Ru
EnG. Andrievskaya
Music critique of the Silver Age: perspectives of the theoretical self-knowledge
The published article highlights the issues of the development of Russian music critque in the 1900–1910s, connected with an intensive renewal of its methodological “tools”. The researcher notes the natural inclination of Russian critics to theoretical self-knowledge that began at the end of the 19th century and clearly intensified in the Silver Age. This was facilitated, first of all, by the pronounced activity of “modernist” movements that were developing in the music of European and Russian composers of the named period. The need for a sensitive perception and capturing of the artists’ pursuit of modernity in analytical publications caused a self-evident interest in the new “anti-normative” criteria for evaluation of the latest phenomena of musical culture. The debatable statements and aesthetic judgments belonging to the prominent Russian critics of that time – V. Karatygin and E. Medtner, covered a very wide range of topical tendencies of the era, grouped around several important antitheses: objective and subjective, individual and generally significant, “intra-musical” and “extra-musical”, “professionalism” and “dilettantism”. The author of the article emphasizes the indisputable predominance of synthesizing intentions in the critical discussions, which are peculiarly “summarized” from philosophical positions in the later “Essay on Music” by A. Losev. Music critique, according to Losev’s interpretation, appears to be a consistent set of interacting rational-theoretical (“dogmatic”), subjective-psychological (“impressionistic”) and “mythological” factors, intended to complement and peculiarly “comment” on each other. Such a large-scale interpretation of music critique allowed A. Losev to classify it as one of the priority spheres (“disciplines”) of the future philosophy of music, positioned as an integral system of the humanities.
Key words
music critique, Silver Age of the Russian culture, methods of critical activity, V. Karatygin, E. Medtner, A. Losev.
For citation
Andrievskaya G. Music critique of the Silver Age: perspectives of the theoretical self-knowledge // South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2023. No. 1. Pp. 77-82.
