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Lermontov in Russian Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

Nina Vernadsky
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Extract

Music and Poetry have been closely linked together throughout the ages in the cultural development of every nation. The interweaving of music and verse is especially clear in the history of Russian civilisation. This is even more true with regard to Old Russia, Russia of the byliny and the folksongs, than of Modern Russia, the Russia of instrumental music and songs. While modern Russian verse is tonic and, in some cases, syllabic, the old folk verse may be called metric, if it could be placed in any category of conventional theory of versification at all. In fact the old Russian folk verse is inseparable from music; it is not poetry in any conventional sense, but song, the rhythm of words being completely merged in it with the rhythm of music. Logos is here controlled by melos and ruled by the latter's laws, and vice versa. The proverb, “you cannot omit a word from a song” (“ïz pesni slova ne vykineš”) is characteristic indeed in this connection. I recollect well from the memories of my youth how carefully peasant singers in Russia tried to reproduce the words of a song with utmost accuracy, the omission of a word being equal to a sacrilege, so firm was the old tradition of a complete harmony of verse and music established in the people's minds and ears.

Type
Research Article
Information
Slavonic and East European Review American Series , Volume 2 , March 1943 , pp. 6 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1943

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References

1 Kann, E. and Novikov, A., “Muzyka v žizni i tvorčestve Lermontova,” Sovetskaya Muzyka, 1939, No. 9–10, p. 87 Google Scholar.

2 Shchegolev, P. E., Kniga o Lermontove (Moscow, 1929), I, 220 Google Scholar.

3 See Note 1.

4 See Kann and Novikov (as in Note 1), p. 85.

5 Shchegolev, I, l6.

6 Quoted from Dabney, J. P., The Musical Basis of Verse (New York and London, 1901), p. 16 Google Scholar.

7 See Müller, H. W., Das Musicalische in der Dichtung Lermontows (Frankfurt am Main, 1936), p. 10 ffGoogle Scholar.

8 Belinski, V. G., Lermonlov: statii i recenzii (Leningrad, 1940), p. 207 Google Scholar.

9 Belinski, p. 189.

10 Bizzilli, P., Etjudy o russkoi poezii (Prague, 1926), pp. 241 ffGoogle Scholar.

11 see Bulich, S. K., “M. IU. Lermontov i Russkaja muzyka,” Lermontov's Collected Works, edited by Abramovich, D., v (St. Petersburg, 1913), pp. 230–235 Google Scholar.

12 Rozanov, I. N., Pesni russkich poetov (Moscow, 1936), pp. 345–463. See also pp. 423–427Google Scholar.

13 Aronson, M. and Reiser, S., Literaturnye kružki i salony (Leningrad, 1929), p. 171 Google Scholar.

14 Rimski-Korsakov, A. N. (Editor), M. P. Musorgski: pisma i dokumenty (Moscow-Leningrad, 1932), p. 45 Google Scholar.

15 Karenin, V. ed., Perepiska M. A. Balakireva s V. V. Stasovym, I (Moscow, 1935), 166 Google Scholar.

16 Tchaikovsky, P. I., Perepiska s N. F. von Meck, II (1935), 546 Google Scholar.

17 The following new musical compositions on Lermontov's poems are mentioned in Sovetskaya Muzyka, 1941: “Ashik-Kerib,” ballet by B. Asafiev (S.M., 1941, No. 2, p. 104)’ “Bela,” opera by Anatoli Aleksandrov (ibid., p. 26); five songs by T. Sotnikov: “Son,’; “Slyshu li golos,” “Utës,” “Vecher,” and “Chasha Zhizni” (S.M., 1941, No, 1. p. 93).