Yavorsky, Boleslav Leopoldovich

Yavorsky was born in Kharkov on June 10 (22), 1877 . In 1898 he graduated from the Kiev College of Music , in 1903 the Moscow Conservatory in composition classes S. I. Taneev and piano N. E. Shishkin. One of the organizers of the People’s Conservatory in Moscow (1906). In 1916-1921 Professor of the Kiev Conservatory , taught piano, the theory of musical composition, "listening to music" (ie, the psychology of musical perception). Since 1918 - professor at the Kiev Music and Drama Institute named after Nikolai Lysenko. 1917-1921 - Director of the People’s Conservatory in Kiev. In the years 1921-1925. (at the initiative of A.V. Lunacharsky ) - head of the department of music schools of the Glavprofobra . While in a ministerial position, he tried to reform teaching at the Moscow State Conservatory , which provoked opposition from conservative professors ( A. B. Goldenweiser , M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov , M. V. Ivanov-Boretsky ). In the years 1921-1930. taught "listening to music" in the First State Music College founded by him.

In the mid-1920s repeatedly visited abroad (in Italy, Greece, Austria, France, Germany). On behalf of Lunacharsky, he was negotiating with S. S. Prokofiev about his return to Russia. In 1921-1931 - a member of the State Academy of Arts . In 1925-1930 - Member of the Qualification Commission at the Central Commission for the Improvement of Scientists ( TSEKUBU ). Since 1930 - Member of the Art Council of the Bolshoi Theater (Moscow). In 1932-1941, he was the senior editor of Muzgiz (including editing the edition of the Bach HTK ). In 1938-1941 He worked at the Moscow Conservatory , where he taught graduate students his own course called Creative Ideology and Style (on the history of performing styles). At the end of October 1941, he was evacuated from the group of conservative professors to Saratov , where he died in 1942.

Among the students of Yavorsky (in different years) - A. A. Alshvang , S. V. Protopopov ^[1] , N. Ya. Bryusova (taught the Yavorsky course “Conscious perception of fret and rhythm” at the Moscow Conservatory), G. G Rope , L. V. Kulakovsky , A. V. Sveshnikov , P. I. Senitsa , V. A. Tsukkerman , N. D. Leontovich , Yu. A. Fortunatov . Yavorsky advised many Russian composers, including D. D. Shostakovich , G. V. Sviridov , O. A. Yevlakhov .

Yavorsky is the author of works on the theory of music (melodics, rhythm, harmony, form), the history of performing styles. The creator of the theory of “mode of rhythm ” (originated around 1903; briefly described by the author in 1908) and “mode of sound science” (theory of mode of gravitation). The name of the theory of mode of rhythm is explained as follows: high-altitude relations in music are based on fret , and temporal relations are based on rhythm. By “fret rhythm”, Yavorsky understood the unfolding of a musical mode in time; corresponds to the modern dynamic understanding of the fret ^[2] . The public resonance of Yavorsky's scientific and reform activity reached its maximum in 1930-31. In February 1930, at the initiative of Lunacharsky, an "All-Union Conference on the Theory and Practice of Ladder Rhythm" was organized (held in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory). The performances of some prominent musicologists (for example, M. Ivanov-Boretsky) contained sharp criticism of Yavorsky’s method and terminology ^[3] . The discussion at the State Academy of Art Studies (Moscow) in June 1931 became even more polemical, where (without the patronage of Lunacharsky) the mode of rhythm of the rhythm was subjected to destructive criticism and essentially marked the end of Yavorsky’s hopes to introduce his concept into the training of musicians.

The theory of music of Yavorsky contains elements of rhetoric , and the language by which it is presented is metaphorical . This rhetorical direction is already set in the very redefinition of music as “musical speech”. A whole series of partly scientific terms, partly figurative “spelling words”, of which “intonation” becomes the most common, is used from the methodological approach to the parallelism of (verbal) text and music. This word is used both in a certain “general philosophical” sense and in the meaning of the linguistic term, and finally, in a specific meaning only for Yavorsky. Yavorsky’s “poetics” are characterized by such expressions as “sound consciousness”, “auditory spiral”, “conjugation principle”, “gravitational force”, “instability energy”, “mode impression”, “sound horizon” (instead of “range” ) and etc.

Some musical terms (such as “triad” and “seventh chord”, “male” and “female” metric endings, neologisms “chain fret” and “double fret”) receive quite specific and scientific definitions, and at the same time the author gives other terms rather poetic-symbolic than scientific definitions (for example, fret - “higher order sound system”, meter - “absolute duration in time”). The meaning of some well-known terms, Yavorsky specifies polemically, laying them in the framework of his own unusual theory. For example, the (linguistic term) “intonation” in the framework of the theory of “ triton gravitations” is very specifically defined as “the comparison of two sounds (or moments) of the triton system that are different in gravity”, and the (physical term) “moment” in turn is defined as "A statement of one particular part of systemic or mode gravity." AND I. Ryzhkin (who devoted a 100-page essay to the theory of mode of rhythm), in an attempt to generalize Yavorsky’s teachings, notes his “extreme systematicity” and “confusing presentation style” and notes with bitterness: “Using printed statements of the mode of rhythm of rhythm is possible only for people who already know this theory. Learning this theory, mastering it from existing printed texts for people who are not familiar with it before, is usually very difficult ” ^[4] .

Many of Yavorsky's scientific works have not been published (stored in the archives of the M.I. Glinka Musical Museum ). The scientific and theoretical ideas of Yavorsky were actively pursued by his student S.V. Protopopov, author of the book "Elements of the structure of musical speech" ^[5] .

The works of Yavorsky had a significant impact on Soviet musicologists. The theoretical provisions of Yavorsky (especially concerning the psychology of musical perception) were firmly mastered by B.V. Asafiev and E.V. Nazaikinsky , assimilated in the teachings on harmony by Yu.N. Tyulin , T.S. Bershadsky , Yu.N. Kholopov , in the so-called Brigade textbook of harmony, etc.

Yavorsky is the author of the opera The Tower of the October Revolution (Moscow, Bolshoi Bolshoi Theater , 1930), the ballet John Wilmore (1910, not staged), orchestral and chamber compositions.

• The structure of musical speech. Materials and notes. M., 1908.
• Text and music // Music (weekly), No. 163. M., 1914.
• Exercises in the formation of a mode of rhythm. Part 1. M .: Jurgenson, 1915.54 p .; 2nd fix and add. edition under the name. Exercises in the formation of modes of mode of rhythm. M .: Muzsector, 1928.
• The basic elements of music // Art (1923) No. 1.
• The design of the melodic process // Structure of the melody. Vol. 3. M .: GAKHN , 1929.
• Bach Suites for clavier. Ed. S.V. Protopopova. M.-L., 1947.
• Notes on the creative thinking of Russian composers from Glinka to Scriabin // Selected Works. T.2. Part 1. M., 1987.

Collections of Articles

• Selected Works. Part 1. M., 1964.
• Articles. Memories. Correspondence. 2nd ed., Rev. and add. M., 1972.
• Selected Works. T.2. Part 1. M., 1987.

• Rimsky-Korsakov G. Acoustic substantiation of the mode of fret rhythm // Musicology: Sat. articles. Temporary music department. Vol. IV / 1. Gos. Institute of Art History. Leningral: Academia, 1928.S. 79-92.
• Ryzhkin I.Ya. Theory of fret rhythm (B. Yavorsky) // Mazel L.A., Ryzhkin I.Ya. Essays on the history of theoretical musicology. M.-L.: Gosmuzizdat, 1939, pp. 105-205.
• Derzhinskaya K.G. The name that I remember with gratitude // B. Yavorsky, Memoirs, articles and letters; under the general ed. D.D.Shostakovich. M .: Music, 1964 - V.1. S.77-81.
• Kholopov Yu. N. Symmetric modes in the theoretical systems of Yavorsky and Messian // Music and the Present. Vol. 7. M.: Music, 1971, p. 247-293.
• Wehrmeyer A. Boleslav Javorskijs Theorie des "lad" -Rhythmus. In: Wehrmeyer A. Studien zum russischen Musikdenken um 1920. Frankfurt am Main. 1991.
• Zuckerman V.A. On the teachings of Yavorsky // Academy of Music. 1994. No. 1.
• The legacy of B. L. Yavorsky: On the 120th anniversary of his birth / Ed. G.P. Sakharova. M., 1997.
• Kholopov Yu.N. The fret theory of B.L. Yavorsky // Musical-theoretical systems. M., 2006, p. 375-394.
• Bobrik O.A. Yavorsky // Moscow Conservatory from its origins to the present day. Biographical Encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 2007. P.640-642 (contains an extensive bibliography).

• Lyzhov G.I. “Basic Elements of Music” by B. Yavorsky: Keys to Freedom Theory // One Hundred Years of the Russian Avant-Garde. Digest of articles. Ed. M.I. Katunyan. M.: Publishing House MGK, 2013, p. 113-126.