B. V. Asafiev The Experience of Substantiation of the Nature and Character of Mussorgsky’s Musical Style

Аннотация: The object of Boris Asafiev’s article is to define the reason why Modest Mussorgsky’s music strongly affects the listeners. Asafiev invents his method of analysis himself from his observations of life impulses that generate the movement towards the artistic outcome. The main quality was not in his composing good melodies, but in his ability to fill his melodies with the image and human character of the protagonist and to manifest it into the intonational and plastic expressivity. Asafiev bases his elaborations on the concept of intonation developed by him. Another feature of Mussorgsky’s artistic thinking is disclosed by Asafiev through the parameter of musical form; the theorist makes note of the variant type of thinking and the writing of the music in different versions. The researcher came to the conclusion of the functioning here of the principle of improvisation. And this assertion by Boris Asafiev is a unique one in the entire music literature about Modest Mussorgsky.

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Abstract: The object of Boris Asafiev’s article is to define the reason why Modest Mussorgsky’s music strongly affects the listeners. Asafiev invents his method of analysis himself from his observations of life impulses that generate the movement towards the artistic outcome. The main quality was not in his composing good melodies, but in his ability to fill his melodies with the image and human character of the protagonist and to manifest it into the intonational and plastic expressivity. Asafiev bases his elaborations on the concept of intonation developed by him. Another feature of Mussorgsky’s artistic thinking is disclosed by Asafiev through the parameter of musical form; the theorist makes note of the variant type of thinking and the writing of the music in different versions. The researcher came to the conclusion of the functioning here of the principle of improvisation. And this assertion by Boris Asafiev is a unique one in the entire music literature about Modest Mussorgsky.

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