72-4478 EVANS, Robert Kenneth, 1922- THE EARLY SONGS OF SERGEI PROKOFIEV AND THEIR RELATION TO THE SYNTHESIS OF THE ARTS IN RUSSIA, 1890-1922. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 Music University Microfilms, A XEROX Com pany, Ann Arbor, Michigan © Copyright by Robert Kenneth Evans 1971 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED THE EARLY SONGS OF SERGEI PROKOFIEV AMD THEIR RELATION TO THE SYNTHESIS OF THE ARTS IN RUSSIA 1890-1922 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Robert Kenneth Evans, B.ÎI. Approved by Advisor School of Music PLEASE NOTE; Some papes have small and indistinct print. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. ACKNOVniiEDGEMENTS Permissions are gratefully acknowledged to quote from the following works: Anna Akhmatova. Works. Vol. II. "Anna Axmatova Considered in a Context of Art Nouveau", by Aleksis Rannit, Copyright 1968 by Inter-Language Literary Associates. A History of Russian Literature From Its Beoinninqs to 1900. by D, S. Mrsky. Copyright 1958 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. The Influence of French Symbolism on Russian Poetry, by Georgette Donchin. Copyright 1958 by Mouton & C©, Publishers. Modern Russian Poetrv. edited by Vladimir Markov and Merrill SparJTs. Copyright 1966, 1967 by MacGibbon & Kee Ltd., reprinted by permission of The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. Modern Russian Literature, by Marc Slonim. Oxford University Press. People and Life 1891-1917, by Ilya Ehrenburg. Copyright 1952 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Poets of Modern Russia, by Renato Poggioli. Copyright 1960 by the Harvard University Press. Prokofiev: The Prodigal Son, by Lawrence and Elizabeth Hanson. Copyright 1964 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Scriabin, by Alfred Swan. Copyright 1923 by John Lane The Bodley Head. Sergei Prokofiev: A Soviet Tragedy, by Victor Seroff. Copyright 1968 by Victor Seroff. Punk & Wagnalls Publishers Soviet Russian Literature 1917-1950, by Gleb Struve. Copyright 1951 by the University of Oklahoma Press, VITA August 19, 1922 Born - Superior, Wisconsin 1958 ........ B.M., The Mev/ England Conservatory of Music, Boston, liassachusetts Assistant Professor of Music, The School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana Graduate studies in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 1964-1971 Associate Professor of Music, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio PUBLICATIONS English translation of Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor, published by the firm of Boosey & Hawkes, Incorporated, New York, New York, 1968 German translations of two one-act operas of Thomas Pasatieri: The Women and Padrevia, published by the firm of Theodore ser, Bryn I-jawr, Pennsylvania^ 1969. FIELDS OF STUDY ajor Fields; Music History (Opera and Song Literature) Slavic Linguistics Studies in Music History, Professors Herbert Livingston, Riciiard Hoppin, and Keith Mixter. Studies in Russian Phonology, Literature, and Poetry. Professors Kenneth Naylor, Hongor Oulanoff, and Frank Silbajoris. ... TABLE OF COMTENTS Page ACKMOl'.'LEDGEKEMTS ii VITA .......... LIST OF SYMBOLS INTRODUCTION . Chapter I. FACETS OF THE ARTISTIC SYNTHESIS Social and Political Atmosphere . , . 5 Art and the Tl'eater .......... 7 Stanislavsky and the lioscow Art Theater 11 Diaghilev and the .."''rid of 13 Meyerhold and Funrrism . 16 The Symbolism of Scriabin 22 Balmont and Symbolism . 27 The Symbolist Press . 35 Anna Akhmatova and Acmeism 41 I I . THE RUSSIAN ART SONG BEFORE PROKOFIEV S3 The O r i g i n s ................ .. 53 The Five .... .................. 57 The Western Influence ............ 75 Contemporaries of Prokofiev .... 82 Chronology of the Solo Songs of Four 101 Russian Composers 1890-1921 . III. THE EARLY SONGS OF PROKOFIEV ............ 105 Sergei Prokofiev in the Years 1900-1922 105 Two Poems, o p . 9 ...................... 127 The Ugly Duclcling, op. 1 8 ............ 143 Five Poems, op. 23 .................... 161 Five Poems of Anna Al'hmatova, op. 2" . • 199 Five Poems of Konstantin Balmont, op. 36 228 IV. SUMMARY 277 BIBLIOGRAPHY 286 iv LIST OF SYMBOLS The following transliteration system will be used in this paper for transliterating Russian poetry, quotations, and terminology, but not for Russian proper names: Aa a ^ ^ k . Xx E » b ji ^ 1 II a ° ° ^ m u '” -i- , ^ ^ 9 H H ijjui ^«<3 O LI = ^ E e e n n P R u P r Lb ^ c S 3 3 e 3°Z T T t Bjoju y y u ^ « ja * * f INTRODUCTION The first songs'-crf Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), Two Poems, op, 9, to texts of Balmont and Apukhtin, date from 1910. In the autumn of 1921, Prokofiev wrote his Five Poems of Balmont, op. 35. These songs constitute his last serious contribution to the solo vocal repertoire. An in­ terval of fourteen years elapsed before Prokofiev again turned his attention to this medium. All the subsequent songs are of trifling substance and conform to the dictates of the State. The study of the early songs of Prokofiev is based on the Soviet critical edition of the composer's collected works. All twenty songs are included in Vol. XVII of this edition, which is under the general editorship of Dmitri _ Kabalevsky, Lev Oborin, Konstantin Sakva, and Georgy Khubov, and in which the "errors of previous editions have been unconditionally removed."1 The poetry of Akhmatova is available in the criti­ cal edition of her works recently published by Inter- Language Literary Associates.^ The poetry of Balmont has not yet been published in a critical edition. Indeed, some of the poetry utilized in Is. Prokof'ev, Sobranic Socinenij Tom 17 Vokal'nye socineniia dli.~ oc]nono 1. wi ja ci’nix colosov s forteoiano (Moscow: Izdacel'stvo Musyka, 1966), p. viii. 2 Ann a /bcmatova, Socineni 1a, tom pervyj , with intro­ ductory remarks by Gleb .Struve and Boris Filippov (Munich: Inter-Language Lit.erary Associates, 1965). Tom vtoroj, with introductory remc.rks by Aleksis Rannit and Viktor Frank (Munich: Inter-Language Literary Associates, 1968). 2 Prokofiev's op, 36 can be found only in the editions of the music itself. Otherwise the source has been the ori­ ginal edition of the early poetry of Balmont published by the Scorpion Publishing House,3 The purpose of this study is to investigate both music and poetry. In music the point of departure is the formal structure of each song and the establishment of the overall importance of Prokofiev's early songs and their stylistic values. Also investigated is the influence of other composers as seen in the songs of Prokofiev's early period with a special study of the mysticism and the syn­ thesis in the harmonic structure of Scriabin's music. The relationship of Prokofiev's early songs to the Russian solo vocal repertoire is seen tlirough an historical survey of the literature. Since the poet Balmont plays a parti­ cularly important role in the Prokofiev song literature, we include a study of Balmont settings for solo voice of three contemporaries of Prokofiev: Sergei Rakhmaninov, Nicholas Mlaskovsky, and Igor Stravinsky. In the realm of poetry is a study of the techniques of Balmont and /vkhmatova and their schools of poetry as re­ flected in the verses set by Prokofiev and a study in depth of selected poems. In this investigation we stress the interrelation­ ship of poetry and music with particular emphasis placed upon the influence of the formal structure of the poetry as v;ell as its* emotional and symbolical overtones as seen in the music. Since it is necessary to viev/ the problem in this study in its cultural environment, we have provided a brief survey of activities of Prokofiev’s contemporaries in the sphere of art, the ballot, and the theater. ^Konstantin Dmitrevic Bal'mont, Polnoe Sobranie Stixov (Moscow: Skorpion, 1907-14). Sergei Prokofiev was born in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The cultural activities in.Russia in this period provided the impetus for that last flowering of literature and the arts in the czarist regime, the Silver Age. Notable in this era was a tendency tov;ard a synthesis of all the arts. Painters, poets, musicians, v/riters, and actors worked in close collaboration. Tangible evidence of this was,a synthesis of both ideologies and of art forms. In the effort tov;ard amalgamation in the arbs the names of four men are prominent: Sergei Diaghilev, Kon­ stantin Stanislavsky, Alexander Scriabin, and Igor Stra­ vinsky. Each of these men played important roles in the course of Russian culture and influenced the activities and thinking of Sergei Prokofiev. Their contributions are eminent in the Moscov; Art Theater, the World of Art, the Diaghilev Ballet Russe, the Evenings of Contemnorarv Music, and in the publications of the leading poetic movements. The synthesis of all the arts sought by Scriabin, particularly in such vast works as his Mvstery (left un­ finished at his death), was actually most completely re­ alized by Sergei Diaghilev with his blending of music, painting, and dance in his Russian Ballet company. The syn­ thetic concept that pervades much of this period in Russia had as one of its forbears a concept expressed by Charles Baudelaire', that precursor of symbolism whose influence was keenly felt among the early Russian symbolist poets. In the poem "Correspondences" from his Fleurs du Mal, the French master states: "Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent." Other creative personalities affiliated with the above noted cultural manifestations and with the synthesis of the arts (all of v/hom were to wield an influence direct or indirect on Sergei Prokofiev) included: 1. In art and the ballet — Benois, Bakst, Fokine, Nijinsky. 2. In the theater — Nemirovich-Danchenko, Meyerhold. 3. In literature — Chekhov, Gorky, Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bryusov, Balmont, Akhmatova, Blok, Gumilev, Mayakovsky. 4. In music — Rakhmaninov, Medtner, Miaskovsky. The cultural climate in the two final decades of the old regime permitted relatively unhampered creative activities.