
Сообщение от
Валерий Афанасьев
If experienced physically, a hearing of the 5th and 6th books of Gesualdo's madrigals would result in the listener's death. The effect of catharsis prevents us, however,from taking art "too seriously". I remember with nostalgic poignancy the day when, as a student at the Moscow Conservatory College, I heard for the first time Schubert's last quartet. Despite my determination to concentrate mainly on the technical aspects of the piece, I could not help feeling that, especially in the second and the fourth movements, the music reached beyond its own limits, becoming somehow a dictionary-like definition of the word "horror". Many years later I had a similar impression in Milan while visiting an important exhibition of Munich's paintings and engravings. "We feel that we are on the brink of some absolute truth, dazzling in its splendour and at the same time almost homely in its perfect simplicity", says Nabokov about a work of a writer he invented. Absolute truth - or its musical equivalent, perfect harmony- may be found and enjoyed by a sentimental listener in the works of almost every composer, Schubert included. Indeed, Schubert's early works, his lieder in particular, provide us with an impressive number of celestial themes whose development is scarcely perturbed by casual dissonances which eventually dissolve into a serene happy ending. Likewise, the B-flat sonata begins without any major-minor switches so characteristic of Schubert's late works. But that anticipa-
tion of an imminent disclosure -"we are on the brink of some absolute truth" -peters out fades away, neutralized by the tonal restlessness, let alone the low-pitched trill, the most uncanny trill in the history of music.
"The man is dead and we do not know it." The sonata is over and what we are left with resembles far more a horrifying falsehood than an absolute, dazzling truth, which seemed to be hinted at in the opening bars.
Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là, Simple et tranquille. Cette plaisible rumeur-là Vient de la ville.
Just another example of weirdness in art: life is close enough to make one suffer like Tantalus, and yet it is too far away to be within one's reach. The poet's being in prison, at the time, does not detract from the omnipresent value of the poem. (Verlaine was aware that city-life, its rambling and rattling, could hardly be considered peaceful and simple. Yet compared with his own inner turbulence it was peaceful: another weird touch). The apparent simplicity and calmness of the outer world may have inspired Schubert to those dance rhythms which, in the final movement of the B-flat sonata, are darkened by the monstrous intrusions of minor cords. It is as if a merry tipsy yokel playing his fiddle were suddenly struck by lightning.
The whole procedure reminds me of what Bergson said about the soul being able to merge in God only temporarily, however strong the mystical élan; for something remains outside - the will which created the union.
Two years ago, that participation and non-participation, that double-pattern of Schubert's late works mingled strangely with my own literary preoccupations. During my trip to the south of Germany I hit upon the idea of writing a novel whose protagonist would endeavour to identify himself with Louis II of Bavaria. The identification is never complete; the fissure in my hero's identity gives rise to all sorts of double-pattern situations whose unswerving progress leads to a suicide - nothing more than a broken mirror. "Every now and then, I happen to overlook a line, a dot, a plant growing on my terrace, a leaf rustling under my slippers, a pain revelling in my stomach. I am regularly faced with the prospect of correcting my glaring mistakes, of adding the missing lines, plants and pains to my picture, of subjoining postscripts to my letters. To sum up, let me say that neither French nor English affords me an opportunity to gain a foothold on firm ground. Wagner is of no help either."
All those links and coincidences surfaced once again when, in Lockenhaus, Gidon asked me to play the B-flat sonata as a substitute for some cancelled trio. Louis II had already been finished; I was reading Montaigne's essays (Nous avons eu raison de faire valoir les forces de notre imagination, car tous nos biens ne sont qu'en songe.); I was thinking about my fourth novel. Unhampered by the automatism of concert tours, favoured by the easygoing musicianship of the festival, my memories, readings and projects fused into a pleasant synthesis which, being recorded, helps me now to conjure up visions of that midsummer night, of that hall in the Burg where I played the sonata. I am only afraid that my inborn sentimentality makes me condone too easily the shortcomings of my interpretation.
Valéry Afanassiev
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