Achmatowa, Anna (EN)

Akhmatova Anna, actually A.A. Gorenko, *11(26) June 1889 Bolszoj Fontan (near Odesa), †5 March 1966 Domodiedowo (near Moscow), poet from the group of Acmeists, Russian neoclassicists. Her early (five volumes of poetry from 1912–22) and mature work (after her banishment from official literary life in 1923–39, 1946–56) place her among the most remarkable artists of word of the 20^th century. She was awarded with an Etna-Taormina poet laurel (1964) and a Honoris causa doctorate of the University of Oxford (1965).

In Akhmatova’s life and work, music has a significant place, and is an important source of inspiration (musical motifs and terminology in poetry, statements about works and creators). She began her creative path in the environment of the artistic elite of St. Petersburg during the “silver age” of Russian culture, the times, as she put it, of “Stravinsky and Blok, Anna Pavlova and Scriabin, Rostovcev and Chaliapin, Meyerhold and Diaghilev.” She was part of a Brodiaczaja sobaka cabaret (1911–15), which was a place of bohemian meetings, graced with chamber music concerts, song and ballet evenings. She was close friends with the dancer O. Glébova-Soudeïkina and the composer A. Lourié, the first author of music to her texts; in 1921 Akhmatova wrote libretti (not preserved) to his ballet symphony Snow Mask, based on poetic motives from A. Blok’s poetic cycle.

In addition to her biography, Akhmatova’s connections with music – more interesting and deeper – are revealed on the structural level. The musical element in Akhmatova retains its autonomy, unlike the mystical and euphonious role it plays in symbolists’ poetry. The poet perceives reality sensually, also as “intensely acoustic” (B. Kac). The numerous sound motifs in her poetry (the ringing of bells, the melody of a street organ, the human voice and the instrumental voice, the sounds of nature and the city) are always a specific experience, real music, demetaphorised. Endowed with absolute poetic pitch, Akhmatova had an excellent sense of intonation, the rhythm of a phrase, the measure of a line, and the place of a pause; her poem is sometimes compared to precise musical notation, which immediately determines the key, dynamics and tempo of the “performance.”

Akhmatova’s poetic aesthetics developed in parallel with the new musical aesthetics, expressing the direction of changes common to both arts; therefore – despite all the differences in material – there are visible analogies in the way the linguistic material is shaped by Akhmatova and the sound material by the innovators of 20^th century music. Perverse lyricism, restrained by allusion, ironic distance, simplicity combined with the finesse of narration – transparent, concise, metonymic; surprising combinations of words and motifs, expressive and variable (bottom line, shifts of accents) metre-rhythmic organisation; a refined reference to the literary tradition and folklore (chastushka, lullaby) – these are features associated with the style of neoclassical vitalists, especially Stravinsky, whose work Akhmatova called “the highest musical expression of the spirit of the 20^th century.”

The role of music increased in Akhmatova’s later work, which is fully confirmed by Poem without a Hero – just a triptych (1940–62), her own ballet, libretto (1962) and self-commentary (Prose about Poem 1961). Akhmatova’s terms: “ballet” and “symphony” are “musical keys” to the interpretation of a work dominated by reminiscences, allusions and crypto-quotes; references to the means and forms specific to music were found – especially in the narrative and genre-compositional structure. The tonal aspect of the poem is striking: a suggestive anapaestic flow with insistent rhythmic disturbances. The poem became an inspiration for vocal-instrumental compositions by A. Kozłowski (1943), A. Lourié (Zaklinaniia, 1959), A. Jusfin (1978) and a piano cycle by I. Guselnikov (1983). Akhmatova’s second important work, the Requiem cycle (1938–40, 1962), was composed to music by, among others: B. Tishchenko (Requiem op. 35, for soprano, tenor and orchestra, 1966), N. Nabokov (vocal cycle, 1966), A. Łokszyn (Mat’ skorbiaszczaja, for mezzo-soprano, choir and orchestra, 1973?), J. Tavener (for soprano, bass and chamber ensemble, 1979–80), M.A. Bukowski (Requiem, for solo voices, choir and orchestra). Over 200 of Akhmatova’s poems by over 100 composers resonated in various musical forms – vocal, choral, chamber, orchestral. (including A. Aleksandrov, I. Belza, S. Grinberg, J. Levitan, V. Nechayev, O. Petrowa, S. Prokofiev, S. Słonimskij, M. Wajnberg, A. Wertyński).

Literature: W. Żyrmunskij Tworczestwo Anny Achmatowoj, Leningrad 1973; T. Cywjan Achmatowa i muzyka, „Russian Literature” 1975 no. 10/11; W. Żyrmunskij Prieodolewszyje simwolizm (1916), in: Tieorija litieratury. Poetika. Stilistika, ed. J.D. Lewin, D.S. Lichaczow, Leningrad 1977; M.A. Lobanow Nieopublikowannyj romans S.M. Lapunowa na stichi A. Achmatowoj, «Jeżegodnik rukopisnogo otdiela Puszkinskogo doma 1980», Leningrad 1984; J. Płatek Podsłuszat’ u muzyki…, „Muzykalnaja żyzń” 1986 no. 12–14; J. Płatek Wiertie muzykie, Moscow 1989; M.Ł. Gasparow Stick A. Czetyrie jego etapa and B. Kac Dalnieje echo. Otzwuki tworczestwa Szumana w achmatowskoj „Poemie biez gieroja”, „Litieraturnoje obozrienije” 1989 no. 5; B. Kac „Skrytyje muzyki” w achmatowskoj „Poemie biez gieroja”, „Sowietskaja Muzyka” 1989 no. 2, 6; B. Kac, R. Timienczik Anna Achmatowa i muzyka, Leningrad 1989 (includes a list of compositions to Akhmatova’s poems); I. Niestjew Iz istorii russkogo muzykalnogo awangarda, „Sowietskaja Muzyka” 1991 no. 1; Brodskij ob Achmatowoj. Diałogi s S. Wołkowym, Moscow 1992.