R. Tagore’s lyrics in composers’ interpretations: an attempt at comparative analysis

Abstract

Statement of the problem. After receiving the Nobel Prize in 1912 Rabindranath Tagore faced enormous popularity among Western composers. Their attention was mainly drawn to his two collections of poems – “Gitanjali” and “The Gardener”, which were translations from Bengali made by Tagore himself and published in 1912 and 1913 respectively. Interestingly, these poetry books were soon translated into a number of European languages, among which – French, Spanish, German and Italian. These translations were used by hundreds of composers who represented different national schools. In some cases, a number of different composers chose the same poem, which gives us an opportunity to compare their ways to interpret Tagore’s text. This make it possible to better understand both, the individual vectors of composer creativity, and the possible common or different tendencies in the interpretation of the poetic primary source. In this paper, we analyse and compare three songs, written by Franco Alfano, Karol Szymanowski and Alexander von Zemlinsky to the text of the poem № 7 “Mother, the young prince…” from Tagore’s “The Gardener”. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to determine the peculiarities of musical interpretations of R. Tagore’s poem by named authors focusing on the compositional, intonation and figurative-emotional aspects, for which the methods of comparative, semantic, genre and stylistic, structural and compositional analysis are involved. Attempts to make such a comparison have not been made previously. Results and conclusion. The first song from “Three Poems by Tagore” (“Tre poemi di Tagore”) by F. Alfano, the second and third numbers of “Four Songs” op. 41 by K. Szymanowski and the second part of the “Lyric Symphony” op. 18 by A. Zemlinsky were compared. It was found that all compositions show bright stylistic differences (late romantic, impressionistic, expressionistic musical complexes), along with conceptual ones, taking into account genre conditions (chamber-vocal and vocal-symphonic models). There are certain common features between the tempo solutions by F. Alfano and A. Zemlinsky, however, these solutions are aimed at different interpretations of the poetical text. The two-stage dramaturgical development laid down in R. Tagore’s text is shown most clearly in K. Szymanowski’s cycle, where the plot of the poem is embodied in two songs instead of one, with obvious tempo contrast between them. While in the impressionistic song by F. Alfano, the image of a young girl captivated by her own feelings in a state of awe-inspiring anticipation appears before us, K. Szymanowski’s music written in line with expressionist tendencies, emphasizes mournful and tragic moods and sounds almost “otherworldly”. In A. Zemlinsky’s late romantic genre concept, R. Tagore’s poem becomes the basis of a vocal-symphonic scherzo with a tragic and philosophical undertone. Taking into account these differences, we will also note an interesting common typological tendency, which is visible in a kind of “portrait of a girl with a necklace”: a departure from the usual romantic musical oriental complex, despite the “exoticism” of R. Tagore’s works.