- About Kazakh improvisation poets, see akyns
Improviser (Italian. Improvisatore ) - in Italy of the 16th — 19th centuries, the poet was the poet who recited any musical instrument to any theme offered to him with a musical instrument, a poem composed by him immediately, without any preparation ( ex improviso ), without no written notes [1] .
Content
Origin
The exact time of the appearance of wandering poets improvisers in Italy is unknown. Pope Leo X welcomed them at the Vatican court of the beginning of the XVI century. During the Renaissance, improvisers (who recited both Latin and Italian) shone at the courts of the dukes of Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, Milan and Naples [1] . Bernardo Accolti , known as Unico, was able to buy the title of Duke Nepi for the money acquired by this art [1] .
Improvisation is characteristic of any national versification ( bards , skalds , minnesingers , akyns , seseni ). Italian improvisers from the common people were most common in Tuscany . V.I. Lamansky wrote in 1865 [2] :
Now in Tuscany, especially in the mountains of Pistoia, folk improvisation poets between illiterate peasants and peasant women are very common. Professor Giuliani spent over three years in the mountains of Pistoia to study language and folk poetry, and during that time he recognized twenty such poets. Their favorite size is the octave . These improvisers are reluctant to record their songs - they do not separate words from singing.
Golden Age
Croce called the period from 1690 to 1840 the golden age of improvisation [3] . On poetic improvisations mentioned in the "Italian Travel" Goethe . In 1754, Carlo Goldoni made the improviser the main character of the comedy "The Poet Fanatic". In the continuation of the XVIII century the phenomenon of improvisation attracted more and more attention of visiting foreigners. The improvisers willingly offered them their services, letting off a hat to collect donations during their performances. For many of them, it was the curiosity of wealthy tourists who went to the grand tour , which served as the main source of food. Rational observers of the Enlightenment often evaluated their creative abilities as skeptical - as an ordinary "combination of skill, experience and talent," which excludes, however, the illumination of true art [4] .
Incomparably greater success fell to the lot of improvisers with the advent of the Romantic era, which appreciated the spontaneous outpouring of poetic feeling (influx). Such a “inspired from above” poet seemed to his contemporaries to be the personification of a natural poetic genius who does not require special preparation. In Italy, the 1810s and 1820s. the most successful improvisers, such as Tommaso Sgrichchi (1789–1836), they assembled full theaters and, in order to fight off annoying fans, appeared in public only accompanied by bodyguards [5] . In the Milan Opera House, which was filled with public, the topic of improvisation was usually chosen by drawing lots, putting the paper with proposals in the ballot box; if the chosen topic was to the public's taste, she expressed her approval with loud applause. Harp , violin or another musical instrument helped me to tune in to the improviser.
- Nowadays Rome is famous for an entirely new kind of improviser named Scritschi, a young man of twenty-four years old, originally from Arezzo. He reads the whole tragedy without preparation. Last year, a day of public testing was appointed, which took place in the presence of many learned men and many skilled improvisers. It began with a high pindaric ode; then verses of various sizes were read - all without chant, without stopping, with all the nobility and dignity of poetry. Passionate feelings, right thoughts, lofty ideas, homeric descriptions began to disarm impatient criticism; but the critics expected tragedy, the main fault of the test. Those present with a loud voice suggest tasks that are recorded and put in the ballot box. One of the most respectable witnesses takes out the "Death of Hercules". But this task seems to some suspicious because it was offered by a man of the same talent and, moreover, by a friend of the young Scritschi. An urn is served another time, and the Death of Polyxena is taken out. The poet comes forward and asks to name the characters. Assign: Polyxena, Ulysses, Gekekubu and Kalhas. The improviser considers it necessary to add another trojan choir. After a short, deep silence, tragedy begins: without stopping, rather than at the theater, one particular scene is read, monologues, choirs; all listeners are surprised, penetrated to the depths of the heart, filled with delight, waiting for a denouement! The characters were beautiful, the position is very touching. Perhaps only Ulysses should be presented a little differently. Polyxena talk with Ulysses, one monologue of Hecuba, the speech of Ulysses telling the ill-fated mother about Polyxena’s death, the answer of the old queen and her complaints to the Greeks and Ulysses - all this was a perfect work of talent, disarming criticism and delivering incomparable pleasure to the whole assembly. Showered with praises, Skritschi triumphed over his opponents and amazed everyone with the news of his difficult enterprise and brilliant success. According to the latest news, this rare improviser is now in Turin, where shortly before this, he showed his brilliant talent experiments to a large audience of listeners. The young poet first read (of course, without preparation) poems about the appearance of the cross to the great Constantine; then he sang the banishment of Dante; at last the assembly wanted the contents of the opera to be taken out of the urn, and Medea demanded the toss. The improviser immediately called the characters, arranged the scenes, divided everything into three acts, and read the new opera Medea. Such unfathomable readiness surpassed the expectations of all the listeners.
Rumors about the art of improvisers spread to the most remote corners of Europe after the release of the novel Madame de Stael “ Corinna, or Italy ” (1808), inspired by the success of the Italian improviser Corilla Olimpico. The writer contrasts the disinterested flame of inspiration of her heroine with the impromptu artisan cleverly spinning verses for money. The difference of these approaches explains the diametrically opposite perception of improvisation by listeners - from delight and admiration to rejection and skepticism.
In the late 1820s, Italian improvisers began touring the capitals of Europe, where they encountered competition from homegrown poets. So, in Paris in 1824, Eugen de Pradel had a great success; He is credited with more than 150 tragedies, comedies, vaudevilles, not counting the many small works ( bouts rimés ), which were recorded for him and published by his fans. Sessions of poetic improvisations began to appear already famous poets, such as Adam Mickiewicz . His acquaintance Odynets wrote to a friend [6] :
“Oh, you remember his improvisation in Vilna! Do you remember this amazing transformation of the face, this brilliance of the eyes, this penetrating voice, from which even fear embraces you, as if the spirit speaks through it ... During one of these improvisations in Moscow, Pushkin , in whose honor this evening was given, suddenly jumped up , ruffling hair, almost running around the hall, exclaimed:Quel génie! quel feu sacré! que suis-je auprès de lui? and, throwing Adam on the neck, embraced him and began to kiss like a brother. I know this from an eyewitness ... "
The theme of improvisation appears in the first novel of the Danish G. H. Andersen , which is called “The Improviser ” (1835). Meanwhile, in Italy itself in the 1830s, interest in improvisation began to fall. The public, including foreigners, was overwhelmed by the speeches of the “oracles”, which were easily guessed by commercial interest. Tickets for performances of improvisers ceased to be in demand. By the beginning of the 1840s, the phenomenon had become obsolete and improvisers' performances in high society evenings stopped. .
In Russia
In the 1820s, the Russian public could judge about improvisational art, excluding foreign novels, mainly from notes published in the journalistic press. In particular, A. Glagolev touched upon this topic in describing his journey through Italy [7] . In general, the phenomenon of improvisation was little known in Russia until the German Max Langenschwartz arrived in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 1832. His performances aroused great interest among the public and spawned a fleeting fascination with improvisations in secular society of the mid-1830s. [eight]
- Before the beginning of improvisation, each of the spectators could write, on the tickets prepared for that, any kind of topic. Mr. Langenshvarts, who was meanwhile in another room, entered the meeting and presented folded tickets to the ladies who were decorating the first row of chairs, asking them to take out several tasks. They took out five tickets. Langenshvarts unrolled them, read aloud, and chose the first one that came to him: the eruption of Vesuvius.
Fashionable hurried to catch up Russian writers. Prince V.F. Odoyevsky , impressed by the tour of Langenshvarts, writes the novel "The Improviser" (1833), whose hero is a cold, passionless artisan [9] : "his face showed not a high pleasure of the poet, pleased with his work, but only simple complacency magician agility surprising the crowd. " An equally skeptical look at the art of improvisation is conducted by the author of an article in the “ Telescope ” entitled “Italian improvisers” (1834), published with notes by N. Nadezhdin [10] .
A.S. Pushkin in the simultaneously written story " Egyptian Nights " (not finished) returns to the theme of the duality of the improviser (as well as of any poet), stated as far back as in Corinna. However, if Madame de Stael contrasted the true poet to the poet from the poetry, Pushkin takes the inconsistency of every poetic person: his Charsky is also a minister of the muse, and a petty dandy who cares about fashionable attire, and in a visiting improvisator creative inspiration does not exclude greed [11] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 Improvisers // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : in 86 tons (82 tons and 4 extra). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- ↑ Italian and Slavic nationalities in political and literary relations - Google Books
- ↑ Benedetto Croce. Gli improvvisatori . // La Letteratura Italiana del Settecento. Bari: Laterza, 1949.
- ↑ Joseph Forsyth. Remarks on Antiquities, 1802 and 1803 . Boston, Wells and Lilly, 1818. Page 40.
- ↑ In 1819, Sgritschi, mentioned by Byron in a note to the 4th song “ Childe Harold, ” was called to the Capitol to accept Petrarch’s laurel wreath, but the papal authorities ordered him to be sent out of the city because of rumors of his “unnatural connections” with by men.
- ↑ Odyniec A.-E. Listy z podrózy . T. 1. Warszawa, 1875. S. 53.
- ↑ Glagolev A. “Italians. (Excerpt from Travels in Italy) ”// Moskovsky Vestnik, 1827, Part III, No. 12.
- Вед “ Vedomosti ” wrote that “ one of the most glorious of our domestic poets offered him“ Death Kapodistrias ”for written improvisation . See: St. Petersburg Gazette, 1832, No. 116, May 19, p. 1249.
- ↑ Stepanov L. A. On the sources of the image of the improviser in “Egyptian Nights” // Pushkin: Research and Materials / Inst. Rus. lit. (Pushkin. House). - L .: Science. Leningrad Separation, 1982. T. 10. S. 168-175.
- ↑ Telescope, 1834, Part 24, No. 50.
- ↑ Bondi S. “Egyptian Nights” // Pushkin Guide. - M .; L .: State. publishing art Lit., 1931. - pp. 136-137.