Boris Asafiev

Hello ALL,

Can anyone help me get information on Boris Asafiev's ideas on Music
aesthetics, and on musical form? The original writings are in
Russian, and translation is not available.

Thanking you in advance and anticipation,
Haresh.

--- In tuning@y..., "Haresh BAKSHI" <hareshbakshi@h...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_29712.html#29712

> Hello ALL,
>
> Can anyone help me get information on Boris Asafiev's ideas on
Music
> aesthetics, and on musical form? The original writings are in
> Russian, and translation is not available.
>
> Thanking you in advance and anticipation,
> Haresh.

Hello Haresh...

I will e-mail Anton Rovner, who now works at the Scriabin Museum and
participates occasionally in this list, to find out if he knows
anything...

Joseph Pehrson

Haresh BAKSHI schrieb:

> Can anyone help me get information on Boris Asafiev's ideas on Music
> aesthetics, and on musical form? The original writings are in
> Russian, and translation is not available.

This request has just been forwarded to a number of
musicological mailing lists by Geoffrey Chew; some older
articles are available in
English (and German). (You are aware that "intonation" in the
way Asafiew uses it has nothing to do with pitch?)

klaus

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rachel Beckles Willson <R.BecklesWillson@bris.ac.uk>

Can anyone direct me to more recent (or ongoing) research on
Asaf'yev's
aesthetics more recent than those below? I'm also aware of
Orlova (1984),
but unfortunately don't read Russian.

Thanks.
Rachel

-----------------------------
Rachel BECKLES WILLSON
Lecturer
Department of Music
University of Bristol
Victoria Rooms
Queen's Road
Bristol BS8 1SA
UK

tel +44 (0)117 954 5045 (direct line)
fax +44 (0)117 954 5027
email R.BecklesWillson@bris.ac.uk

Jiránek, J., 'Assafjew's Intonationslehre und ihre
Perspektiven', De
musica disputations pragensis, i, 1972, 13-45.

McQuere, Gordon D., 'The Theories of Boleslav Yavorsky', in
Russian
Theoretial Thought in Music, ed. McQuere, UMI Research Press,
Michigan
1983, 109-164.

'Boris Asafiev and Musical Form as a Process', in
Russian
Theoretical Thought, 217-252.

Tull, James Robert, 'B.V. Asaf'ev's Musical Form as a process:
Translation
and Commentary', Doctoral Dissertation, Ohio State University
1977.

I found this article, which talks about Asafiev, in John
Starrett's "Notes on Microtonality":

http://www.towerofbabel.com/sections/music/baton/intonatsia/

But I can't conceive of what this could possibly have to do with
microtonality, or tuning. John?

Paul Erlich schrieb:

> http://www.towerofbabel.com/sections/music/baton/intonatsia/
>
> But I can't conceive of what this could possibly have to do with
> microtonality, or tuning. John?

I'm surprised about how much they do talk about pitchrelated
stuff. My own reading about Asafiew (long time ago, nothing
material left that I could fall back on) seemed to posit the
meaning of "intonation" somewhere in the realm of "giving voice
to something" in a very general sense that would include voice
quality or rhythmic models, the interplay of which would be
characteristic for different folk musics.

klaus

Here is Anton Rovner's prompt response about Boris Asafiev. It
doesn't sound like he was very involved in microtonality:

Rovner:

>I know that Boris Asafiev was a very important music critic of the
early 20th century (the 1920's, chiefly), who wrote about everything
and everybody at the time, but unfortunately I am not too familiar
with his writings, though I should be. I read some isolated fragments
of his artcles, but did not remember anything especially distinctive.
I don't even remember if he had any special original ideas such as,
for instance, about microtonality or anything else - even though his
name is all too familiar. He was also a composer and wrote a
ballet "the Bakhchisarai Fountain" after Pushkin's poem, of a rather
traditional, Neo-Classical style of the 1920's. I have to
>check up on him, and if I will find anything, I will let you know.
>

Joseph Pehrson