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

also to Realist tradition 332 . He connected Stravinskij to the countryside culture yet
hinting that also those who were brought up with gipsy songs would understand his
music in the future. 333 Thus Asaf’ev was implanting his coming up theory of Musical
Form as a Process (1930) and Intonation (1947) already in A Book about Stravinsky
with an ultimate meaning: to justify the existence of the music that he liked, to try to
convince others and develop their taste towards the new music, by explaining it to be a
matter of getting used to the new intonations. 334 As we know, in practise, his theory
didn’t lead to the favourable conditions for the new aesthetics which existence he tried
to defend. The ties of the new aesthetics to life needed to be indicated more
throughoutly, but such endeavour was not possible yet on Stalin period. There was so
deep fundamental philosophical contradiction between the Western Formalist idea and
the Soviet socialist realism. Application of “formalist techniques” needed more time
than Asaf’ev’s lifetime to become “alive” in the Soviet Union. The fundamental
premise of socialist realism was that art needed to reflect life truthfully. Thus a new
technique needed to bring in life, not just to present as a self-independent factor,
detached from life. Asaf’ev tried to do that in his writings. 335
A Book about Stravinsky was the first serious attempt to write about Stravinsky’s music
in Russian context. Robert Craft points out that in 1930s A Book about Stravinsky would
have been an important source for the Westerners who could not understand the entire
phenomenon of Stravinsky’s music, which streamed from the peculiarities of Russian
culture. 336 Asaf’ev indicates those little details with a passion. All that probably
annoyed Stravinskij, who wanted to cut his ties with the ‘communists’.
332
“Never in Russian opera has the ambiance of the love song with guitar accompaniment, or the
character of the person who sings such piece, been portrayed more accurately, more truthfully, or with
greater art. (Ibid., 202.)
333
Ibid., pp. 198–199. ”Many Russian maidens have poured out their love in melodies like this and still
do.” Ibid., p. 200.
334
See Ibid., p. 205: “This is often the case in the evolution of intonations: they develop in a given milieu
and are sung and played by people who find in them wholly adequate means of expressing their
experiences and feelings. When the society that produced the intonations is replaced by another…the
development continues, but in a different direction.”
335
Asaf’ev wrote about new music a lot on 20s. The publishing house Triton published collections of
articles which contained articles on new music: Glebov (Asaf’ev): “Prižok čerez ten’” (Leap trough the
shade/shadow) (1927); “Ot ‘Novoj Muzyki’ k novomu muzykal’nomu mirovozzreniju” (From “New
music” to New Musical Worldview) (1927); “Muzyka ‘Vocceka’” (Music of “Wozzek”) (1927).
336
However, this did not happened, partly because of the Stravinsky’s negative attitude towards Asaf’ev.
Asaf’ev: Stravinsky 1982, p. viii.
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