topics on Stalin’s era and yet Asaf’ev was
raised on the top of the musical world. However, generally speaking, the writings on
modern music share the same views and aesthetical criterion as Asaf’ev’s any other
writing.
Asaf’ev first conceived the idea of writing a book about Stravinskij in 1924. The text
developed gradually as he wrote series of analyses about Stravinskij’s music. The work
was finished by 1926 and published in 1929 by Triton, a Leningrad-based publisher. 310
However, the book was abandoned soon after its publication. The work was ignored
almost fifty years until it was noticed again. 311 Originally Asaf’ev wanted to write a
book about contemporary music but ended up writing about Stravinskij as it’s
representative, analysing his works, which he regarded as a “method of perceiving the
links in the chain, the separate facts that make up the total phenomenon under
investigation, the separate organic manifestations of musical art as thought”. 312 Asaf’ev
emphasized that he wasn’t interested in Stravinskij as a person, but “only in what he has
done as the creative experience”. 313 He saw Stravinskij as great “universalist” composer
like Jean-Babtiste Lully (1632–1687), Christopher Gluck (1714–1787) and Luigi
Cherubini (1760–1842). In the analyses of Stravinskij’s music Asaf’ev’s wanted to gain
objectivity 314 by not letting reader to know whether the composer was known to him
personally or whether he was moved by his music. “My method on the other hand”, he
manifested, “gives a gratifying measure of freedom, in that having insinuated myself
309
These features are specified in the Chapter which concentrates on Asaf’ev’s philosophical roots.
310
Asaf’ev: Stravinsky 1982, p. 1; Asaf’ev: Stravinskij 1977, p. 3. Richard F. French’s English translation
of the book appeared in 1982 with an introduction by Robert Craft, who worked as an assistant and
amanuensis of Stravinsky. The book was published in the series Russian Music Studies, (No. 5. Ann
Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1982) which has, since then, published a number of interesting
studies on Russian music and musicology.
311
Jarustovskij writes also in 1977, that people had lately become again interested in the book and it had
been cited and studied. “One of the reasons is the rising interest towards the author of Petrushka and The
Rite of Spring…It is not the least influenced by Stravinsky’s visit to his homeland in the beginning of the
60s. Recently he has been studied a lot and also a monograph has been published.” (Asaf’ev: Stravinskij
1977, p. 3.) Stravinsky’s visit raised unexpected emotions in Russians as well as in the composer himself.
312
Asaf’ev: Stravinsky 1982, p. 3. The italicization is mine
313
Ibid., p. 5.
314
Asaf’ev stated in his chapter on Mavra ”Does the naturalist refuse to recognize a species of flora or
fauna just because he does not like it?” (Ibid., p. 207.)
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