Ballet "Sketches" by A. Schnittke: on the problem of interpretation of Gogol's characters

Kalashnikova Dar'ya Igorevna ORCID: 0000-0001-7030-3259 Lecturer, Department of Music Theory, Gnessin Russian Academy of Music 121069, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Povarskaya, 38, stroenie 1 kalashnikovadi95@gnesin-academy.ru Other publications by this author

Alfred Garrievich Schnittke is one of the composers whose work has been studied in almost all the variety of genres – from symphonic and choral works to film music. However, there is one area that has received much less attention, and that is ballets. No special work has yet been devoted to the special study of this part of the heritage. Meanwhile, there are a number of research papers, monographs and books of conversations that have played a major role in the formation of the methodological apparatus ^{[8, 11, 12, 13, 14]}. This article attempts to reveal the peculiarities of the musical language of one of Schnittke's ballet opuses through the prism of interpretation of Gogol's characters.

Schnittke's ballet Sketches is the highest evolutionary point in the chain of Gogol's works by the composer. The phenomenon of the ballet macrocycle was formed by the gradual accumulation of musical material within different genres: from the music to the play "The Audit Tale" (1978), the orchestral suite "Gogol Suite" (1981), the music to the movie "Dead Souls" (1984), the orchestral suite based on the film "Dead Souls" (1984)  to the ballet "Sketches" (1985).

The ballet in compositional and dramatic terms is a system of intertwined plot segments of N. Gogol's works: the stories "Portrait", "Nose", "Overcoat", "Notes of a Madman", "Nevsky Prospekt", the comedy "Inspector", the poem "Dead Souls". The dramatic concept of the ballet is characterized by a high degree of contrast caused by the abundance of musical portrait sketches of the characters, an extended exposition part. The multidimensionality and sketchiness of the presentation (which was already reflected in the title of the ballet), where an excerpt of one Gogol plot continues and complements another, made it possible to most fully express the writer's artistic world in the conditions of the ballet genre.

The suite structure of the ballet macrocycle includes fourteen numbers, among which two microcycles stand out. A microcycle is a group of numbers united by a single storyline ("Major Kovalev" and "Stranger").

1. March "Swan, Crayfish and Pike"

2. Overture

3. Chichikov's childhood

4. Portrait

5. Major Kovalev

6. Nose

i) Morning. Missing nose

ii) In search of a nose

iii) Despair

iv)  The nose is found!

7. Overcoat

8. Ferdinand VIII

9. Officials

10. The Stranger

i) Hurdy-gurdy

ii) A stranger

(iii) Pas de deux

(iv) Revelry

v) Sabbath

vi) Hurdy-gurdy

11. Spanish Royal March

12. Ball

13. The Will

• Ukrainian folk song

14. March "Swan, Crayfish and Pike"

Schnittke solves the problem of the embodiment of Gogol's heroes in the music of the ballet in line with the ideas of polystylistics, which allowed the composer, referring simultaneously to various historical styles, to display the "low" and "sublime", "banal" and "unique". After all, Gogol's heroes, as the personification of timeless evil, demanded the use of certain stylistic techniques in their musical characteristics. The polystylistic nature of the musical material was expressed in the use of quotations from A. Mozart's "Magic Flute", P. Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" ("Officials"), "themes of fate" from L. van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 ("Chichikov's Childhood"), borrowings from Ukrainian folklore "Roosters Sing" ("Ukrainian Folk Song").

The promotion of the banal as the main form of evil required a special compositional solution, expressed in playing with stylistic models and placing them in a context not characteristic of them, conscious exaggeration of typical genre qualities, ladoharmonic primitivization. The "simplicity" of Schnittke's author's approach: "And yet I consider some conscious condensation of platitudes in the "Sketches" to be fundamentally important. Why? Because every devilry – and many of Gogol's plots are connected with devilry – the whole field of the demonic is not connected with the exotic, but with the banal, the base, the garbage, the dirty, torn and out of use. This is the routine of all sorts of devilry, and it seems to me that this makes it scarier. Of course, there is something mysterious and transcendent behind this, but it is the junction of the transcendent with the banal that usually constitutes the essence of devilry. And if you write music to the plot of Gogol, then it is inevitable, and Gogol himself resorted to it" ^{[8, p. 153]}.

Evil, covered with an attractive mask of banality, smash hits, appears in the musical characteristics of each Gogol hero. Let us consider in detail the musical material of the ballet heroes from the standpoint of intonation, ladoharmonic, rhythmic, timbre and texture features, highlighting polystylistic trends in the field of style and genre.

Chichikov 's childhood

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is the first character who opens a panorama of the characters of Gogol's heroes. The episode "Chichikov's Childhood" touches on the moment of the hero's birth and the stages of his growing up. After the quotation in the "Overture" of the vociferous motif of the fate of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Chichikov's laconic, dancing theme sounds.

Example 1.

It is distinguished by squariness, harmonic clarity (relying on autotic turns), tonal certainty (C-dur). The simple dance melody, being a refrain in the form of a rondo, is replaced by the ornate melody of the episode. 

Example 2.

The musical material of the episode also has a square structure, tonal organization of the classical type with modulation into melodic a-moll and harmonic support on the tonic organ point in the remaining orchestral voices.

Throughout the whole number, the refrain and the episode are held three times. The logic of tonal development is determined by a semitone upward movement and obeys the idea of Chichikov's growing up and his career growth.

Table 1 - Tonal organization of the number "Chichikov's Childhood" 

The first holding of the refrain on pizz grows out of pp and correlates with the moment of the character's birth. As the personality develops and moves towards the last performance, the orchestral vertical is compacted by chord complexes. From the first to the third refrain, there is an application of the technique of diminution in the voices accompanying Chichikov's theme.

The clarity and simplicity that emerges at all levels of the composition fits into Schnittke's concept of ways to express evil. The composer noted: "It is natural that evil should attract. It should be pleasant, seductive, take the form of something that easily creeps into the soul, comfortable, pleasant, in any case - fascinating. A smash hit is a good mask of any devilry, a way to get into the soul. Therefore, I do not see any other way of expressing evil in music than smash hits" ^{[8, p. 155]}.

Portrait

The literary prototype of the Portrait was Gogol's novel of the same name, in which the conflict is based on the collision of Good and Evil. The moneylender became the prototype and exponent of the forces of evil, sending curses to anyone who dares to borrow from him. From now on, jealousy, envy pursued the unfortunate. At the sight of the pawnbroker , a rare passerby did not exclaim: "The devil, the perfect devil." The portrait of the pawnbroker acts as a link between the heroes of the story: Andrey Petrovich Chartkov, the artist B., the master and father of the artist B., as well as the patron, Prince R. and some others.

A feature of the story is also the creation of a panorama of Russian society of the XIX century, in all its diversity. The writer, in digressions from the main conflict, paints the working days of a cabman, artisan or cook, the monotonous and solitary life of retired officials, theatrical ushers and titular advisers.

The music for the number "Portrait" is decorated in the genre of waltz. His characteristic qualities, such as a "stencil" accompaniment with a typical rhythmic formula, an emphasis on the first part in a three-part size, are pointed. The conscious primitivization of the genre is designed to humiliate evil to the level of banality, because in the story none other than the devil himself is depicted in the picture. The grotesque nature of the waltz is also known in the symphonies of G. Mahler. The waltz sounds deliberately false in the second movement of the Fourth Symphony, grotesquely, expressionistically – in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony.

The grotesqueness in the depiction of heroes tempted to make a deal with the devil is emphasized in the ballet not only by simplifying the waltz genre. The ringing timbre of the harpsichord, the textured ostinateness, the dominant diatonic, the reliance on autentic turns in harmony give an imaginary clarity, simplicity to the music. The thesis put forward by Gogol is reflected: "To be able to outline the vulgarity of a vulgar person in such a force that all the little things that escape the eyes would flash large into everyone's eyes" ^{[7, p. 67]}.

The pitch of the episode "Portrait" evolves from diatonics to chromatics in the process of development. After a brief introduction, a theme appears representing the pole of diatonics. 

Example 3.

            She is the starting point in a kaledoscope of themes based on her intonations. As we move towards the final section, the temple tendencies in the themes increase, and the accompaniment loses its tonal stability and is filled with an elliptical chain of reduced introductory seventh chords. With moving to the other pole, thematism completely passes into the field of chromatics.

            Example 4.

The logic of the movement from diatonics to chromatics is explained by dramatic processes, which consist in reflecting the moral decline of the heroes of the story. The descending chromatic sequences in the final section of the number, total parallelism, elements of aleatorics and sonorics in the compositional technique, draw the madness of Chartkov and the patron, the obsession of Prince R. and the triumph of the moneylender devil.

Overcoat

After previewing the ballet, Petrov saw the need to strengthen the lyrical beginning. Schnittke noted: "And it's very good that the choreographer, after the preview, introduced a lyrical story into the ballet (the episode "The Stranger"): suddenly a lyrical "shadow" appeared, which gave everything, albeit indirectly, but humanity. In general, this plan is very important for ballet: indirect humanity and indirect manifestation of something positive" ^{[8, p. 154]}. It is noteworthy that the image of a Stranger is initially disembodied, ghostly. And only in the process of development does the Stranger acquire a material shell and humanity. In addition to the episode "The Stranger", which will be discussed below, the second lyrical line in the ballet is the duet of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin and the Overcoat. In this context, the Overcoat acts as the beloved of the hero, as inaccessible, ghostly as the image of a Stranger for Piskarev. A kind of lyrical Adagio of the hero and the Overcoat are framed by sections written in verse form with the characteristic formula "chorus – chorus".

The musical material of the sections is distinguished by the smash hit, the combination of song and dance, tonal clarity (a-moll and b-moll), repetition. The timbres of the solo harpsichord and celesta create a sense of the unreal space of Bashmachkin's dream, which for a brief moment sanctified his poor life.

Example 5. 

In the middle section, the determination of a person walking towards his goal appears: "He has somehow become more lively, even firmer in character, like a person who has already defined and set himself a goal. Doubt, indecision, in a word, all the wavering and indefinite features disappeared of themselves from his face and from his actions. Fire sometimes appeared in his eyes, even the most daring and courageous thoughts flashed through his head" ^[6].

Example 6. 

The music acquires the features of marching, there is a change of tonality (Des-dur) and tempo, solo brass instruments add even more brightness and solemnity to the episode. The final framing section returns the material of the first section. By the end of the number, the musical fabric is stagnating, shrinking to a single sound (as), as if depicting the ghost of Bashmachkin, who has lost his beloved and is wandering restlessly through the streets of St. Petersburg at night.

Ferdinand VIII

         The Ferdinand VIII issue is the result of the joint work of Schnittke and Rozhdestvensky. The conductor suggested reading fragments from the story "Notes of a Madman" against the background of the sounding orchestra. Verbal replicas do not reflect the storyline of the literary source, but reveal some incoherent thoughts of a minor official Aksenty Ivanovich Poprishchev.

The next episode of Ferdinand VIII without a break can be called a continuation of The Overcoat. The musical material grows out of the as sound, which later becomes the through tone of the episode. The fabric is also based on the theme of the first section of the previous issue. It is presented not in its original form, but in fragments, divided into six motivic groups.

Example 7.

Harmonic features include reliance on the tonic organ point in the key of C-dur, chord sequences consisting of tonic and reduced triad, double dominant, small introductory seventh chord, etc.

Stranger

The episode "Stranger" is a cycle consisting of six contrasting numbers: "The barrel-organ", "The unknown woman", "Pas de deux", "The debauch", "The sabbath", "The barrel-organ". The episode consistently reveals the story of the poor artist Piskarev from the story "Nevsky Prospekt": from a walk along Nevsky Prospekt and a meeting with a Stranger, to his death.

In the first issue of "The barrel-organ" Piskarev and his friend Lieutenant Pirogov take a walk along Nevsky Prospekt. To create a picture of an evening idle Petersburg, the composer imitates the game of a street musician playing a hurdy-gurdy. Schnittke uses the timbre of the organ, close in sound to the hurdy-gurdy, the homophonic-harmonic texture characteristic of her compositions and an uncomplicated melody in the key of g-moll.

Example 8. 

In the second issue of "The unknown woman", Piskarev notices a beautiful Stranger. Her musical characterization is extremely simplified, drawing a portrait of a beautiful, but organic and vicious woman. The thematic development is based on the constant sequential repetition of the motif that grows from the intonations of the first number, emphasizing the heroine's belonging to the earthly world of Nevsky Prospekt.

Example 9.

      The opposite pole is represented by the artist's dreams of a perfect Stranger, embodied in the longest number of the cycle – "Pas de deux". The theme of pas de deux in C-dur is filled with high lyricism. The characteristic leitintonation grows into a figure resembling a gruppetto.

            Example 10.

           After the lyrical climax comes the turning point. The theme is interrupted by the glissando of the violin and cello, and then the flexaton. The unattainable image of a beautiful Stranger is destroyed, materialized and ceases to be a shadow of Piskarev's perfect dream. In the thickening sonorous sound, the echoes carry out the sequences of parallel thirds and fifths.

         The culminating number in the "Stranger" cycle is "The debauch", where the cruel truth about the kind of activity of his beloved falls on the poor artist. To depict the base, Schnittke again turns to the genre of waltz. The typical features of the genre are preserved, such as chord accompaniment, three-lineedness, emphasis on the first beat, etc. The chorale theme, based on the chords of the tonic triad, the dominant seventh chord and the reduced introductory seventh chord in the key of d-moll, contrasts with the universal danceability of the number. The final section of "The debauch" contains several thematic layers: a chorale theme, a chord accompaniment and a chromatic descending stroke in the canonical presentation.

          Piskarev's madness is reflected in the issue of "The sabbath", in which he sees a Stranger and their happy future together. The dancing planned in "The debauch" is continued in "The sabbath", but not in the waltz, but in the scherzo version. The material of the issue "The unknown woman" is returned, but in a modified form.

The theme of the Stranger acquires greater integrity and completeness, but retains the initial intonation close to the groupetto, internal sequential development, the end of each link of the sequence with a sexta interval.

Example 11. 

Gogol's story ends with the story of the lieutenant Pirogov, for whom the death of his friend went unnoticed, as well as for all residents of St. Petersburg, making an evening promenade along Nevsky Prospekt to the sounds of a hurdy-gurdy. The return in the story to the place where Piskarev first saw a Stranger is marked in the music by the appearance of the number "The barrel-organ", which exactly repeats the material of the first number of the cycle.

The ball

After a long exposition part, all the heroes of the ballet meet in the climactic episode "The Ball". They surround their creator, causing him disgust and horror. Gogol rejects his creations, which provokes discontent and rebellion.

The design of the room is a suite of dances from different eras: waltz, mazurka, tango. The grotesque, accusatory character of the music is given by the already familiar Schnittke technique of multiplication, and then distortion of traditional genre parameters. In the waltz, the composer uses comically cumbersome orchestration, the prickly sound of the harpsichord and the emphasized low registers of the instruments. Even the theme is entrusted to the contraphagot, which exacerbates the feeling of absurdity and grotesque.

Example 12.

         Breaking off in mid-sentence, the waltz is replaced by a mazurka. As in the first dance, the mazurka emphasizes its typical qualities: emphasis on the second lobe, three-sided size, dotted rhythm.

           Example 13.

The Mazurka is replaced by the tango, which is the culmination of "vulgarity" in ballet. This is not the first time that tango performs such a function in Schnittke's work. In the cantata "The Story of Dr. Johann Faust", the climactic episode No. 7 "The Death of Faust" is written in the mentioned genre. Reflecting on the expression of the diabolical in music, Schnittke finds the answer in T. Mann's novel "Doctor Faustus". Stronger than pain, humiliation affects evil. It was through vulgar tango and pop voice that the composer embodied this idea in the cantata.

In the episode "The Ball", tango, drawing all the ugliness and depravity of Gogol's heroes, blinded by greed, envy, jealousy, is designed to humiliate the evil lurking in the souls of the characters.

Example 14. 

After the "frivolous" mazurka, the cheeky and indecent sound of the frank tango collapses, with typical syncopations in the accompaniment, a square structure, a melody weighted with copper, languid glissandos of the bass guitar. Dissonances arising vertically reinforce the impression of rampant dark forces.

Speaking about the ratio of dances in the suite of the episode "Ball", it is worth noting the high contrast in relation to each other, the absence of smooth transitions, tonal switching (c-moll – cis-moll – g-moll), genre diversity. At the same time, there are unifying factors with the previous episodes of the ballet: the theme of the Stranger, a sequence of parallel reduced introductory seventh chords from the number "Portrait".

Summing up the research, we note that Schnittke's interpretation of the "Petersburg Stories" and "Dead Souls" led to the appearance of a galaxy of works that embodied the artistic world of Gogol. Having passed its evolutionary path from the "Revision Fairy Tale", "Gogol Suite" and "Dead Souls", Schnittke's music has reached a new musical and theatrical form of existence. The musical interpretation of Gogol's heroes in the ballet was carried out in line with the stylistic diversity, richness of techniques in the field of pitch, harmony, rhythm and timbre. The composer's individual approach to the musical characteristics of each character of the fictional "city NN" and St. Petersburg in the 1830s and 1840s led to the release of the ballet "Sketches" in the field of realization of the individual author's style of Schnittke.