Sollertinsky, between legacy and (re)discovery
Genesis and development of tripartite and de-totalizing thought
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7726.2021.3.41839Keywords:
Soviet musicology, Soviet criticism, Aesthetic, Interdisciplinarity, Tripartition methodologyAbstract
The problem of what could be defined as an adequate and much-needed historical re-qualification of the figure of Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky (1902-1944) still arises today because contemporary (Western) musicology has deliberately avoided any in-depth investigation of the critical activity as well as the ideological-cognitive process that marked his creative opus. Lack of sources, language barriers and the limited availability of texts have led to a partial transmission of this important legacy. Both non-fiction and popular production are sublimated by analyses and reflections capable of embracing what could be defined as a syntactic process of the artistic-compositional construct. This article focuses on the influences exerted by the Sollertinsky-Bakhtin axis in the works of the early Shostakovich, where the critical-literary symbology allows us to identify cognitive-perceptual models (Dostoevsky-Shakespeare) as well as folkloristic-popular elements (Rabelais) far from the preconceptions imposed by socialist realism. The choice, as we shall see, will fall on some of Shostakovich’s compositions that more than others have the tendency to oscillate more clearly in extra-musical territories, promoting a language of clear Bakhtinian matrix. It is a “compositional parable” that lasts about ten years and that hardly moves away from the subjugation of a premeditated creative process, but offers, especially in these early works, musical stylistic elements imbued with critical literary lexicon and syntax. We are faced with an interdisciplinary involvement that does not involve an overvaluation of one area over another but the exact opposite in favour of a structural intertextuality capable of showing both musical and extra-musical connections. The tripartite-detotalising process, the emblematic critical model introduced by Sollertinsky, is thus presented as an analytical tool of absolute historiographic relevance capable of re-reading both the compositional intent and the stylistic ideal.
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