К ВОПРОСУ О ПРИРОДЕ МУЗЫКАЛЬНЫХ ПРОЧТЕНИЙ ПРОЗЫ Ф.М. ДОСТОЕВСКОГО

One of the advanced and actively developing fields of modern musicology is devoted to the problem of interrelation of music and other arts, especially literature. Opera librettos based on classical works are of particular interest. Moreover, the more complicated the literary source is, the broader is the field for creative understanding; the more diverse and numerous are the solutions for interpreting the source in another “language”. In this respect, the works by the great Russian writer are significant and actively used by both stage managers and musicians. It is more amazing that, as L. Dimitrov points out, Dostoyevsky is “the only outstanding representative of the classical age who did not write an explicit drama” [3, p. 293].

Dostoyevsky’s works were first transformed into music by V. I. Rebikov who composed the opera “Christmas Tree”[1] in 1900. But the real “starting point” of the “relations” between Dostoyevsky’s prose and music was, without doubt, the opera “The Gambler” by S. Prokofiev, composed in 1916. Over 60 works inspired by Dostoyevsky have been written within 100 years. There is an extremely broad variety of genres: the opera (of all kinds), the musical drama, the ouverture, the ballet, the suite, the vocal and instrumental symphony, the symphonic poem, the vocal cycle, the musical, the oratory. With all the diversity of genre interpretations, the leading position is taken with musical drama.

The composers and stage managers’ interest in Dostoyevsky can be explained by the fact that his works are extremely scenic with all their complexity and they are very musical, too. It was the musical term “polyphonic” that seemed the most appropriate for M.M. Bakhtin to reflect the multidimensional structure of the writer’s novels. The idea of polyphony paved the new ways to interpreting the works by the Russian classic, and many literary scholars followed the idea after the author of “The Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics”. The essence of the idea is that each character is seen as a subject but not the object of the author’s or another character’s conscience. Therefore, there is the “polyphony” of consciences and world outlooks. They all interrelate like polyphonic lines making up the musical canvas, without losing their own individual significance. Otherwise, the uniqueness and individuality of each character are better revealed when opposed to other “thematic characters”.

Several decades later M.M. Bakhtin’s concept was specified by A.A. Gozenpud in his fundamental research work “Dostoyevsky and the Art of Music and Theatre” [8]. He proposed the term “counterpoint” novel explaining it with the fact that Dostoyevsky’s works have two consciences, two voices, and this is the minimum necessary for structuring the concept only at the early stage of the writer’s work. His late novels are polyphonic works where the combination of several models of simultaneous existence is similar to the techniques of double and even triple counterpoint.

The works of literary scholars often express the idea of the Russian classic’s novels being close to symphonic and operatic forms in their structure. The writer’s contemporary K. N. Leontiev characterized the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” in his critical articles as “the utmost complete, half tragic and half clear opera, in which the threatening and sad sounds alternate with vague and touching ones” [4, p. 622]. Vyacheslav Ivanov pointed out in his public lecture, “Like a symphony composer, he used his mechanism for the architectonics of a tragedy and in his novel he applied a method similar to the thematic development of the main phrases-motifs; - with the curves and metamorphoses of this development the composer leads us to aesthetic and psychological experiencing of the whole work as a certain unity” [6, p. 171].

A.A. Gozenpud writes about the principles of repetition and recapitulation which have found way into the composition of the novels “White Nights” and “Crime and Punishment”. In “White Nights”, the introduction (everything prior to coming of Nastenka), four episodes and the postlude stand out. In “Idiot” the system of leitmotifs is used: these of the knife, strokes and Rogozhin’s “ill passion”. G.M. Fridlender finds that the composition and grouping of the characters in “The Raw Youth”, “Crime and Punishment”, “Idiot”, “The Gambler” and “The Brothers Karamazov” make up “a complex musical-symphonic whole”, which answers the principles of a musical work organization. There is clear similarity to the themes of sonata allegro, the slow movement and the playful Scherzo; in the end there is “both deeply tragic and optimistic finale, where the feelings of profound mourning and despair evoke the sensation of “seraphic” spiritual heights in the reader’s minds” [7, p. 301].

I would like to emphasize the fact that scholastic research works on Dostoyevsky are literally full of musical terms. We can find likening of human voices to the registers where variations of the main theme are conducted; the novel collisions are compared to musical contrasts and dissonances [7]; the conflict scenes in the novels are likened to operatic ensembles and chain buffa-finales [8] and many others.

There is another important idea in the research by A. A. Gozenpud. The scholar draws an analogy of “the static idea” often overtaking Dostoyevsky’s characters and the principle of monothematism realised, for example, in the “Fantastic” symphony by Berlioz. Indeed, a specific ideé fixe often overtakes the minds of the characters of the great Russian novelist. The importance of the “idea” as the   main one is not only in the behavior or thinking, moreover, it is in the being of the character, and understanding the idea as a certain credo is one of the fundamental features of Dostoyevsky’s poetics.

There is hardly a researcher who could avoid reflecting on the significance of the “idea” in the writer’s works. The main idea of each work had been thought over thoroughly by the writer, sometimes for several years. According to A.G. Dostoyevskaya, her husband used to value his ideas greatly and was afraid of ‘spoiling’ them. Sometimes, reading a chapter printed already, he was in despair because “could suddenly perceive his mistake, ‘I might have completely killed my idea with the mistake’” [5, p. 234-235].

As it is clear from the writer’s letters and notes, the idea is primary; it is the first thing to appear. It is known that from the very beginning Dostoyevsky was mostly far from the final variant of the novel, which is seen in the reports for the publishers and the letters to friends. The writer used to change the composition, the number of characters and their names; therefore, the plotlines and the size of works grew up. But the general idea taken as the basis did not change. The rest of the material, i.e. the characters and their features, the human types, the plot collisions, the pivotal episodes, was selected so that the main “idea” could be represented in the clearest and most evident way.

The bearer is the main hero of the book[2]. And vice versa, the idea is a particular quintessence of his outlook, which gives M. M. Bakhtin the reason to call Dostoyevsky’s heroes ideologists. The ideas’ truthfulness and vitality are tested through their interrelation with the ideas of other characters. Their role is to help the main hero find “man in a man”, because, as Bakhtin writes, only the one who possesses “an incomplete inner core” can “bear a full-fledged idea” [1, p. 88].

“The idea” is also a kind of vertical axis of the whole construction of a “free novel” (L.P. Grossman), because it includes “the unity of inner meaning” imparting “the necessary wholeness to the scattered course of events” [9, p. 18]. In this aspect, “the idea” is given the form making function because it “defines all the formal accents” [2, p. 84].

The bright ideas, the inner tragic feeling, the intensity of emotions conditioned such quality of Dostoyevsky’s prose which is defined by A.V. Lunacharsky as staginess. Studying the sources of tragedy in the novels by the “great realist”, V.I. Ivanov comes to the conclusion that only two characteristics differ the writer’s works from a tragedy. The first characteristic is that they are narrations, but not stage interpretations. The second one is an extraordinary complexity of actions, which appears after counterpoint combination of several plotlines. Their entanglement makes up “a potentiated tragedy” [6, p. 172].

Numerous expressive dialogues “stimulating dramatic development” [11, p.14] are also very important. Besides, the monologue forms of Dostoyevsky’s works often mean an implied dialogue addressed to another conscience, appealing to the reader’s attention and therefore wonderfully involving the latter into the area of the artistic work. This peculiarity of the writer’s prose is connected with one of the specific features of Dostoyevsky’s poetics: his works imply conversation, cooperative discussion, reflection on a problem, and a cooperative attempt to find answers to difficult questions.

“Reflection, but not contemplation is the main thing stirred within us by his characters” [10, p. 35]. While reflecting, we as if join the author and the character, we join the discussion of the action, we try out the situations in the novel. Like the hero, we go the way of mistakes and disappointments, we pass through the “furnace of doubts” like Dostoyevsky himself; that is all to be established in the truth once and for all, to be established by ourselves, without any enforcement or oppression, only with our own conscience. Perhaps, that is why his novels are read as if in one breath. Without dominating or dictating his point of view the writer involves the reader into a torturous and delightful process of co-creation, imperceptibly evoking the reader’s inner self and inner self-consciousness.

Perhaps this is what the composers catch especially sensitively, those who compose operas after Dostoyevsky’s works. Responding the call of the Russian writer each of them presents their own version of the plot, reveals their own outlook through the interpretation of the Russian classic; the composers look into the fictitious world of the writer’s novels as if into the most correct and flawless mirror so that they could reveal the real value of the world and present their discovery to the listener.