Translated material
Mark Pechersky. Refined by music. Reviews
Refined by music
Mark Pechersky
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Tatyana Cherednychenko
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RUSSIAN MUSIC AND GEOPOLITICS
Outstanding historians Johann Gustav Droysen and Jacob Burckhardt were convinced that, as a historical document, musical works are more reliable than written chronicles1. Today, a historian who made such a statement would be suspected of empty extravagance. And not at all because there are arguments to refute long-standing judgments. Nobody tried to refute them; they were simply forgotten. Since the middle of the last century, a lot of things have leaked, including educational standards, in which the art of sounds has not yet been pushed to the periphery of enlightenment2. Nowadays, high music occupies a place somewhere next to ballroom dancing, among the optional vignettes in the “educated person” picture. People have forgotten how to hear and understand symphonies and operas, much less how to extract cultural and historical meaning from them.
Meanwhile, music can tell a lot, even despite the massive decultivation of hearing. After all, it also has something to offer to the reading eyes: in any case, enough to prompt puzzling extra-musical interpretations. Including on the topic indicated by the title of this article.
1 See: Droysen JG Historik (1851). 3. Aufl. München. 1958. “To be empirically perceived, history must be understood,” wrote Droysen (ibid., S.24). And music provides an understanding of history (in its deepest sense) through the “spiritual content of history.” And nota bene: when interpreting music as historical evidence, “the possibility of error is small” (ibid., S. 96). As for Burckhardt (see: Burckhardt J. Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien. Ein Versuch. Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 5. St. /Bln./ Lpg., 1930), then, without putting forward methodological maxims, the historian systematically introduces musical realities and concepts in explaining general historical changes.
2 Both of these scientists, like Max Weber or Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno, not only knew what a perfect consonance or fugue was, but studied composition from prominent teachers or were friends with major musicians.
Oddities of musical onomastics
An interesting thing is the lists of works in musical encyclopedias, if you read them in a row, from beginning to end in alphabetical-monographic order. Somewhere around the letter “k” it begins to seem like all this was cleverly invented by someone. And that this someone was an activist in disputes of a historiosophical-geopolitical nature. It’s just not clear which side he’s on.
One way or another, dry “nominal lists” of opuses portray Western classics as indifferent in regional studies. To put it roughly, we can say that Wagner saw no further than the “Rhine Gold”, and Johann Strauss saw no further than the “Blue Danube”. And if not to be rude, then here are the disclaimers. They just won't change much.
Of course, J. S. Bach wrote the Italian Concerto and the French Overture. And yet he remained a musical homebody. After all, the given names indicate pan-European genre forms1 that developed in the corresponding schools of composition at the beginning of the 17th century, but not Italy or France in the sense of an original living space. One can recall that Mozart has “The Abduction from the Seraglio” and “Turkish Rondo”, and, turning factual statistics on the problem of “West-Eastern interactions”, see in the Salzburg genius a timid approbant of Orientalism. But Mozart’s conventional play “East” only meets the genre task of defamiliarizing the familiar, and it is clear that the composer not only “failed” to penetrate someone else’s musical element, but rather did not intend to do so. Or, let's say, Haydn has "Paris" symphonies, and there are "London" ones. But again, don’t look for feelings about cities and countries in “Farewell” or in the Symphony with Tremolo Timpani. Haydn composed Haydn's symphonies both in Paris and in London, and their cycles were named simply "at the place of work." And so on.
The situation changed somewhat towards the end of the 19th century, but not due to the loss of “autochthony” by Western composers, but due to the expansion of musical Europe. The Italo-Franco-Austro-German core of composer professionalism was dressed in the shell of new national schools, which also created mainly “their own” music2. The Czech Smetana wrote "Czech Dances", the Norwegian Grieg "Old Norwegian Romance with Variations", the Finn Sibelius the symphonic poem "Finland". And this is understandable. If you don’t take care of your own, who will take care of yours? Although in fact there was someone.
After all, judging by the titles of the works alone, Russian classics are simply bursting with an abundance of foreign musical territories so that their own barely fits. In the symphonic heritage of our musical “everything” Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, the only “Kamarinskaya” includes two Spanish overtures and a solemn Polish one. And in Glinka’s manifesto of operatic “Russianness” “A Life for the Tsar” the most effective “Polish” act (it is no coincidence that the dances of the second act are performed as separate concert numbers; the “Russian” scenes, that is, all the rest of the music of the monumental opera, “leaked” into combined concerts only in the form of several truncated fragments of arias by Antonida, Vanya and Susanin, as well as the choir from the epilogue). Glinka's second opera, "Ruslan and Lyudmila", is truly a geographical universe. The Cavatina of the Norman Farlaf is at one pole, Arabic and Turkish dances from the Chernomor gardens are at the other.
The paradox of the founder of the national school, who wrote “foreign” music no less (if not more) than “domestic”, turned out to be a doubly paradox, since it became the norm. Glinka's closest follower, Balakirev left two Russian overtures (against Glinka's one), but two large-scale Caucasian works (instead of Glinka's only Lezginka from "Ruslan"). And although Balakirev only once (however, in two editions) musically “visited” Spain (Glinka, let me remind you, twice), he mastered the region of Western Slavism wider than his idol: to Glinka’s Poland he added his Czech Republic (in the form of a symphonic poems with the corresponding title). Another direct follower of Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, began with Esmeralda (an opera based on Notre-Dame de Paris) and ended with the orchestral Chukhon Fantasy. Its own, ethnically original, is presented in full in the operatic genre ("Rusalka"), and in the symphonic genre it is somewhat scant and ambiguous: in the joke-fantasy "Baba Yaga, or From the Volga nach Riga".
And then everywhere. Borodin in “Prince Igor” made such a “super hit” from the Polovtsian scenes that Igor, Vladimir Igorevich, Yaroslavna, Galitsky, Skula and Eroshka, and the Putivli choirs had to try very hard so as not to lose to the “foreigners” in the vocal and stage competition. The same Borodin made the orchestral film “In Central Asia” compete with the epically grounded “Bogatyrskaya”. The most repertoire symphonic works by Rimsky-Korsakov are “Scheherazade” and “Spanish Capriccio”, and not an arrangement of “Dubinushka” or “Overture on Three Russian Themes”. At the same time, Rimsky-Korsakov continued his line of development of West Slavic territories with “Fantasy on Serbian Themes.”
Mussorgsky seems to be less extraterritorial. In any case, neither Iceland (the unfinished opera "Gan Icelander"), nor the French "Africa" (also unfinished "Salambo"), nor Greece (music for the tragedy "Oedipus the King"), nor Assyria (cantata "The Defeat of Sennacherib") in his legacy does not occupy leading positions. Only the Polish scenes in "Boris Godunov" are almost as luxurious as the Polish act of Glinka's "Life for the Tsar", and can compete with the scenes at St. Basil's and near Kromy. But Mussorgsky has Pictures at an Exhibition. But this piano cycle is nothing less than a geographical and historical encyclopedia. In it, Germany neighbors France ("Gnome", "Old Castle", "Tuileries"), the new West ("Limoges. Market") with the old (ancient Roman "Catacombs"), and through a Polish village ("Cattle") and Jewish shtetl ("Two Jews"), Western civilization dissolves in the Russian expanses, represented, however, only by the ghostly ringing of bells in the "Bogatyr Gate" and the chthonic flight of the "Russian Valkyrie" in "Baba Yaga".
To complete the picture, let us remember another “kuchist”, Cesar Cui. The list of his operas alone is a guide for Mitrofanushki of all times. Here are “Prisoner of the Caucasus”, and “Son of the Mandarin”, and “Saracen”, and “Mademoiselle Fifi”, and “Mateo Falcone”, and eight more “foreign” titles.
But what about Cui! He, a prolific composer and music critic, but above all a general engineer, was better at fortification. Let's not forget about Tchaikovsky. Among the operas of the St. Petersburg graduate and Moscow professor are “Western” “The Maid of Orleans”, “Ondine” and “Iolanta” (this is as opposed to “Cherevichki” and “Mazepa”, “Onegin” and “The Queen of Spades”); Among the symphonic scores are “Manfred”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Francesca da Rimini”, “Hamlet”, “Italian Capriccio”, “Mozartiana”, “Variations on a Rococo Theme” (not weak “counterarguments” to the cantata “Moscow”).
What about St. Petersburg teachers and Moscow colleagues of Tchaikovsky? Anton Rubinstein, having marked his status as the first Russian conservatory rector with the Battle of Kulikovo and Fomka the Fool, did not remain alien to Lalla Ruk. Tchaikovsky's successor at the second national conservatory (Moscow), Arensky "balanced" "Dream on the Volga" with "Nalem and Damayanti" and "Raphael" (all operas), and even with the ballet "Night in Egypt". The Petersburger of the next generation, Glazunov, also has a remarkable balance: one Finnish and two Greek overtures against one Russian fantasy and the symphonic poem "Stenka Razin".
The statistics of titles makes one think that for some reason Russian classics took the trouble to write music for everyone,3 including not only the Finns, who at the time of Dargomyzhsky’s “Chukhon Fantasy” were still far from Sibelius, but also the Germans, Italians, and French. But they, after all, have already created their own pantheon of exemplary masterpieces for several centuries and at the same time thought little about the creative development of “foreign-language” intonation territories4.
How can one not recall the notorious “worldwide responsiveness” of the Russian mentality! It is customary to talk about it in connection with literature, although, judging by the onomastic series, music provides much more grounds for this.
However, the names of musical compositions are quite difficult to relate to their meaning. Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" has already been mentioned. The closest “translation” of the title indicates the fundamental unpretentiousness of the author’s intention (one might think, hence the diminutive suffix): well, the composer responded to his friend’s vernissage with a virtuoso suite of genre miniatures; this is not “Boris Godunov” for you to write. Meanwhile, "Pictures" is no less than "Boris Godunov". In them, in essence, the entire problematic of Mussorgsky’s work is condensed into an extremely small volume (this is what the diminutive suffix actually corresponds to).
But the point is not even in the discrepant scales of verbal and musical images. There is a dialogue between them, when, under the well-trodden rut of the sermon, the music reveals a swamp of meanings peeling off into the cultural unconscious. Let us try from this point of view to understand the “territorial claims” of Russian musical classics.
1 The French overture is a slow introduction + fast fugue, in contrast to the Italian overture, which is built from sections “fast + slow + fast”. The words “French” and “Italian” in names like Bach’s don’t mean anything else.
2 In the countries of the “new” professionalism, exclusively “their” music was composed for different reasons than in the countries of the “old” composer tradition. The composition capitals were calmly in a sense of cultural superiority and therefore did not look back (or looked back occasionally and condescendingly) to the “foreign-language” musical outskirts. On the contrary, recently emerging schools tried to get rid of the provincial complex and therefore hastily merged “metropolitan” technology with “native” intonation and plot. Therefore, if a German called the symphony “Eroic” or “Pastoral,” then a Czech called it “Above the Vltavou.”
3 In Soviet times, the traditional domestic desire to create “foreign” music unexpectedly received state-ideological support and continued in an ugly and natural way. When Moscow and St. Petersburg students went to the capitals of Central Asia, Transcaucasia, the Volga region, and Siberian autonomies and there they created the first operas and ballets based on local national material, then it was about loyalty to the behests of Glinka and Balakirev, and about the civilizing paternalism of Moscow, and about pumping up the repertoire "the art of socialist realism, international in content, national in form."
4 Among the few exceptions is Liszt. However, Liszt, who traveled a lot, including visiting Russia, did not so much write “foreign” music as process it. His virtuoso transcriptions of Glinka's "Chernomor March" or Alyabyev's "Nightingale" are well known. But Liszt is, as it were, a mix of the new national (Hungarian) and old European (Franco-German) traditions: a Hungarian by birth, he was part of the international elite of Western musical capitals, feeling like the “plenipotentiary” of young composition schools here. On the other hand, his “alien” music is partly a tribute to the egocentric type of creativity characteristic of the romantics. That is, say, the transcription of “The Nightingale” does not mean penetration into the romance melancholy of Russian “home-secular” communication, but the self-affirmation of Liszt, who was able to transform the unassuming original model into a virtuoso monument of “piano civilization.”
Why "A Life for the Tsar" did not become a popular opera
The polarity of Western and Russian musical situations of the 19th century is manifested in two symmetrical incidents in musical life: the premiere failures of Bizet's Carmen and Glinka's A Life for the Tsar.
Bizet is, as it were, the “most Russian” (in terms of “territorial” scope) Western composer. The Frenchman, who began his creative career with the oriental "Pearl Seekers" (1863), noted the maturity of the "Arab" "Jamile" (1872), at the end of his life created the "Spanish" masterpiece "Carmen" (1875). None of the listed operas had success during the composer’s lifetime, and the Paris premiere of “Carmen” completely failed miserably. Meanwhile, the “gypsy-Spanishness” of this opera is a rare example of organic adaptation to an intonation element that is alien to the author (not to mention the fact that the music of “Carmen” is absolutely irresistible, and for singers it is a gift for all time). There is, perhaps, no such musical Spain in the heritage of the Spaniards themselves, but there is such a rich, authentic and perfect Spain, perhaps only in Glinka. By the way, who was the first to call Carmen, which was tormented by the French press, a masterpiece? Russian composer Tchaikovsky in 1880.
At the beginning of his creative career, Glinka developed exclusively “native” intonation layers. He did not finish the symphony on two Russian themes, but he completed “Life for the Tsar” (1836), the first and highest embodiment of Russian melodic music of all Russian professional heritage. But the premiere of the opera, to put it mildly, did not cause general rejoicing. The audience was sincerely bored, listening to the plain-long lines of peasant choirs and seeing on stage a huge number of shirts and beards instead of the same number of powdered wigs and camisoles (or even the same beards and shirts, but conventional, pastoral or heroic, familiar from national souvenir operas Verstovsky). Rejection from the seriously presented "one's own" (with such verified perfection and such spiritual power of the composition, which makes one remember Bach1) persisted in Soviet times: when in 1939 "A Life for the Tsar" was remade into "Ivan Susanin", it was considered best to cut up the Kostroma actions and cut out the stunning Moscow epilogue, but not the Polish scenes. At the same time, Glinka’s first opera, despite the sympathy expressed in print by A. S. Khomyakov, the popularization activity of Balakirev, and the galaxy of great basses who sang Susanin, never achieved the popularity that “Carmen” gained throughout the world. until now, and even in our own homeland. Why?
It would seem that the title and plot are extremely complete, and even with the powerful value “feeding” of heroic antiquity, they express that mental complex, in the universal validity and vitality of which, for example, historically recent slogans-oaths like “for the homeland, for Stalin” make one believe. A work of genius, which seemed to correspond to such a clear and irrevocable motive of national-state self-identification, inevitably had to become a cult. But it didn't.
That is, everyone knows the plot in general terms. Ivan Susanin (and specifically the operatic one) occupies a place in the mythological consciousness of society only slightly less prominent than the film heroes Chapaev or Stirlitz (a symptom from school impressions: a literature teacher at the Central Music School, where I studied, became famous for the phrase: “Ivan Susanin had a Soviet character”). But “You will rise, my dawn” or even more so “What to guess about the wedding” is unlikely to be sung to you by at least one of ten compatriots (this is again in contrast to “Carmen”: few people remember what she did there in which act, but every second person, if not the first one, will sing it Habanera). It’s as if the opera pushed its plot and characters into culture “naked” without music. She perpetuated the historical event, while she herself remained on the sidelines. And along with it, on the sidelines (in the unconscious depths) remained that which culture, apparently, does not really want to know about itself. For example, how on a non-ideological, non-conceptual level (and this is what music captures) “Rus” and “West” are opposed. And they “resist” in such a strange way that there is no clear rejection of “enemies” and no choice in favor of “ours.” Against the background of the musical truth expressed by Glinka, the title of the opera seems to attach a question mark to itself.
The musical demarcation between Russian and Polish scenes is drawn by the contrast of danceability and chanting. At the same time, the dances of the Poles in 1612 are recognizably ballroom, those that had long since become their own in the Russian world (and simply in the urban environment) by the 1830s. The polonaise, krakowiak, and mazurka are presented with such generous scope and artistic brilliance, and the choir is woven into the dance fabric with such wit and ingenuity, so dashingly and filigreely accurately, that the picture of the “enemy camp” evokes enthusiastic admiration. Let us also not forget that dance includes associations of emancipation: free playful movement, free placement of oneself in the space of values that cannot help but beckon. And although in the final act the Poles, singing in the snow-covered wilderness in the whimsical rhythm of the mazurka, seem to be ontologically inappropriate (the dance melody “chopped” into short segments, which the frozen choir is forced to intone with force, serves as a sign of how the strangers “suffocate” when caught in from the shining ballroom into the dark forest), the luxury of freedom from the first Polish scenes is not completely erased by this convulsive echo of the ballroom (the Poles are partly even pitied).
Now about Russian chant. It is rooted not only in peasant lingering songs, but also in the Znamenny singing of the Orthodox Church2. Hence the ascetic and ineffective character of the elder Susanin’s part, hence the slow, almost ametrical development of the choral lines without emphasizing structural milestones. Such a chant requires introversion from perception, when the gaze is directed inward and upward, into the non-obvious and speculative. Actually, this is why in theatrical conditions Russian scenes seem “monotonous”. They bear the burden of obedience and duty, putting pressure on tempo and movement. If the Poles dance and sing uninhibitedly, the Russians sing and stand monumentally. This static is not a simple absence of movement; it is a negation of movement, an imperative negation: thus, having crossed the threshold of the temple, it is necessary to discard vain thoughts.
By the way, Glinka abbreviated the name of the main character in the manuscript as follows: ISUS. In addition, the eldest Susanin, according to the composer’s notes, is 33 years old (with early peasant marriages, he may well have a marriageable daughter). It is also worth noting that in Ivan Susanin’s dying aria, on the words “my way of the cross,” an allegorical motif of the cross, coming from the Middle Ages, sounds, and the children mourn Susanin in the figures of inconsolable sobbing, which makes Glinka’s opera score similar to the spiritual oratorio tradition3. Also: when Glinka’s Jesus awaits his martyrdom, his adopted son and full namesake rushes to the monastery and knocks on the gates of the church monastery, where the future king is hiding (these are the words expressed in action: “Father, why have you left me?”). And one more thing: the Russian scenes of the opera are built into a continuous church ritual; the events begin on the eve of the wedding of Susanin’s daughter Antonida with Bogdan Sobinin, end with the wedding of the first Romanov to the kingdom, and the “crown of thorns” of the protagonist becomes the “mediator” between the family and state weddings.
In the music of “A Life for the Tsar,” ballet and liturgy, theater and church, secular and religious, disguised as the plot’s “enemies” and “ours,” collide. The music interprets the plot in such a way that the Poles (that is, the bearers of the Western principle) become, as it were, the “laymen” of Rus', while the Russians become its “clergy”. “West” correlates with “Rus” as real history with sacred history. But you cannot live by sacred history alone. Therefore, “Rus” is also “West,” at least when it turns from the Susanin clan-people into a state.
In the epilogue (in its restored full form, it has been performed at the Bolshoi Theater since 1989), Susana’s children sing a majestic and mournful trio, mourning their father. In a painful contrast with the acclamations of the trio of orphans (one of which, let me remind you, is the full namesake of the father who accomplished the feat, that is, as if the resurrected Jesus), the opera ends with the famous solemn chorus of Romanov’s accession to the throne: the anthemic state self-identification turns out to be erected on the “tear of a child” as a kind of secular, "Western" statism.
And here’s what’s symptomatic: when closing operas, they persistently throw out precisely this sorrowful trio, apparently unconsciously striving to ensure that the jubilation of the final chorus does not sound like monumental heartlessness. I don’t want an ethical abyss to open up in the victorious ending of an opera on the “main” national theme. I don’t want to look into the problem of choosing between equally important “Western” and “Russian” values (they are also “secular” values, that is, state power, and “sacred” values, that is, people’s suffering), since this problem cannot be solved.
Glinka brilliantly (as a composer) and accurately (as a historian) completed “A Life for the Tsar.” And that is why, I think, his opera did not find true popularity in his fatherland. But I found her “Prince Igor,” an opera not completed by the author.
1 It is also necessary to remember J. S. Bach because Glinka took composition lessons from his “grandson” student Z. Dehn. Much in “Life for the Tsar” (written just after returning to Russia after studying with Den) is from the tradition of spiritual cantatas and passions absorbed in Germany. In particular, Glinka inlaid into the part of Susanin and his children special melodic turns, the so-called rhetorical figures, which in Bach’s times had a symbolic “translation”.
2 In fact, Glinka transferred the tradition of spiritual concerts and church music to the theater stage. The very abundance of choirs in A Life for the Tsar, which is absolutely not typical of Western operas, as well as the operas of Glinka’s Russian predecessors, makes one think about the liturgical nature of its composition.
3 The reliance on Western experience of church oratorio music is not accidental. The point is not simply that Glinka, according to the school of composition he completed, turned out to be the “great-grandson” of J. S. Bach. At the end of his life, the composer dreamed of “crowning” the Mass with Znamenny singing. Glinka thought about the musical and spiritual synthesis of Catholic and Orthodox traditions of liturgical music and partially realized it already in A Life for the Tsar. In this light, the “enemy” status of the Catholic newcomers is especially problematic (not in the plot, but in the musical fabric of the opera).
Why "Prince Igor" became a popular opera
Borodin worked on the opera “Prince Igor” for about eighteen years: from 1869 until his death. The fact that the score remained unfinished is explained by the busyness of the chemist, professor, and head of the department. However, Borodin completed other fairly large works written during the same period (except for the barely begun Third Symphony). And the remaining sketches and finished scenes of “Igor” will be enough for at least one and a half operas. In a word, external circumstances could interfere with the composition, but in art everything is determined by internal circumstances. Apparently, the work itself, as Borodin intended it, “was not completed.” Apparently, the very concept of the opera predetermined the impossibility of the ending.
We have become accustomed to this opera (as revised by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov). But if you think about it, it's quite strange. Let's start with the fact that there are five low male voices, four basses and a baritone. The opera norm is a maximum of two basses (preferably one). After all, the bass voice is fundamental, there is nothing below its tessitura, it is the “firmament” on which the chord vertical rests. Bass must be saved, since it is (semantically) too strong. In “normal” operas, warriors and rulers sing in bass, the supporting characters, the main ones, and there can’t be many of them.
And if there are as many of them as Borodin has, then it’s not a matter of role characteristics. It's a matter of a holistic sound image. To understand which one, let us remember that the Znamenny chant is performed in low male voices. So we have before us a liturgical symbol of the stronghold of strongholds, the indestructible Orthodox power. Let us accept this interpretation for a moment, because it corresponds to the image of Rus' in the national consciousness.
But it cannot be allowed. Firstly, what is happening on stage? Igor arrogantly goes to “drink the Don with the helmet”, not paying attention to God’s sign of an eclipse of the sun. Then the willful prince loses his squad, is captured, flees from there (partially betraying Konchak’s trust), returns to his plundered hometown to his wife, who almost became a victim of traitors, to the people suffering unbearable hardships. He returns with practically nothing except his unlost charisma (it is preserved by the baritone tessitura).
Secondly (and this is more important), in the distribution of roles all the bass are either enemies, or traitors, or pathetic spineless people: khans Konchak and Gzak, who defeated the Russian army, the rampant scoundrel Vladimir Galitsky, aiming to become the self-proclaimed rulers of Putivl, and finally, one of the buffoons , cowardly rushing between the benefits of serving Igor or Galitsky. On the contrary, high or relatively high tessitura are located on the “Russian” flank: Igor is a baritone (it seems that his military failures were due to a lack of “bass”), his son is a tenor, who helps Igor escape from captivity, the baptized Polovtsian Ovlur is also a tenor. The situation is similar with women's parties. Konchakovna contralto; Yaroslavna is a soprano, Yaroslavna's nyan is also a soprano.
So, on the one hand, the balance of vocal registers that has slipped into the bass sphere is a sign of the eternal strength of the national-historical soil. On the other hand, this same deep register system means hostile steppe inhabitants (or “our own”, but traitors). The image of Rus' seems to split into two: it is great, it is strong “non-Russian”. And he was scolded by “his own people”.
Even if what has been said is too “cool” an interpretation, there is at least artistic parity between Russian and Polovtsian music: neither of them is paler than the other1 or shorter. Weighed as if on a chemist's scale, although following Glinka, Borodin forced the “enemies” to dance mainly, while “their own” to sing. However, the singing and dancing principles in Borodin’s opera do not oppose as much as in Glinka’s. The rhythm of "Russian" choirs is quite elastic: although the choristers are standing, their movement can be heard musically - they are "walking". (The great emancipation of the “Polovtsian” rhythm, confirmed by the ballet action, only means a specifically “steppe”, “unsaddled” energy, more likely on horseback than on foot, more associated with raids than with plowing.) The people of Putiv “go” in their singing, however, to where Glinka’s peasants sang. The choral chant in A Life for the Tsar is infused with the ascetic discipline of concentrated prayer; the singing of Igor’s squad, the boyars and townspeople on the bell ringing transformed into a choral hymn (listen to the boyar chorus “It’s not the first time for us, princess,” this is pure bell ringing); Putivlyans “go”, therefore, called by the bell to the temple. But they “confuse” it with the battlefield and with the camp of the pagans. And here, instead of bells sublimated into a choral sound, the clanging of swords, confirmed by the dancing stomp: a different, warlike metal. This interpenetration of musical and dramatic symbols is confirmed on other layers of the musical fabric. A careful analysis is surprising in that the “Russian” music of “Prince Igor” is harmonically, melodically and even rhythmically not so far from the “Polovtsian” one. There are plenty of chromatic “barbarisms” in the form of non-traditional chord structures both in Igor’s part and in the Putivlyan choirs. And in “Yaroslavna’s Lament” the exquisite decorations of the melody (their function is to depict the trembling of a sobbing voice) are reminiscent of the part of the Shemakhan queen from Korsakov’s “The Golden Cockerel”.
It was precisely the interdependence of “Eastern” and “Slavic” music that did not allow either of them to prevail in the finale. This means that she did not allow the very finale of the opera to take place. After all, in the last scene of the epic story about the battles of “ours” with “not ours”, someone must triumph (preferably “ours”). What we are accustomed to at the theater, namely: the edition of Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, in which the final chorus, as if nothing had happened, glorifies the “emergency” prince, is an obvious stretch, an attempt to remain faithful to the stereotype of the final toast inherent in “Life” for the Tsar" (and reproduced many times, with more "transparent" semantics than in Glinka's first opera, in fairy-tale operas: by the same Glinka in "Ruslan" or by Rimsky-Korsakov in "May Night" composed for the beginning of the editing of "Igor" " and "Snow Maiden"). But in “A Life for the Tsar,” be that as it may, the Western conquerors remained in an impassable swamp, where the Russian Jesus led them to martyrdom, and in “Prince Igor” in the eastern swamps near the Kayala River, the Slavic army died at that time how the prince who led them there safely escaped from captivity (in general, Borodin’s Igor is partly a “changeling” of Glinka’s Susanin). However, no less doubtful is the attempt to bring one of Borodin’s sketches to the end of the wedding of Konchakovna and Vladimir Igorevich. In this case (see the edition, which has been running at the Bolshoi Theater since 1993), the opera ends with Polovtsian dances, which (even if one adheres to Eurasian views) is still somehow too much.
The incompleteness of Borodin’s “Igor” captures the essence of the Russian geopolitical mentality, namely the constantly reproducing Russian inability to determine the “path of development”, the inability to choose between “our own” and “other people’s” values2, and also, what is no less significant, the inability to unite them. There is no choice, although you have to choose: this is probably how we should understand the eighteen years of continuous work on Prince Igor. Or maybe that’s why “Igor” remained almost half a mountain of sketches, because the author finally decided not to choose, since there is no choice, since with the existing formulation the problem has no solution?
But the opera was completed. Borodino's musical articulation of Russia's geopolitical problem was consigned to oblivion. And “Prince Igor” was able to gain popularity.
Rimsky-Korsakov was the first to complete Igor (he staged his version at the theater in 1890). A master of such rank could not ignore the inherent difficulties of arranging Borodin's material. Sometimes it seems that doubts about what he had done tormented the composer all his life. In any case, the last opera of the last “kuchkist,” “The Golden Cockerel,” can be considered as a kind of attempt to “re-compose” “Igor” and find a convincing ending (with the same musical and dramatic problems).
1 It can be argued that Borodin was the first Russian composer who not only recreated (convincingly stylized) “Oriental music”, but without any quotation (and what kind of quotation can we talk about in relation to a disappeared people?) created “music of the East”. He created it himself, without any ethnomusical studies. This is, of course, fantastic. But there would be no “Sabre Dance”, no entry of “orientalism” into the world repertoire at all, if not for the Polovtsian scenes of “Prince Igor”.
2 Glinka made an ideological choice, as befits an Orthodox, Slavophile and monarchist. A composer who mastered his craft perfectly, he was able to tailor the music almost closely to this choice - a superficially rational choice, creating the appearance of a firm position above the abyss of collective psychological problematicity. He was able to transform the dancing Poles, delighting with their ease, at least partially into pathetic evildoers coughing violently (with phrases breaking off) from the cold. The composer is a genius, but he still did not allow the music to be identified with the plot and cast doubt on the final choral triumph, prefacing the scene of Michael’s accession to the throne with the sobs of Susanin’s useless descendants. Borodin made no choice either at the level of music or at the level of plot.
What does the “non-Pushkin” epilogue of “The Golden Cockerel” mean?
The equivalence of “us” and “them,” their interdependence and mutual repulsion—this was the position of 1869, when Borodin began work on “Igor.” In 1907, when Rimsky-Korsakov finished “The Golden Cockerel” (according to Pushkin), the attitude towards “native” was defined by the word “shame”, and towards “foreign” “poisonous beauty”1. Also parity, but already negative. The problem of choice is removed, since there is nothing to choose from.
Glinka’s peasant, the victorious hero-martyr, “turned out” in Borodin into a defeated prince (hero? martyr?), once again “turns out” in Rimsky-Korsakov’s last work and turns into a mediocre and sclerotic king who sings a love confession to the tune of “Chizhik” -fawn." Borodinsky’s Konchak, who has collected in himself the luxurious emancipation of Glinka’s foreigners in the “inverted” form of a magnanimous winner, in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “inverts” once again and becomes an insidious and seductive eastern queen who sings: “Hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha "I'm not afraid of sin!" The great dawn of Rus', which Susanin expected in his dying aria, became in “Igor” a prophetic eclipse of the sun, and in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera it turned into a magical Golden Cockerel, shining over Dodonov’s city, but instead of warning about danger, it first lulls vigilance (“Reign, lying down”) on the side!"), and then completely acting as a punishing right hand (The Cockerel pecks the hapless Dodon on the crown of the head).
The hidden musical kinship, which, under the cover of the antithesis of chanting/dancing coming from Glinka, united the Putivlians and the steppe people in Borodin, gives way to a sharp opposition. And again, turning inside out: now the motor, “foot” rhythm has become a characteristic of Russian melos (Dodon, his governor Polkan and the folk choirs themselves sing in laconic phrases, arranged in rigid square structures, that is, they seem to be marching all the time), and the respiratory rhythm, singing the free length of the phrase belongs to a foreign queen.
Moreover, the demarcation between “us” (who have turned into completely “strangers”) and “strangers” (who have completely usurped “our” definitions) is drawn with the most murderous stroke possible in art. Russian parties are extremely primitive. When the choir, praising Dodon, sings: “Without you we would not know why we would exist; for you we were born and started a family,” then the melody clings to the chord-rhythmic “pillars”, unable to take a single step on its own. But the parts of the Shemakhan Queen and the Astrologer (he is a mediator between her and Dodon, so his music is square-metric, like that of the Russian Tsar, but exquisitely chromatic, like that of an Eastern Queen) are replete with both compositional and performance-vocal complexities. And these difficulties not only exist, they are put on display as something painfully unnatural. Suffice it to say that the Astrologer (according to Pushkin, the eunuch) should sing altino, a reminder of the early operatic tradition of virtuoso castrati soloing, which already in the 18th century seemed somehow perverted.
Speaking of the distribution of tessitura. The “Polovtsian” basses are this time concentrated in the Russian city; on the contrary, “Putivl” high voices in the camp of “enemies”. The only high-pitched voice heard in the Russian scenes (before the appearance of the Shemakha queen at the court of Dodon) is the treacherous voice of the Cockerel. By the way, this voice echoes the voice of the crying Yaroslavna: like a princess who calls from the heights of the fortress wall, the Cockerel screams from the tower of the city fence.
Yaroslavna goes downstairs to greet the returning prince; The cockerel flies down to punish the stupid king. (The analogy of “Yaroslavna the Shemakha Queen” is perceived in the same vein.) Corresponding to the final toast with which Rimsky-Korsakov ended the opera of his late friend is the infantile chorus of the “orphaned” people and the collapse of Dodon’s kingdom on the darkened stage.
The most interesting thing is the epilogue that composer and librettist V.I. Belsky added to Pushkin’s text. (This was done, it is believed, out of fear of censorship persecution. But the extra-artistic reasons for the appearance of the epilogue are not as important as its semantic consequences.) The astrologer, before the falling curtain, sings on the very leitmotif on which he gave “ours” the insidious bird: “Only Only me and the queen were living faces here, the rest were delirium, a dream, a pale ghost, emptiness..."
What does it mean? Firstly, a new gift of another Cockerel, who in the first act repeated the comforting “Reign, lying on your side.” And now the public is again offered to console itself, apparently, until the next bite in the crown. Secondly, an obviously fairy-tale character sings about his own exceptional status as a “living person”, and sings in a fundamentally “unnatural”, “otherworldly” voice, thereby creating a semantic impasse such as the “Liar” aporia. Thirdly, it turns out that “living persons” cannot be found at all in the opposition between the “native” Dodon’s kingdom and the “foreign” “Shemakha land” seemingly reproduced by the Astrologer. This means that the opposition itself has become obsolete.
* * *
So, the usual form of national self-identification, the opposition “one’s own and someone else’s” (despite the fact that both the West and the East acted in the role of “alien”) in Russian music toiled and toiled, still unable to find certainty and fruitfulness in itself, and even gave up. And if in 1907, in the last classical Russian opera, the artistic death of the mental paradigm (ideologically quite flourishing, it began to wither away, perhaps only now, in the last days of 1994) still seems terrible (after all, the final blackout on the stage, that is, a return to the eclipse sun, which at the beginning of Borodin’s opera predicted disaster for Putivl), then in 1910 in the first Russian modernist ballet in “The Firebird” (by the way, the name is almost synonymous with “The Golden Cockerel”) by Rimsky-Korsakov’s student Stravinsky, and even more so in 1913 (his ballet “The Rite of Spring”2) there is already a completely calm attitude towards the obsolescence of this paradigm. The archaic national folklore is so powerfully aestheticized by Stravinsky, its unique rhythmic-harmonic astringency is emphasized with such pleasure that, one might say, the composer discovered the territory of Tropical Africa in Russian music, without leaving a single step from his native intonation soil. What the classics of the 19th century did, composing music “for everyone”, expanding their own musical power (in order to constantly suffer from the fragility of its borders, the amorphousness of its structure), Stravinsky did on his native land. He expanded Russian without going outside of it. And this was the result of the “geopolitical” search for domestic musical classics.
In any case, modern composers are following Stravinsky's path. They “increase”, without leaving its limits, “native”, “increase” not in space, but in time and in relation to time.
Now in Russian music there is maturing what could be called a reconstructive revolution: the pre-Glinka tradition is being revived, moreover, the pre-modern tradition (and it did not reflect its own “geographical” definition, since it was a liturgical tradition) is being revived in unity with everything that came after it3. As the leading idea of creativity, a historical vertical appears in place of the geopolitical horizontal. Perhaps this is how music explores new motives for national-state self-identification. Or perhaps it predicts the future meaninglessness of such (will there be anything and who to identify with?), leaving us hope only for the memory of the strange and great connecting and separating space between the West and the East, which was called “Russia”.
1 The words of Rimsky-Korsakov are quoted: “I hope to disgrace Dodon completely” (Rimsky-Korsakov. Collected works. T. 7. Literary works. M. 1970, p. 412); musicologist B.V. Asafiev and composer M.F. Gnesin about the Shemakha Queen: “poisonous, exciting dream”, “Punishing Beauty” (quoted from the book: Kandinsky A.I. Rimsky-Korsakov. M. 1984, p. 197 198).
2 By the way, we are talking specifically about ballets, not about operas: let us remember that in Russian operas the dancers were mainly foreigners-enemies, while in Stravinsky’s ballets they were entirely “our own”, and, moreover, with a folklore “sign of quality”.
3 An example, no less indicative than for the 19th century, is Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” or Glinka’s “Life for the Tsar,” or, more precisely, both works taken together, Georgy Sviridov’s vocal cycle “Rus Set Away” (1977). It melts almost all significant layers of the Russian musical tradition, and dramaturgically this fusion unfolds from “farewell to Russia” (as in the bell ringing of Mussorgsky’s epic “heroic gates”) to “meeting with Russia” (as in the final anthem of Glinka’s opera). Moreover, both are given almost simultaneously in the concentrate of the last two issues of the cycle. And another example is “The Lamentation of the Prophet Jeremiah” by Vladimir Martynov (1991 1994). Various versions of Orthodox liturgical singing are fused by the composer into an integrity that amazes with a completely new attitude to musical time: practically motionless throughout the entire enormous composition (Martynov set the entire text of the biblical book to music), constantly repeating, as it were, the same events and dispositions (like Russian history), by the end of the work this time, as it turns out in the most unexpected way, not only “passed”, but also “broke through” into a completely new quality. The listener's shock, bordering on epiphany, is difficult to describe. Both examples, of course, require separate and voluminous analyses, which could be the subject of an article tentatively titled “Musical Symptoms of the Russian Perspective.”
21.8.2001 10:52
Irina Galkina
Saransk, Russia.
complete crap. completely off topic.
2.5.2001 22:52
mick