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

different context, thus giving it totally different shade. In the Chapter on Mavra
intonation is in most of all Asaf’ev’s way of combining the content and form of a
modern musical piece: “Let us regard Mavra as a way of combining rhythms and
intonations such that rhythm itself is the plastic basis of the musical form that prevents
the scattering of the intonations, and the intonations are brought into existence to act as
the dynamic and emotional “soul” of rhythm, each sound, sung or played, presupposing
precise muscular effort or the controlled expenditure of breath.” 326 In short: here the
musical composition is Mavra, which combines the rhythms (the form) and the
intonations (the content). Intonations indicate that the rhythm has a living basis referring
to actual life – breathing, which means that music/rhythm is not abstract. Here again
Asaf’ev defends the new music from the accusations of formalism. 327 He goes quite far
with his argument claiming that no music except the music produced by mechanical
instruments and thus lacking the human breath, is completely without a feeling and
make a music completely abstract, i.e. ‘indifferent’ to human emotions. 328
Abstract art became a swearword in the Soviet Union after the declaration of socialist
realism in 1932, and was already in 1929 something inadmissible in proletarian cultural
circles. The concept of abstract art was difficult to define because critics mostly tended
to accuse art of being abstract (and thus formalist 329 ) whenever they did not understand
the work which was the case many times during the Soviet Union. Asaf’ev tried to
expand people’s understanding of “the new music of Stravinskij”, in order to make it
living in people’s minds. He dedicated himself to explaining what happened in music by
words connecting it always somehow to life. According to him, Mavra’s composer
stood between the “pure music” 330 and true life. 331 He also placed Stravinskij and his
work Mavra in the Pantheon of great masters such as Puškin, Glinka, Čajkovskij and
326
Ibid., p. 197.
327
He also writes on page 202: “This song is the classic example – the complete and and finished
characterization – of these series of musical lyricism, in which the improvisatory and stereotypical
constantly reinforce one another to produce an emotional effect that is inseparable from the formal
design.” The italics are mine.
328
Ibid.
329
Formalist and abstract accusations referred to art that was a mere form without content.
330
It was considered wholly intellectual and according to Asaf’ev ”void of vitality and vigour” by some
critics. (Ibid., p. 198.)
331
”In Mavra, he was still moving directly toward ordinary life, choosing to approach it though the little
grotesque story of Puškin that sparkles with the humour of everyday ’truths’” (Ibid. p. 198.)
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