Die Lieder des Mirza-Schaffy op. 34 von Anton Rubinstein: Zwischen Folklorismus, Orientalismus und Nationalismus

Abstract

The stylistic versatility of Anton Rubinstein’s compositional oeuvre has often been a cause for controversy and misunderstanding. Its western European reception as a paradigm of exotic Russian national art contrasted sharply from the view propagated in Russia, largely dominated by the Stasov-influenced national school, which stigmatized it throughout the twentieth century as “alien” (ausländisch), a view also applied to the interpretation and reception of Rubinstein’s Twelve Songs from Mirza Schaffy Op. 34. Based on Friedrich Bodenstedt’s German translation, this cycle is purported to have been inspired by numerous aesthetic sources, from Moldavian folklore to Glinka’s traditionalist school. Within Azerbaijani literary criticism, Mirza Schaffy was revered as the nation’s greatest author and thinker, while Soviet musicology considered the songs’ oriental style as typical of nineteenth-century Russian music, specifically the aesthetics of Balakirev’s circle. In fact, the cycle is a reflection of the emerging oriental vogue in German art song at that time. Within this context, their reception serves as an instructive example of the types of strains and contortions bordering on the absurd employed for the constructs of musical nationalism.