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Pasternak as Composer and Scriabin-Disciple
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
Extract
These words come from a letter written by the Russian poet and author Boris Pasternak in late January 1917, addressed to his student friend Konstantin Loks. When Pasternak wrote the letter nearly eight years had elapsed since he abandoned music—he had meanwhile read philosophy at Moscow University before graduating in 1913 and embarking on a professional career in literature. Later on in life Pasternak was to write two autobiographies, Safe Conduct (1931) and An Essay in Autobiography (1957), in which he devoted generous space to the musical studies of his youth. He described his musical background, his study of composition and piano, and his meetings with Scriabin; he also recounted the circumstances which eventually prompted him to give up music.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977
References
Notes
1. See Voprosy Literatury, No.9, 1972, p. 155 Google Scholar
2. For more details about Pasternak, Roza see in Die Familie—La Jamille—The Family Pasternak (Geneva: Editions Poesie Vivante, 1975)Google Scholar.
3. ‘Avtobiografichesky ocherk’ in Pasternak, Boris, Sochineniya (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1961), vol.II, p. 4 Google Scholar. This is available in English as An Essay in Autobiography, trans. Harari, Manya (London: Collins & Harvill, 1959)Google Scholar. Pasternak's younger brother Aleksandr has also left a memoir account of the events of summer 1903 in ‘Leto 1903 goda’, Noryi mir, No. I, 1972 Google Scholar; a translation of this appeared in The Musical Times, January 1973.
4. Yurii Engel later produced the first complete biography of Scriabin, Alexander, in Muzyial 'nyi sovremennik, No. 4–5, 1916 Google Scholar.
5. ‘Istoriya odnoi kontroktavy’, lzvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, seriya literatury i yazyka, No.2, 1974 Google Scholar.
6. See ‘Povest’, Sochineniya, vol. II Google Scholar; this is published in English as The Last Summer, trans. Reavey, George (London: Peter Owen, 1959)Google Scholar.
7. The article on Chopin first appeared in the journal Leningrad , No. 15–16, 1945 Google Scholar; see Sochineniya, vol. III. The verse quotation comes from the poetic collection ‘Kogda razgulyaetsya’ (When the Weather Clears), Sochineniya, vol.III, p. 62 Google Scholar; this book appeared translated in Pasternak, Boris, Poems 1955–1959, trans. Harari, Michael (London: Collins & Harvill, 1960)Google Scholar.
8. See Stikhotvoreniya i poemy (Moscow-Leningrad, 1965), pp.552 Google Scholar. For further detailed discussion of this subject see the chapter ‘Music as Theme and Structure’ in Pomorska, Krystyna, Themes and Variations in Pasternak's Poetics (Lisse, Netherland: Peter de Ridder Press, 1975)Google Scholar.
9. See Palmer, Christopher, ‘A Note on Scriabin and Pasternak’, The Musical Times, 01 1972, p. 28 Google Scholar. The sensations evoked in Pasternak's prose reminiscence seem to agree with the composer's own programme note to the score of the second movement: ‘Man surrenders himself to the joys of the sensory world. He is intoxicated and lulled by pleasures and is engulfed by them. His personality dissolves in nature … ’ Quoted in V. Del'son, ‘Predislovie’ (Preface) in Scriabin, A., Simfoniya No. 3 (Moscow, 1961), p. 8 Google Scholar. Some similar passages in Doctor Zhivago demonstrating a Scriabinesque impressionism are cited in Palmer, Christopher, loc.cit. p. 30 Google Scholar.
10. The Poeme de l' Extase appeared as a separate, privately printed book in Geneva in 1906. Its text, together with notes of various years, an opera libretto, the text of the chorus from the First Symphony and of the Preliminary Action (Predvaritei' noe deistro), appeared in Russkie propilei, vol. 6, 1919 Google Scholar. The musical manuscripts of the Preliminary Action are preserved in the A. N. Scriabin Museum, Moscow, and have been used as the basis for a partial reconstruction, or realisation, of the work by the Soviet musicologist and composer Aleksandr Nemtin, recorded on HMV Melodiya ASD 3201 (reviewed in TEMPO 120).
11. Quoted in Sabaneev, L., Vospominaniya o Skryabine (Moscow, 1925), pp. 250–2.Google Scholar.
12. Doktcr Zhivago (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961), pp. 43–4Google ScholarPubMed; published in English, trans. Max Hayward and Manya Harari (London: Collins Fontana, 1961), p.54.
13. The idea of music as lying at the foundation of reality and history is traceable to the writings of Carlyle, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, which were all familiar to Scriabin as well as to may of the Russian Symbolist poets and thinkers.
14. The question of Scriabin's serving as a prototype for the character of Vedenyapin is discussed in Frank, V., ‘Realizm chetyrekh izmerenii’, Mosty, No. 2, 1959 Google Scholar.
15. Quoted in Fokht, B. A., ‘Filosofiya muzyki A. N. Skryabina’ (1941), typescript article deposited in the A. N. Scriabin Museum, Moscow Google Scholar.
16. See Russkie propilei, vol. 6, 1919 Google Scholar.
17. See The Sunday Times, 2 01, 1977 Google Scholar.
18. The early sketches for even some of Scriabin's most ‘elemental’ and seemingly spontaneous outpourings, such as the Fifth Sonata, show an almost mathematical concern for the precise number of bars in each section, even before the contents of these had been composed. See, for instance, State Central Museum of Cultural, Moscow, fund 31, item 21.
19. See (and hear) recordings of Scriabin playing his own works: Recorded Treasures Album 68 I; ‘Skryabingraet’, Melodiya D 0008867–8; ‘Composers Playing Their Own Works’, Telefunken, HT 38. The tempo fluctuations in Scriabin's performances are also widely mentioned in memoir material, and scientifically described in Skrebkov, S., ‘Nekotorye dannye ob agogike avtorskogo ispolneniya Skrybina’, in Alexander Nikolaerich Skryabin: sbornik k 25-letiyu so dnya smerti (Moscow-Leningrad, 1940)Google Scholar.
20. See Del'son, V., Skryabin, ocherki zhizhi i tvorchestva (Moscow, 1971), p. 180 Google Scholar.