“Only in The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul Did Bugaev Reveal His Ideas about Music”: Music in the System of Andrei Bely

Abstract

Symbolism distinguished itself in world culture in that its representatives were inclined to a dialogue and intersection of different types of art. In Russian literature, one of the brightest examples of such a synthesis is the work of Andrei Bely (Boris Bugaev; 1880–1934). The aim of the present article is to consider the writer’s ideas about music itself. As the main source we use Bely’s treatise The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul. Bely in his Symbolist articles of the 1900s laid down the idea of musical art as an antinomy, which emphasized the troubling importance of the problem, but did not principally imply any positive answer. However, in his anthroposophic treatise The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul (1926–1931), enormous in volume and scale of the material, the author’s antinomical understanding of music was transformed into a structure which is extremely complicated, but consistent. That is why Andrei Bely does not apply the word “antinomy” to music, but he extensively uses the musical term “counterpoint” (together with other musical terms). Whereas the word “antinomy” pointed at some irreconcilable conflicts, on the contrary, a “counterpoint” introduces these clashes into the frame of a single structure of a system, thus reconciling them. Accordingly, the romance “It is so sweet to be with you” by Mikhail Glinka (called in The History “the greatest genius”) contains, in Andrei Bely’s texts, the message of a wide spectrum.

Symbolism distinguished itself in world culture in that its representatives were inclined to a dialogue and intersection of different types of art. In the end it was a fusion of different types of art (according to the influential example of R. Wagner—the Gesamtkunstwerk project). In Russian literature, one of the brightest examples of such a synthesis is the work of Andrei Bely (Boris Bugaev; 1880–1934). He became famous initially thanks to his cycle of four Symphonies—rhythmical prosaic texts, whose genre was audaciously designated by a musical term. Moreover, as we have previously written, the mingling of music and literature suggested an attempt to paint in the Symphonies, for example, the experiments of James McNeill Whistler who ascribed his paintings to ‘symphonies’ (and to other music genres) (Odesskiy and Spivak 2009; cf. on literature, music and painting based on other materials: Kauchtschischwili 1991). The musical element is notable in the later works of A. Bely, as well as in his innovative poetic theory. This material, regarding the dialogue among the arts, has been thoroughly studied by specialists (Cf. see Steinberg 1982; Janecek 1974; Kats 1995, pp. 189–91; Lavrov 1995; Keys 1996, pp. 111–23; Tielkes 1998; Gerver 2001, pp. 195–96; Kursell 2003). The aim of the present article is to consider the writer’s ideas about music itself. (On this issue, see Hughes 1978, pp. 137–45; Tielkes 1998, pp. 192–229). As the main source, we use Bely’s treatise The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul (1926–1931), recently published in its entirety in two volumes of the academic series “Literary Heritage” (Bely 2020b, 2020c). Andrei Bely wrote himself about the significance of the above treatise for the interpretation of his ideas on music in 1926: “Only in The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul did Bugaev reveal his ideas about music that had pursued him all his life <…>” (Bely and Blok 2001, p. 28)1.

Undoubtedly, Andrei Bely’s articles from the 1900s, which had a broad response in literary circles, will begin this analysis.

The “prologue” was his article “The Singer” which had been a kind of a debut of the young author (in the journal Mir Iskusstva, 1902). It was published with a note “After Olenina-d’Alheim’s concerts in Moscow”. Being not so much of a response to the vocal concerts of Maria Olenina-d’Alheim (1901) as an emotional manifestation of a new outlook, the article presented new requirements to music:

Now we admired her. She hypnotized us. She went beyond singing and became more than a singer: she was like a spiritual leader. She was singing songs that no one else could sing. She was singing so that we were face to face with our depth. She was singing the best songs—songs from there.

(Bely 2020a, p. 4)2

According to the young Symbolist, music had to be “more than” art and it had to play the role of a “spiritual leader.”

In the article “Forms of Art” (1902), included in the collected works of 1910 entitled Symbolism, the author added his notes (Bely 2010, pp. 368–80) had the significance of “a philosophical and an aesthetic statement” (Lavrov 1995, p. 101). Based on the work of A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (Cf. Kursell 2003, ss. 33–35), Bely defined music as the expression of the world’s will, as well as observing the famous Nietzschean formula of the “spirit of music”:

Here is conceived for the first time the idea of the influence of music on all forms of art with its independence from all these forms. Looking ahead, we will state that the starting point of any form of art is reality, and its final point—music as pure movement. <…> any art takes us to the pure contemplation of the world’s will; <…> any form of art is defined by the degree of realization in it of the spirit of music <…>;

(Bely 2010, p. 126)3

In music we hear hints of future perfection <…>. Its summits dominate the summits of poetry.

(Bely 2010, p. 135)4

The short article “Nikolai Medtner” (1906) contains an original characterization of this composer in comparison to Sergei Rakhmaninov and Alexander Skryabin (Bely 2012, pp. 282–84).

This is one perspective. However, in “Against Music” (1907, in the journal Vesy, from the cycle On the Peak) Bely—as seen from the title—rebels against the charm of music: “We sometimes showed our appreciation about the charm of music as in both printed form and orally. All my best years I was immersed in this charming drug” (Bely 2020a, p. 221).

Bely claims that musical art is characterized by a basic ambiguity: “Music is beyond art. It is bigger than art. <….> Meanwhile, music being perceived by us as the soul of everything is a form of art. This is the antinomy” (Bely 2020a, p. 221). The first assumption reminds us of the article, “The Singer”, the second—of the title of the article “The Forms of Art.” But at that time Bely qualifies it as an “antinomy,” because in contemporary society music (even R. Wagner) replaces real action with a narcotic substitute (Bely 2020a, p. 223).

The key word here is “antinomy.” In the article “Against Music” it was resolved by a declarative appeal: “The music of the future must become only the means” (Bely 2020a, p. 224). A very typical behavior is that in 1902 Bely, on the contrary, had claimed that music “ought” not to become this or that, but that some “hints to us of a future perfection” are already there.

Bely’s remark roused his friend and teacher Emil Medtner, brother of the composer Nikolai Medtner, who published a polemic “Boris Bugaev Against Music” (1907, Zolotoe Runo) (See in detail: Tielkes 1998, pp. 210–22). Consequently, Bely published in response his “Letter to the Editor” of the journal Pereval (1907, No 10, pp. 58–60), where he repeated and polemically refined his ideas: “Modern art of the present and past is only about death” (Bely 2020a, p. 276). Thus, music and other forms of art do not provide a breakthrough into the future.

Therefore, one can say that Bely in his Symbolist articles of the 1900s laid down the idea of musical art as an antinomy, which emphasized the troubling importance of the problem, but did not principally imply any positive answer.

The two-volume treatise, The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul (HFSS; 1926–1931), enormous in volume and scale of the material, is a work devoted to a historiosophic understanding of culture from the beginning of our era (“the impulse of Christ”) to modern times, that provides insight into many themes with which the author had dealt earlier (Wagner, Theosophy, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Symbolism, etc.). But he presents them in a special anthroposophic arrangement.

In the chapter “The Eighteenth Century” (Bely 2020c, pp. 48–58), a short but concise survey of the history of music from medieval times to the first third of the nineteenth century is given. This chapter follows two chapters containing an analysis of Renaissance painting, the description of seventeenth-century new science and before the chapter about the “3rd Social Class” (about the French Revolution and Napoleon). In that very chapter, “The Eighteenth Century”, a musical survey is placed between the general characteristics of the spirit of the century and the characteristics of Pre-Romanticism.

The significance of music in the historical part of the treatise is given by the application of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy toward world culture.

Bely proceeds from the spiritual idea about the seven “parts” of man.

The physical, ethereal, and astral constitute the first three parts of his bodies; the fourth constituent is the soul; then, there are three forms of the spirit: Manas, Buddhi, and Atma.

The seven phases of human spiritual evolution correspond to the seven “parts” of man.

In 1928, Bely wrote a lengthy letter to an old acquaintance of his, a literary man and philosopher Peter Pertzov (“Answer to P. P. Pertzov”), that can be justly called a summary of HFSS. “Answer to P. P. Pertzov” includes multiple explanatory diagrams. In particular:

Below is a rhythmical graph ‘7 phases’ (in anything) (Figure 1).

This diagram illustrates vertically the seven “parts” of man and horizontally the seven phases of evolution.

At the beginning three bodies are formed, in the (Old-) Persian epoch, which must be distinguished from historical Persia in which the last (astral) body is formed; the fourth phase (from the Egyptian–Chaldean epoch to the modern times) is the time when the soul was formed. As a matter of fact, “self” must be correctly calculated from the “man with a soul”; that is why the development of the “self” begins with the fourth phase.

Therefore, the things happening with a man up to the fourth phase are pre-conscious (preliminary conscious). The development does not know any crises, and the line in the graph is steadily rising. On the contrary, starting with the fourth phase, the upward movement is interrupted; each one is “lower” and more dangerous than the previous one. Finding Manas (the fifth phase) is attained by way of a certain return to and “transfiguring” of the astral body (the third phase); the capability for Buddhi (the sixth phase) is attained with transfiguring of the ethereal body (the second phase); the ability for Atma (the seventh phase) through transfiguring of the physical body (the first phase); then the final. There are no further crises planned.

HFSS is an attempt to interpret the history of culture with the help of the rhythmical graph “7 phases”, which is also represented by the drawing in “The Answer to P. P. Pertzov”.

My brief hint to the 600-page essay is an attempt to develop the same theme as the rhythm of history.

The second diagram (Figure 2) repeats the first one: the seven “parts” of man are represented vertically and the seven phases of evolution are represented horizontally. But the first diagram demonstrates the application of the rhythmical graph “in anything”, and the second one demonstrates a particular application to the history of culture.

Now there is the subject, undergoing a developmental stage according to the “graph of history” and one single person, and the whole humankind; therefore, there are seven phases, these being seven cultural epochs in which the corresponding “parts” dominate. Along with this, it is necessary to take into account that the fourth “part” of man, which is his soul, which in its turn includes all the three parts: the sentient soul (the 3rd phase in the graph), which was formed in the Egyptian–Chaldean epoch; the intellectual soul (phase 4, the Latin and Greek epoch) and the self-conscious or consciousness soul (phase 5; in the drawing it is denoted as “our time”).

During the epoch of the intellectual soul, the self-conscious soul goes through a genesis and formation process: the highest point of development of the self-conscious soul is the Renaissance. The epoch of the self-conscious soul is the last “soul-like” epoch and then a long transition to the spiritual phases starts.

Up to the Renaissance is the past of humankind; since the Renaissance, “our time” starts to be calculated. It is characterized by the critical rupture, when the self-conscious soul descends from the sphere of the soul passing the phases of the intellectual soul and sentient soul to meet with the astral body. The chronological limit of the historical fall in the drawing is “the twentieth century”.

From this perspective, “our time” is catastrophic and it can provoke some pessimistic expectations, but Andrei Bely calls upon us not to lose heart. In fact, the “graph of history” predicts the future. After the catastrophes of “the twentieth century” the graph must rise again: to the future breakthrough into the “spiritual man”, to Manas, then to Buddhi and then the final Atma phase will come.

According to HFSS, clashes of “our time” are rooted in the transfiguring of the astral body, which is undertaken by the self-conscious soul of humankind. But according to the historiosophic drawing of the treatise, in order to get to the astral body, the self-conscious soul has to “process” its lower souls—first the intellectual and then the sentient one. Bely goes into detail about this “processing” in HFSS, which suggests a new interpretational approach to music.

In this significant period the schism of the eighteenth century, a new factor of cultural development is revealed in the very division of the soul itself, which is the driver of the culture of the next decades, the result, on the one hand, of the Arimanization <here: spiritual degradation—M. O., M. S.> of culture, on the other hand—of revealing in a new form of the self-conscious soul allowing it to be the core of the so to speak normal descent to work on the soul of senses; and further on the bodies, and to mold out of them the symbols of the self-conscious soul in the symbols of purely cosmic emotions of the leitmotiv of “Self”, as the theme of an individual in variations.

(Bely 2020c, p. 52)5

From the point of view of Historiosophy, the self-conscious soul, having reached its peak—in painting and the Renaissance—starts the catastrophic but necessary movement “downward.” The self-conscious soul “processes” the intellectual soul which gives a start to seventeenth century new science and sets out for the downward movement for the “work on the soul for senses”. If the processing of the intellectual soul is a science, then the one for the sentient soul is musical art.

The spiritual significance of music in HFSS is so great that the most important attribute of the self-conscious soul is called by a musical term—“the theme of an individual in variations.” Here the “theme” itself and its “variations” are connected with the formal musical discourse and “an individual in variations”—with the spiritual discourse pointing at the mystically multi dimensional realization of humans. Bely continues:

“Music”—here is what broke away in the consciousness of many into the shaping vacuum of a soul split, <…> and this was—at the moment of humankind’s standing far from anything heavenly; what I mean here is the music of Bach that could be heard in the eighteenth century. The somehow misunderstood idea of an individual started to realize itself in a different way in music. It appeared as a church of individuals, as the whole complex of parts; as a whole, or “Self” of self-consciousness, decomposing the spectrum of its states of consciousness in the composition of theme variations in time; “individual” <…>.

The explosion of that wonderful art setting off from the second half of the eighteenth century, certainly followed the history; music so to speak was ripening there for centuries; but—it suddenly became the nerve of the culture.

(Bely 2020c, pp. 52–53)6

Looking at the history of Gregorian Chant to A. Scarlatti (with the help of the specialized literature, for example the two volume General History of Music by Eugenii Braudo, 1922–1930), the HFSS author approaches musical masterpieces:

In the following names—Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Gluck and Beethoven—music comes to us in its new power that had never been seen before, in the new freedom and in the new meaning: as music itself; music before that time in the previous centuries was a fetal life; it is astonishing to us together with the force of creation and fertility of the giants that had conceived us the new music; Haydn gave us 800 pieces (among them 119 symphonies, 84 quartets, 19 masses (liturgies), 22 operas and so on); Mozart—the author of 626 pieces (49 symphonies, 55 concerts, 68 spiritual pieces, 22 sonatas and so on).

(Bely 2020c, p. 54)7

Looking back at the past, Bely describes that place of music in world culture that can be seen clearly in the composition of the treatise:

What can be compared to this explosion of forces? Only the phenomena, accompanying the discovery of fifteenth-sixteenth century Italian painting; and the period of powerful flourishing embraces approximately the same period: about 150 years. Or the appearance of the same number of names that made up the sphere of sciences in the seventeenth-the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The first period corresponds to the birth of the self-conscious soul (the Renaissance); the second one goes hand in hand with the reincarnation of an intellectual sphere of the intellectual soul; the third, musical period, corresponds to the epoch of immersion of the self-conscious soul and its intellect into the sphere of the sentient soul and its treatment; music is the soul that went through the treatment of the intellect <…>.

(Bely 2020c, pp. 54–55)8

Taking a glimpse at the future, Bely rises to the historiosophic level:

Thus, music is becoming the Impulse of Life, the Source of Life<…> music is a blessed Invisible Assistant having descended from Heaven to help people, dying in the fight with Ariman; to some extent it is a visible messenger of the future discoveries of the Christ Impulse, which acts now only concealed and being overpowered by Ariman—in several perceptions of that time.

(Bely 2020c, p. 56)9

As referred to in the commentaries to HFSS, the spirit of Ariman, embodying aggressive materialism, is the main threat to modern humankind, with only the spirituality of the mind (according to R. Steiner, embodied by Michael the Archangel) being able to confront it; “<…> in 1879 a new historical epoch started, standing under the sign of this Archangel”—“an Invisible Assistant” and music—the “visible messenger of future discoveries of the Christ Impulses,” since it foresaw the actions of the Archangel from the eighteenth century onwards (Bely 2020c, pp. 399, 493).

In the near-future—over all the geniuses of the new art, philosophy and science of the end of the eighteenth century—“over them and in them is the Impulse, ‘the spirit of music’” (Bely 2020c, p. 58). That very same “spirit of music” that was mentioned in the article “The Forms of Art”.

Analyzing Romanticism of the nineteenth century, Bely describes the portraits of three composers—F. Schubert, R. Schumann, and F. Chopin (“The Nineteenth Century”—Bely 2020c, pp. 64–73). Closer to the end of the historical section of HFSS, he devotes a special chapter to R. Wagner (between “Theosophy” and the chapters about Russian literature—Bely 2020c, pp. 146–54).

Following the treatise’s logic, the works of Wagner summarize the history of musical art. On the historiosophic level, it means that if Wagner’s great predecessors expressed the “work” of the self-conscious soul on the sentient soul, then Wagner reflected the next stage—“work” on the astral body. On the level of art, Wagner’s experimental innovation can be explained by immerging into the material (bodily) sphere: rejection of pure music for the sake of total use of leitmotives. But descent into the sphere of the astral body is in the long run the beginning of ascension to the Manas’ spiritual sphere. On the level of art, it leads to a paradoxical (but not antinomical) result: on the one hand, “in the music of Wagner music trying to take off the mask is dying in itself”; on the other hand, “the music is trying to disfigure itself: in the costume of mystery” (Bely 2020c, p. 152). In this way, the meaning of music is not limited by the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, it will help humankind achieve the level of spirit (Manas).

The historical section of HFSS is followed by chapters containing theoretical characteristics of the self-conscious soul. Among them there is a chapter, “The Theme in Variations: Music,” where Andrei Bely writes

The appearance of music as a form of art, the unexpected flourishing of music from Bach to Wagner, from the eighteenth century to the middle of the last century, first precedes the descent of the self-conscious soul into the world of the sentient soul; after that, it accompanies it <…>.

(Bely 2020c, p. 300)10

According to the historiosophic diagram of HFSS, “the appearance of music” as an art—after architecture, literature, and painting—signifies a rather mature phase of world cultural development connected with the domination of the self-conscious soul. Together with this, music reflects its “transfiguring” (“processing”) of the two lower souls, signifying a kind of descent: from the intellectual soul (it “first precedes the descent”) to the sentient soul (it “accompanies” the descent), and to the lower one—into the sphere of the astral body. This in its turn will paradoxically turn out to become the condition of the future ascension—into the sphere of the spirit (Manas):

The meaning of the descent of the self-conscious soul into the lower-lying spheres, into “the souls” that preceded it, and through them into the astral body, is in the development of “spirit” in the soul; the more intensely the soul drives into its “depths,” with the correct rhythm of its driving, the closer it is to the “spirit”; the “spirit” of the soul is struck by a spark in friction, in processing, in effort; that’s why what music wordlessly sings to us is closer to the spirit than what colors, metaphors, and concepts tell us; their “spirit” is still a spirit so to speak, a spirit: the allegory of the spirit; “the spirit” of music—it’s a real embryon given to us under the rhythmical membrane of the Spirit in its direct sense <…>.

(Bely 2020c, p. 300)11

On the one hand, music manifests the deeper spiritual fall; on the other hand, it “is closer to the spirit than what paints, verbal metaphors, notions tell us”: “the spirit” of music is already a “real embryo given to us under the rhythmical membrane of the Spirit in its direct sense” (Bely 2020c, p. 300).

Such is music in view of the spiritual future. Retrospectively, music, originated by the passage of the spheres of the intellectual and sentient soul, is the result of the “reprocessing” of a sentient and “formally logical sense”, which merge into a new entity with the “soldering of the two souls by the third soul” (Bely 2020c, p. 301).

At last, taking into account the fact that formally music is “a theme in variations”, and “a theme in variations” is the attribute of the self-conscious soul, the author of HFSS obtains the right to finish the theoretical chapter with the words

Here are the contents of the song sung to the music: the personalities given to me by counterpoint are to be folded like in a portrait gallery of the same “self” having turned the thorns of death into the wreath of seasons-roses; that is what the music is about: the theme in variations, the theme of deep recognitions of the self-conscious soul.

(Bely 2020c, p. 302)12

Summing it up preliminarily, according to HFSS, music as a form of art synthesizes two opposites—rationality and emotionality; music manifests a high degree of development of a human and humankind conditioned by domination of the self-conscious soul; and music symbolizes the dangerous descent into the abyss, and together with this it is the art which stands the closest to spiritual heights.

It is evident that Andrei Bely’s antinomical understanding of music was transformed into a structure which is extremely complicated, but consistent. That is why the author of HFSS does not apply the word “antinomy” to music, but he extensively uses another musical term “counterpoint”. According to the specialists’ definition, a counterpoint in music is “the simultaneous playing of two or more themes (melodies) that were played apart before” (Gerver 2001, p. 121), whereas the word “antinomy” pointed at some irreconcilable conflicts; on the contrary a “counterpoint”—on the ideological level—introduces these clashes into the frame of a single structure of a system, thus reconciling them.

Andrei Bely, in the “Preface” to The Fourth Symphony (1908), claimed the artistic significance of counterpoint in his artistic texts (Bely 2014, p. 201; cf.: Janecek 1974, p. 502; Gerver 2001, pp. 119–29), but in the HFSS “counterpoint” is the key to the whole ideological construct. In this respect, “counterpoint” turns out to be among the terms like “theme in variations”, as well as with the third term “polyphony” (used independently of M. Bakhtin), which is less frequent in the treatise and can be used predominantly in the musical sense (chapter “The Eighteenth Century”). However, in the chapter “Anthroposophy” Andrei Bely uses all three terms to characterize Steiner’s doctrine, and this chapter is the final one:

<…> polyphony, variation and counterpoint are manifested in the touch of anthroposophy to any cultural phenomenon; it <anthroposophy—M. O., M. S.> is not a doctrine at all; it is counterpoint, it is the rhythm of counterpoint, or the spirit of living music, splashed into a dry, non-musical sphere. <…>.

(Bely 2020c, p. 371)13

Finally, when in the memoirs On the Border of the Two Centuries (1930), the writer tried retrospectively to explain the contradictions between his articles of the 1900s, insisting on the inner consistency of his way; he resorted to the very term “counterpoint”:

<…> the doctrine that is the closest to me is the counterpoint problem, dialectics of some kind of methodical frames in the sphere of the whole; each one being as a method of a plane, or as a projection of space on a plane, conditionally defended by myself; and denied where it is stabilized in a dogma; I did not have the dogma for I am a Symbolist rather than a Dogmatist. I learned from music rhythmical gestures and dancing of thought rather than plodding away under the sclerotic yoke of the Scrolls.

(Bely 1989b, p. 196)14

The multilevel meaning of music for the creative system of Andrei Bely is clearly illustrated by how the writer used Mikhail Glinka’s romance “It is so sweet to be with you” («Как сладкo с тoбoю мне быть», 1843; words by Peter Ryndin, the composer’s friend).

In the chapter “The Eighteenth Century” of HFSS, the name of Mikhail Glinka was mentioned:

And the musical fountain bursts into the nineteenth century as a growing and strengthening hush. overwhelming its first half; that century is ushered in by Beethoven’s creative work growing <…>; followed by a list of names: Weber (1786–1826), Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864), Schubert (1797–1828), Liszt (1811–1886), Wagner (1813–1883), Brahms (1833–1897), Bruckner (1824–1896) which is only for Germany; Auber, Halévy, Berlioz, Chopin, César Franck—for France; Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini—for Italy; and the greatest genius Glinka appeared in Russia.

(Bely 2020c, pp. 54–55)15

As can be seen, Glinka’s name on this list of musical stars is paid special attention: he is the only Russian composer (neither here, nor further in this treatise are mentioned Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov or Pyotr Tchaikovsky) and the only world composer who is “the greatest genius”.

Glinka’s genius is not justified in any way, but thanks to this unexpected definition, we see the multilevel significance of music for Andrei Bely’s creative system.

The estimation of Glinka as “the greatest genius” must be taken as rather unusual for the first third of the twentieth century (Raku 2014, pp. 452, 454). Moreover, literary and biographical sources tell us Bely was truly enchanted during his life by Glinka’s music, judged not by operas and other serious forms, but by romances.

A very typical example is the romance “The Doubt” (1838; words by Nestor Kukolnik), which we encounter in Bely’s Symphony The Chalice of Blizzards (1908) (Bely 1991, p. 356; cf., the almost musical juxtaposition in the symphony of the verbal theme of Glinka—Kukolnik with a theme of the church service: Gerver 2001, pp. 130–31).

Apart from this, Bely often quoted “The Doubt” with an open irony as a means of ironical social–psychological characteristics. Thus, in his memoirs, the synopsis of D. Merezhkovsky is perceived by Moscow professors as anti-scholarly—“as a frivolous romance “Chill out, the Passions” <“The Doubt”—M. O., M. S.>” (Bely 1990b, p. 201).

The ambivalent function of the romance “The Doubt” is explained by its popularity with a wide audience. Like “The Doubt,” the romance “It is so sweet to be with you” is also a piece of mass culture: in the third symphony The Return (1905) it is sung by “the resort dwellers” (Bely 1991, p. 244).

However, in Bely’s system, “It’s so sweet to be here with you” is not just a famous romance, characterizing the epoch, but an image full of meaning (musical as well as poetical), symbolizing an understanding of the world and the personal feelings of the author.

In the article “The Singer”, Bely placed the performance of a popular song—the very romance “It’s so sweet to be here with you” (the last couplet is quoted)—in line together with extremely popular texts for the Symbolists (M. Lermontov, Vladimir Solovyov, and A. Blok): “<…> only after a long number of years, the meaning of Glinka’s romance is growing in our minds’ eye” (Bely 2020a, p. 4).

In spite of the name of Olenina-d’Alheim being inseparably linked with “It’s so sweet to be here with you”, Andrei Bely retrospectively started “his” story of the romance not with the article “The Singer,” but rather with a merry “Club of Argonauts”—with the beautiful voice of his friend Anna Vladimirova, who sang the Glinka romance (Bely 1990a, p. 38). A few years later, in 1906 when, according to Liubov Blok’s memoirs, “Borya” turned her head, “as the most experienced Don Juan, although he had never been one”, he together with other things spoke “in the way of the most romantic songs—he brought Glinka’s romances (“It’s so sweet to be here with you”, “Chill out, Passions” and other things like that)” (Blok 2000, pp. 84–85).

In Bely’s early works, the romance resounded with important allusions that have long been mentioned by the experts (Bely 1989b, p. 485—Notes by A. Lavrov): the third symphony The Return, “The Story No 2” (From the Notes of an Official), the story “We are Waiting for His Return”. The example from The Third Symphony that has already been mentioned refers to the social–psychological type, but in the other two stories the allusions are meant to resolve the tasks of a Symbolists’ writing.

The story “We are Waiting for His Return” (which goes back to “The Story No 1” 1901)—the work of “pure mood” (Lavrov 1995, p. 80)—tells about “we” (a brother and a sister) who are visited in their mansion by a mysterious “he,” working on a comprehensive work, Purposes and Methods of Synthetical Philosophy.

The visit was very brief: the visitor left and died soon after that, “the unfinished work” was published, and the storyteller went to his grave. But before that, when he had stayed with “we”—“the sister took his wide hand. She took it and kissed it saying: ‘Let the heart drown in rapture at the sight of you’ <“The Doubt”—M. O., M. S.>” (Bely 1991, p. 476).

The characters of the story “were sweetly tortured by the unsaid”: a possible clue of the “unsaid” lies in the fact that the character of the visitor was strongly reminiscent of Vladimir Solovyov (Lavrov 1995, pp. 80–82), and the key words of the romance “the way”, “unattainable happiness”, “rapture” are of the Symbolists’ hopes, inspired by the philosopher–prophet.

“The Story No 2 (From the Notes of an Official)” was written in 1902, but it was first published by A. Lavrov only in 1981. “The Official”—the story-teller —is intentionally distanced from the author; however, Bely’s worries caused by his feelings for Margarita Morozova, with whom the young writer was having a really exalted, but anonymous epistolary relationship, are reflected in his character (Lavrov 1995, pp. 83–84).

The story—as is usually the case with Symbolists—represents the conflict of two worlds: “And I was thinking about being a Noumenon, looking at the world and being reflected in the mirror where I was … taking the shape of the prime cause… And there were a lot of people, and they were different, but the prime cause was the same one” (Bely 1991, p. 486). The character feeling unspoken love for “her” can naturally encounter other mystical signs, true and false ones, among them—his own double—“the prime cause”: “It is that he was a lot more brilliant than me; and his eyes were deeper, because although he was me, he dwelled in Eternity and I was his random reflection <…>” (Bely 1991, p. 491).

The fantastic scene of meeting with the double was so much intertwined with the romance, “It’s so sweet to be here with you”, that it includes its full text (which happened only once in Bely’s texts):

I sat at the grand piano and shook the room with a mighty accord and the grand piano was shaking under my fingers. I was singing while looking at my double; he brought a glass of wine to his mouth, but he didn’t drink it, but beheld the golden sunset’s moisture...

At the sunset some golden wine was spilled and it was decaying.

I sang:

•       It’s so sweet to be with you
•       Sinking silently
•       Into the eyes azure blue.
•       All my ardour, all my soul’s passions
•       Speak so much,
•       As the world can never say.
•       My heart is trembling unwillingly
•       At the sight... of you…

<…>

And I sang:

•       I lo-ove loo-oking at you-u...
•       There’s so-o much jo-oy
•       And bliss in your mo-ovements…
•       And I want to put out in vain
•       Impulses of the soul’s agitations
•       And deal with the heart and with the help of reason…
•       The heart does not listen to reason
•       At the sight… of you-u …

The golden wine was decaying in the clots of scarlet. His face shone and seemed silvery-white, his lips were like blood, and his eyes, his eyes were pale-blue, clear like that sky which was laughing at the sunset… And in the sky there was the eternal smile, “her” smile, and it was reflected in the double’s eyes looking at the sky: he had “her” eyes.

And I was singing:

•       Like an unexpected wonderful star
•       The double came before me…
•       And my life was lit…
•       Shine now, show me the way…

And his silver-white face was shining. And then I stood up and stretched my hands to the double who was thoughtfully eyeing the blue eternity. I grabbed the roses in the glass on the table, threw them at my double, and the swallows flying past shrieked so close to us, flying past the balcony …

•       Lead us to the unfamiliar happiness
•       Of the one who never knew hope …
•       And the heart will sink in rapture
•       At the sight …of you …

<…>

And I was explaining to him that “she” did not love me, and that I did not love her… That I loved only him, the double,—myself, because “I” was single in the world <…>

He was standing in the evening dawn over the sleeping city, stretched his hands to the dawn and laughed at “her” greeting… He “also” loved her… He was the same as me… meaning that I, did it mean that I also loved?..

She thought about us… Us and me and my double… To be more exact, about my double living in Eternity… But it was not she who was thinking, but her double living in Eternity… Her blue eyes were sad and shone with pale-blue eternity… She was looking a little surprised, half-laughing…That is why such clear dawns could be seen on the horizon and her anger was fading away as a lonely blueish-black wisp of smoke…

At this moment I understood that if we were not in love with each other, our doubles were in love with each other, meeting somewhere there, beyond space and time… But our doubles lived in Eternity and we were just reflections… That is why we will love each other when we meet there beyond death…

<…>

And I understood that the double had come on purpose. He came to show me the way. He was shining like a star and he seemed snowy-silver. And I understood…

He was stretching his hands where “she” was smiling in the dawns and whispering in a voice barely above a whisper:

•       As an unexpected wonderful star
•       You came before me,
•       And my life was lit…
•       So shine on, show me the way…
•       Lead me to the unaccustomed happiness
•       Of the one who knew no hope…
•       And the heart will sink in rapture
•       At the sight… of you…

Over the houses a dazzling star was shining on the pale-blue enamel.

(Bely 1991, pp. 491–94)16

Quoting the romance, Bely marked its melodious form graphically; he mentioned the words about “unusual happiness”, although meaningfully—but with a clear purpose he substituted the lines of Ryndin: “You came before me/And lit my life” with “The double came before me…/And my life was lit…”.

The scene from “Story № 2” finishes years later. Everything has changed; the character has settled down:

<…> Not long ago we happened to be with “her” in one society … “She was so dear to me, as the pale-orange spring sunsets… and the fragrance of flowers… <…> Somewhere in the next-door room some familiar singing was heard.

•       Like an unexpected wonderful star
•       You came before me
•       And lit my life…

I was looking at her with a secret delight, and she was reading this delight, and she wasn’t feeling uneasy, but a little ashamed and sad… And she blushing a little, interfered with our conversation to stop her uneasy silence, and her lovely voice like some heavenly music resonated in my ears…

And, delighted, I came up to the window, and there was a pink morning dawn in the window, and over it the sky was pale-green, spring-like with a silver star…

And somebody was singing in the next room:

•       Shine on, show me the way,
•       Lead to the unattainable happiness
•       Of the one who knew no hope,
•       And the heart will sink in rapture
•       At the sight …of you …

The dawn was burning into ….

(Bely 1991, p. 497)17

In general, the character is happy, but “the dawn was burning into”: the two-world worries are expressed by the romance of Glinka again.

Therefore, in both early stories, the allusions to the romance “It is so sweet to be with you” are reduced not to social–psychological characteristics, but symbolize the intimate levels of being.

The specific address to the romance “It is so sweet to be here with you” in the late memoirs of Bely is connected with Maria Olenina-d’Alheim, but unlike the article “The Singer” it acquires another function, an intimate one: the musical symbolization of Bely’s relationships with Asya Turgeneva.

In the second half of the 1900s, Bely became a devotee of the famous singer and he even entered her close circle, took part in cultural events which Olenina organized together with her husband Pierre d’Alheim and met her niece, Asya Turgeneva. The biographical falling in love in the spring of 1909 turns to be connected with the singer’s image (Between Two Revolutions, 1934):

On the day of my return to Moscow there was Olenina’s concert; I remember, she, wearing a white dress, with a rose pinned to the open-breasted dress with an immense power was singing:

•       Shine on, show me the way,
•       Lead to the unattainable happiness
•       Of the one who knew no hope.

The program of the concert must have been designed by d’Alheim; and, he definitely had meant it for me and for Asya; he constantly sprang surprises for his close friends; and he included into his wife’s program those romances that, according to his view, were likely to correspond with their state of mind.

(Bely 1990a, p. 327)18

Summing up, Bely gave himself up to the “spring of relationship” with Asya; Olenina was singing at the concert “It is so sweet to be with you”; and now this is the blessing gesture produced by the romantic Baron d’Alheim. The key words, “the way”, “unattainable happiness”, are placed in a deeply intimate context.

In the second volume of the novel Moscow (Masks, 1932) the romance “It is so sweet to be with you” arranges the scene of reconciliation of the evil-doer, abuser Mandro, with his daughter—the victim Lizasha. Professor Korobkin, at the end of the piece, having also reconciled with his torturer Mandro, nobly brings him to Lizasha to restore their former tender relationship. At the meeting, it turns out that the abuser and the victim—Mandro and Lizasha, despite years of separation, love each other the same way: “The heart sinks in rapture at the sight of him <...>» (Bely 1989a, p. 730). Lizasha’s feelings for her father were stirred up in her soul with the help of Glinka’s romance. In a counter-impulse, Mandro seemingly takes up the musical theme that sounded in his daughter’s soul:

– I… I… only now came to understand, Lizasha… Khi-kho,—like a crow he was cawing into the ragged carpet,—I understood…—how sweet it is to be with you,—

   – he remained silent!

And he clutched his heart in the sick and tearful delight that overwhelmed him.

(Bely 1989a, p. 730)19

Introducing into the scene of the final reconciliation between Mandro and Lizasha the allusion to Glinka’s romance—which is the leitmotive of the early, still-harmonious relationship with Asya, – Bely, of course, is far from offering a psychological characterization of the heroes. It seems that he is again talking about his love for Asya (Spivak 2020, p. 291).

Finally, the romance “It is so sweet to be with you” emerges again in a new function in the rather extravagant Material for a Biography (Intimate) (1923–1924). In particular, expressing his infinite admiration for Rudolf Steiner’s wife—Marie Sievers—Bely writes

<…> she became everything for me at once: a sister, a mother, a friend and a symbol of Sophia; her leitmotif in my soul evoked a sound in me, condensed by the words:

•       Shine on, show me the way,
•       Lead me to the unattainable happiness
•       Of the one who knew no hope.
•       And the heart will sink in rapture
•       At the sight of you…

It goes without saying in this inexplicable idolization of M. S. the key-notes of “love” did not sound; and still: her image was for me the image of Sophia <…>.

(Bely 2016, p. 193)20

That is when the associative field of the Glinka—Ryndin romance rises and expands up to Sophia which, on the one hand, manifests a new anthroposophic stage of Bely’s outlook, and on the other, strangely rhymes with the initial article “The Singer”.

In conclusion, we cannot but mention the evidence of Klavdia Bugaeva—wife, true friend, and a connoisseur of her beloved husband’s heritage. This is the true navigator in the system of Bely’s allusions:

For B. N. <Boris Nikolaevich—Andrei Bely—M. O., M. S.> many of his states of mind, sometimes even periods of life, were connected with the words of his favorite poets or with the themes of musical pieces.

He found in this way something like the outer condensed formula for the things that he would find hard and too long to express with his own words.

We cannot enumerate and reveal all these original formulas. It would require one to retell almost the whole biography of B. N. Here were Pushkin, Goethe, Baratynsky, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Vl. Solovyov, Delvig, Glinka, Schubert, Schumann and the whole list of just romances or songs that hardly have an author.

I will name three of them.

In “Shine on” <“It is so sweet to be with you”—M. O., M. S.> there was an appeal to the powers of light, there was a breath of young hopes, a belief in happiness, in the light of the dawns, in the waves of music, in the fire of inspiration. It was always lit as “the Invincible Star” over the confusing calling “to perish” <…>.

But then the fight had not finished yet. And it seemed that from the first moments, when consciousness awoke, and to his last days the fatal question was being solved in him; and his soul was the arena of the struggle. As if on the scales all his life were: love or perish… And the scales were tipped.

But, ultimately, love was the winner.

(Bugaeva 2001, pp. 100–3)21

So in the works of Andrei Bely, as well as other representatives of the “Silver Age,” music played an important role, but its perception had an ambivalent character. On the one hand, the writer connected his worldview hopes with music; on the other hand, he reacted to the emotional power of its influence with a degree of distrust. At the beginning, Bely pinpointed his ambivalent perception of music with the help of the philosophical term “antinomy,” then he harmonized it with the help of musical terms (“theme in variations,” “counterpoint”). At the same time, these terms. having originated in music. contributed to the formation of his philosophical and mystical concept (HFSS). Accordingly, the romance “It is so sweet to be with you” by Mikhail Glinka (called in HFSS “the greatest genius”) contained in Andrei Bely’s texts the message of a wide spectrum: from almost “pre-literate” expression to pure meditation.