Boris Asafiev and the Russian Theory of Musical Genres
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Abstract
The legacy of the outstanding musical scholar Boris Asafiev is phenomenal not only in its breadth, but in its diversity.
Many of his elaborations have provided a basis for development of entire different directions of Russian musicology.
However, some of Asafiev’s ideas, due to various circumstances, have not received their due perceivable scholarly
resonance. This is especially true in regards to his ideas in the domain of the theory of musical genres, which has
begun to develop in Russian musicology at a later date. Thus, an undoubted reality for the present direction of
contemporary scholarship is presented by Asafiev’s thoughts on communicative determinants of functioning of
various genres, on the types of “re-intonating” of vernacular music in the composers’ professional and other kinds
of music. In reliance on the research of a number of the scholar’s works, a peculiar kind of “reconstruction” of
Asafiev’s conception of musical genres became possible. Three of its aspects, which are also extremely important
for contemporary music theory, are brought into the core of examination: the essence of genre in music, the
phenomenon of reflection of vernacular music in academic music and the question about the correlation of these
types of music connected with it. An analysis of Asafiev’s works shows that even though he did not develop the
theory of genre proper (it was not yet fully developed in the musicology of his time), he asserted a whole set of
theoretical generalizations, which have not lost their profundity and perspective today.
Keywords: Boris Asafiev, musicology, musical genres, the theory of genres, compositional re-intonating of folk
music.
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