A hidden plot in "Five choirs to the words of Russian poets" by G. Sviridov.

Smoktiy Yana Olegovna Postgraduate student of 3 years of study, Department of Theory and History of Art of Saratov State Conservatory named after L.V. Sobinov 410012, Russia, g. Saratov, Prospekt Petra Stolypina, 1 yanasmoktiy@yandex.ru

Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov is an unsurpassed and truly brilliant figure in the history of Russian musical art. The composer's range of interests went far beyond the limits of musical art, as his diary entries published by A. S. Belonenko in a book entitled "Music as Fate" (2002) clearly show us. In his reflections on music and art in general, on the historical fate of Russia in the tragic twentieth century, G.V. Sviridov appears to us as a profound philosopher, a subtle connoisseur of art and history, who embodied the accumulated knowledge in his musical canvases. We are well aware of the fact that many Russian writers were also the deepest philosophers (N. V. Gogol, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Bunin), but the combination of compositional talent with writing was realized only in the phenomenon of G. V. Sviridov.

"Five Choirs to the Words of Russian Poets" were written in 1958 and represented the composer's first experience in the genre of choral music. Russian Russian Choral Capella (conducted by A. A. Yurlov) and the State Academic Russian Choir of the USSR (conducted by A. V. Sveshnikov) entered the repertoire of the leading professional choral groups immediately after their publication (1961).

         "Five Choirs to the words of Russian Poets" is a work that is often perceived not as an integral artistic canvas, but as separate choral numbers united by the same performers. One of the first researchers of G. Sviridov's creativity – A. Sokhor – in his work "Georgy Sviridov" gives the idea that "Five choirs to the words of Russian poets" "do not form a single cycle, although they are written for one set of performers" ^{[10, p. 142]}, a similar idea is expressed by O. Kolovsky "Five Sviridov's choirs do not make up a cycle, much less suites. It is hardly worth performing them all in a row in one concert: despite the fact that each choir is in its own way and the composer is not repeated anywhere, there is still a lack of purely musical contrasts – genre, tempo, etc. In other words, all choirs are too significant and weighty in content (there is not a single "scherzo" among them or "intermezzo") so that they can be combined into one. The composer obviously did not pursue this goal" ^[7]. 

         We find a similar assessment in the article by Yuri Paisov "A cappella Choirs Sviridova": "Having no plot-thematic connection, they can be performed both all in a row and separately" ^{[3, p. 315]}. Opinion of Yu . However, the scientist himself refutes Paisova about the absence of a "plot-thematic" connection between the numbers of the cycle, expressing the idea that they have a cross–cutting theme, an ideological core, and this core is love for their native land. Thus, the question arises before us: are the individual numbers of the cycle connected and how are they connected, what deep theme is being developed by the composer in this composition? It can be stated that the problem of the existence of a "hidden plot" in Sviridov's choral cycle "Five Choirs on poems by Russian Poets" has not yet been solved. The identification of this hidden plot is the purpose of our research. Achieving this goal involves solving several tasks. Firstly, we need to find out what are the principles of the selection of texts included in the cycle, and secondly, what transformations in the verbal sphere of these texts the composer produces, how these transformations are related to the general idea of G. Sviridov.

It is interesting to note that the composer calls his cycle very generically – "Five choirs to the words of Russian poets." With such a name, it is difficult to understand what will be discussed, it is only obvious that the composer's focus is on the work of Russian poets. That's just what? "Five Choirs" were created based on the texts of Russian Soviet poets Sergei Yesenin, Alexander Prokofiev, Sergei Orlov and on the text (excerpt from the poem "Dead Souls") Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, who opens this work of Sviridov. The composer gives the title to this passage – "About the lost youth". The second chorus is based on Sergei Yesenin's poem "In the Evening Blue" (1925). Sviridov calls the third chorus to the words of Alexander Prokofiev "The son met the father", the basis is not one text of Prokofiev dedicated to the civil war, but a cycle of three poems, which the author called "Oh, the regiments were coming" (1931-1932).  The fourth choir based on the poems of Sergei Orlov, written in 1951 (the name of the choir is "How the Song was born", the author's name is "Song") captured the time after the Great Patriotic War.

And the last chorus is written on Sergei Yesenin's poem "Herd" of 1915. It consists of three parts, but Sviridov greatly reduces the text, places semantic accents in a new way. 

So, five poems reflecting different periods of Russia's life. What guided G. V. Sviridov when choosing poets and texts themselves, working on the general literary libretto of the cycle? 

Already from this cursory enumeration of texts, their names, one way or another transformed by Sviridov, a careful look at the year of writing of a text, it becomes clear that different historical epochs are passing before the listener's mind's eye: this is both the old, pre–revolutionary Russia (the choir "About Lost Youth"), and Russia, which survived the revolution - the choir "In the Evening blue", where, according to the wonderful Pushkin writer Valentin Nepomnyashchy, "the cry of the dying, crucified people's soul" is heard ^{[2, p. 382]}, and Russia during the Civil War (chorus "The son met his father"), and post-war Russia (meaning not the civil war, but the Great Patriotic War (chorus to Orlov's poem "How the Song was born"). The last chorus to Yesenin's poems "Herd" seems to "hover" over all the historical epochs presented in the cycle, this is a song about the "eternal Motherland".

The writer Valentin Rasputin in the preface to the book "Georgy Sviridov in the memoirs of contemporaries" says that Sviridov "passed through three Russias, <...> but as a plowman sowing and harvesting a field <...> knows only one Russia, so Georgy Vasilyevich composed only one Homeland in all periods of his work – with a thousand-year history, a song, light, immortal ..." ^{[2, p. 7]}. It is this semantic intonation that determines the sound of the last chorus "Herd".

         We emphasize the fact that G. Sviridov acts as a co-author of Gogol, Yesenin, Prokofiev, and Orlov, transforming both the titles of works and their texts themselves. One of the leading researchers of Sviridov's work, Maya Elik, notes that Sviridov "usually refers to the peaks of world poetry – most of all Russian and Soviet. Carefully recreating the individual traits of different poets, the composer at the same time brings them closer already in the selection process, controlled by addiction to a particular range of images, themes, plots. But the final transformation of each of them into a "like–minded person" is accomplished under the influence of music - it imperiously invades the poetic material and transforms it into a new work of art, where the individuality of the composer turns out to be decisive" ^{[6, p. 119]}.

         In order to understand the general idea of the cycle, it is necessary to analyze in more detail the literary structure of each issue and identify its dramatic significance in the structure of the cycle. 

The choral cycle begins with a lyrical number called "About the Lost Youth". As a literary primary source, the composer uses the initial fragment of chapter VI from the poem "Dead Souls" by N. V. Gogol. 

Comparing the original literary fragment of N. V. Gogol's text and the resulting text of G. V. Sviridov, we can note the following:  the composer, shortening and giving his name to the choir, created his own text, the main theme of which is the loss of childhood paradise, which is why the text ends with the phrase:  "Oh, my youth! Oh, my freshness!". From our point of view, the concept of "lost youth" hides a deeper meaning, which has a metaphorical character. Valentin Rasputin, describing the "three Russias" through which Sviridov passed, thus characterizes the first of them: "old Russia" (i.e., the Russia whose whole life was built on an Orthodox foundation), which is a "nightingale's paradise". This Russia is lost forever, and, therefore, the hidden theme of the first choir is the restoration of the image of the lost homeland by musical means, and the sadness of its loss, about the breakdown of the worldview that was peculiar to the Russian people. G. V. Sviridov understands perfectly well that along with this lost youth–homeland, the sense of harmony of life is irretrievably lost, the world. Together with N. V. Gogol, they talk about the loss of the sense of unity, the unity of the Russian people, which was so subtly captured by N. V. Gogol and so clearly felt in the realities of the daily life of the composer and his contemporaries. G. V. Sviridov does not just create his own text, he gives it a name – "About lost Youth", as if speaking for himself, bringing a deeply personal attitude to the resulting text. In the text of N. V. Gogol there is no phrase "lost youth", thus, the composer becomes, as it were, a "co-author" of Gogol.

In continuation of the theme of "lost youth-motherland", G. V. Sviridov introduces a poem by S. A. Yesenin, written on the night of October 4/5, 1925, into the libretto, and gives it a name based on the first line "In the evening blue". 

         This is, perhaps, the only number from the entire cycle, the literary basis of which has undergone the least transformation: only the phrase "Everything flew by.." is repeated twice, due to the form of the musical composition.

  "In the evening blue" is one of the poet's last poems. His indirect connection with N. V. Gogol's poem is interesting – through the poem "I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry", written four years earlier, written by S. Tolstaya-Yesenina recalls: "Yesenin said that this poem was written under the influence of one of the lyrical digressions in "Dead Souls". Sometimes he added half - jokingly: "They praise me for these poems, but they don't know that it's not me, but Gogol" ^{[3, p. 320]}. This quote confirms the idea of researcher V. Zhivov that the first and second choruses "were originally conceived as an independent two-part cycle" ^{[4, p. 324]}.

Special attention should be paid to the color palette of this poem. The prevailing blue color should be perceived as a symbol of past happiness, as a memory of happy days. Many researchers were interested in the color palette in S. A. Yesenin's poetics, among them N. E. Budanova, who notes in her article "Blue in S. A. Yesenin's lyrics" that in this poem blue "acts as a symbol of happiness that was long ago, it is the color of lost youth" (our italics – Ya.S.). ^[1]. Let's pay attention to the phrase used by the researcher analyzing Yesenin's color palette. Blue is the color of "lost youth", and, thus, the full coincidence of the name of the first choir given by the composer and the philological definition of Yesenin's "blue" completely coincide. This fact tells us that the first and second texts of the cycle for Sviridov are a kind of "synonyms" both literally and metaphorically. However, Sviridov himself, a subtle and profound philosopher, in the book "Music as Fate" makes another, extremely important addition: "Yesenin's color is one of the most important distinctive properties of poetry. Blue Russia. This is not only the blue color, but also the dove, a symbol of meekness, a symbol of the Holy Spirit" ^{[9, p. 113]}

Thus, the first two choruses ("About lost youth", "In the Evening blue") they are connected not only by the theme of a bygone youth, but also united by the theme of a lost Russia, torn from its roots. This topic deeply worried poets of different eras – N. V. Gogol spoke about it in the XIX century, S. A. Yesenin at the beginning of the XX century. N. V. Gogol foresaw this tragedy, and S. A. Yesenin found himself in the epicenter of events.

         The third number "The son met the father" (based on the poems of A. A. Prokofiev) is the tragic culmination of the choral cycle. It should be noted that the literary basis of this choir has undergone the greatest transformation. Let's try to understand why exactly the Prokofiev cycle underwent the greatest transformation? To answer this question, it is necessary to solve several problems. Firstly, it is necessary to have at least an approximate idea of the work of Alexander Prokofiev, about the place of the cycle "Oh, there were shelves" in the poet's artistic world. Secondly, it is very important to analyze the changes that Sviridov makes to the text to create a choir.

Alexander Prokofiev is a poet of the Soviet era. He, a native of the Ladoga village, a native of a peasant family, accepted the revolution of 1917; in 1919, the future poet went to fight at the front against the army of General Yudenich. In the collection "Victory" and "Red Dawn Street", one of the leading themes was the theme of the civil War. 

For us, the question of how G. V. Sviridov himself treated the civil war is fundamentally important. In his oral presentation on the construction of a dramatic line in the "Poem in Memory of Sergei Yesenin", the composer says that he curses the terrible bloody years of the fratricidal civil war. In 1919, his father, grandfather, brother and two uncles died in the composer's family. This war brought countless torments and losses not only to his family, but also to many families, which numbered in the hundreds, thousands.

When working with the literary source of A. A. Prokofiev, the composer takes out of brackets all the attributes of the civil war ("red" and "white" parabellum, "multicolored trousers", "patches", "wind-siverok"), bringing to the fore the tragedy of the war when a father kills his own son. 

         G. V. Sviridov creates a stunning, visible image, a symbolic image of what the civil war was for Russia. But such a composer's work on the author's text poses another problem for us: the problem of the correlation of a terrible, but quite ordinary event of the civil war and the event that we all know from Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol's story "Taras Bulba".

         We remember how Taras grabs the reins of Andriy's horse and the son, seeing the "terrible father" in front of him, stands with his eyes lowered to the ground. "– What, son! did your lyakhs help you?" father asks. Andriy is unresponsive, and Taras continues: "So sell? sell faith? sell your own?" ^{[5, p. 153]}. Taras kills his son for betraying the Motherland and the Orthodox faith. This theme – the theme of faith and the struggle of the people for faith – is the main one in the story "Taras Bulba". At the beginning of the twelfth chapter, we read about how the Cossack army gathered to take revenge "for the ridicule of their rights, for the shameful humiliation of their morals, for insulting the faith of their ancestors and holy custom, for the disgrace of churches, for the outrage of foreign lords..." ^{[5, p.183]}. And in the same chapter Gogol writes that there is no power stronger than faith. "It is irresistible and formidable, like a man-made rock in the midst of a stormy, ever-changing sea. And woe to the ship that is rushing at her! His powerless gear is flying into splinters, everything that is on it is sinking and breaking into dust..." ^{[5, p. 185]}. For what, for what faith does a father kill his son in the twentieth century? To answer this question, it is necessary to make sure that Sviridov really correlates these two events – the event of ancient history, revealed in Gogol's story, and the event of the civil war, reflected in Prokofiev's poetry. 

         In Prokofiev's cycle, the murder of his son is as if veiled: the second poem of the cycle ends on the lines "The parent twisted the saber, / The son stood up in the stirrups", and in the first stanza of the third poem we read: "And the filial dolushka remained in that valley") "Co-author" of the poet Sviridov details this event, like Gogol ("rolled in the valley, the filial head"). 

         The proof that the tragic event of Andriy's death, described in the story "Taras Bulba", is a prototype or prototype for the composer, is the symbolic image of the severed son's head, which rolls down the valley, along its "flowers and honeydew" (note that here there is a kind of "infection" of the entire natural space, and the earthly, and the heavenly, terrible energy of death). The head rolls and "past the ear of wheat." In Gogol, we read: "Like a grain ear trimmed with a sickle, ... he hung his head and fell on the grass without saying a single word" ^{[5, p. 154]} (our italics are Ya.S.). Prokofiev's "filial dolushka" remained "at the path", "at the bush-footstool", where wheat flowed like a wave next to the "frequent forest". The image of Prokofiev is purely visual, familiar to the reader, the image of Sviridov's "wheat ear" is referential and symbolic. The role of this image in the structure of the Sviridov cycle is difficult to overestimate. 

         Thus, G. V. Sviridov combines several planes in one issue – the events of the civil war and the plot of N. V. Gogol's story "Taras Bulba", but in these seemingly two different historical events, the composer focuses his attention on one topic – the tragedy within the country and the family associated with the loss of the Orthodox faith. The figure of N. V. Gogol is invisibly present in the culminating number of the cycle, since in his artistic and spiritual heritage the writer has always put this problem above all.

         Following the bloody events of the Civil War, a peaceful post-war life begins. The fourth issue of "How the song was born" was written on the poem by S. S. Orlov "Song" (1951). S. S. Orlov for many contemporaries of the composer was known as the author of the famous poem "He was buried in the globe of the earth". The poet knew firsthand about the events of the Great Patriotic War, he was an active participant in military operations, his poems are permeated with memories of the war.

            The country that survived the terrible events of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) is slowly returning to its former life. And the evidence of this return is a song, a song about a bygone youth, about a hard life lived: "Bearded, in full force / (Gray hair lay at the temple) / Oh the girls are suddenly sad / And two men sang." These "bearded men" are like Gogol's Cossacks, remembering their former youth, past battles and victories…

         Despite the rather large size, the text of S. S. Orlov's poem underwent minor adjustments by G. V. Sviridov. As a rule, these changes are associated with the replacement of words (paws – wings, snow – circle, disappearing, hissing in a circle – disappearing in white snow, unsociable – unloved). 

         The laconic means of musical expression selected by the composer (calm tempo, even durations, the beginning is entrusted to a female choir with a developed sub-vocal texture, a variable meter indicating the predominant meaning of the word) are aimed at revealing the atmosphere of simplicity prevailing in the poem. From the first bars, the composer creates a warm, trusting atmosphere that takes listeners after the heroes to the plot, to the campfire, to long conversations around the campfire heart to heart. This is the whole secret of G. V. Sviridov's compositional skill – simplicity and honesty, which wins the hearts of performers and listeners forever.

         The cycle ends with the chorus "Herd" on the poems of S. A. Yesenin (1915). In S. A. Yesenin, this poem is divided into 3 parts, each part is a display of a certain time range: part 1 is evening, part 2 is the day approaching the end, part 3 is night. G. V. Sviridov completely omits the text 2 parts, partially uses 1 part, thus, G. V. Sviridov in his text compresses the time interval, space. Special attention is paid by both the composer and the poet to the image of the shepherd, who is the main exponent of the singing soul of Russia, the whole created world listens to his voice. And G. V. Sviridov sings after the shepherd a song about eternal Russia, ending his cycle with the phrase "To you, O Motherland, I have composed that song." This is a declaration of love for his homeland, faith, no matter what, in its bright and great future. And again, the composer draws a hidden analogy with the famous Gogol's Bird-Troika, in his diary he wrote: "Isn't it the same with you, Rus, that a brisk, unrecognizable Troika is rushing... and other peoples and states give her the way." This is the motive – the ways of Russia" ^{[9, p. 479]}.

         Researcher L. Polyakova in his article "Sviridov as a composer of the twentieth century" points out the peculiarity of the entire work of G. V. Sviridov, that it is "about Russia as a whole, that, covering its past, present and future, Sviridov is able to generalize and highlight the most important, the most essential" ^{[8, p. 55]}. The French musicologist M.-R. Hoffman spoke in the same direction: "Not just Russia of today sings in his music, but the whole of Russia – Russia of Kiev and Novgorod; Russia of Moscow and Kazan; Russia of 1905 and 1917; Russia of 1968 and the nineteenth century" ^{[8, p. 55]}.

         Thus, the choral cycle "Five Choirs to the Words of Russian Poets" by G. V. Sviridov cannot be performed separately, since it traces a single storyline based on a careful selection of literary texts that are closely related to each other in the general dramatic concept of the entire composition. A separate performance of the numbers deprives the listener of the opportunity to penetrate the mystery of the composer's holistic plan, to combine the semantic palettes of all five choirs, to hear and comprehend in this music the tragedy of Russia and its history. 

         Despite the fact that "Five Choirs" is the first test of G. V. Sviridov in the genre of choral music a cappella, this work already concentrates the main intentions of the choral thinking of the composer. Namely: the desire for cyclicity, appeal to the brightest examples of Russian literature, the unity of word and music, the connection of the song beginning with professional music, genre diversity. In the article by E. D. Legostaev "The embodiment of the main stylistic features of the a cappella choirs of G. Sviridov's cycle "Five Unaccompanied Choirs" on the words of Russian poets" contains thoughts that this cycle has a huge impact on the further choral work of the composer, the researcher finds echoes of the first choral opus in Sviridov's later mature works: "You sing me that song that before", "The soul is sad about heaven", "Blizzard" and "You are my fallen Maple" to the poems of S. Yesenin; "Concert in memory of A. A. Yurlov", "Three choirs from the music to the tragedy of A. K. Tolstoy "Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich", "Round Dance" and "Icon" to the poems of A. Blok, "Where is our rose, my friends?" to the poems of A. Pushkin; "Autumn" to the words of F. Tyutchev; "The sadness of the expanses" to the words of I. Severyanin; "On the left – the field, on the right – the field" and "Our Homeland is Russia" to the words of A. Prokofiev. E. D. Legostaev reveals this similarity at the level of plot, image, musical writing, saying that "some choirs written at different times and included in different cycles are inextricably linked by a common theme and style, then a kind of "cycles at a distance" are formed." 

         Thus, we can conclude that in the general context of Sviridov's work, the meaning of "Five Choirs to the words of Russian Poets" is difficult to overestimate: thanks to the existence of a hidden plot of the cycle, a wide epic canvas unfolds before us, within which Sviridov's musical historiosophy finds its expression. Historiosophy, or the philosophy of the history of Russia in Sviridov's concept is associated with a deep experience of the tragic path of the Motherland, its  Golgotha of the twentieth century. But the musical element of the cycle, embodying the great Russian word, transforms suffering into victory, and historical Russia gives birth to eternal Russia.