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Eurasia Past and Present
Nietzsche's Orphans: Music, Metaphysics, and the Twilight of the Russian Empire
A prevailing belief among Russia’s cultural elite in the early twentieth century was that the music of composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Aleksandr Scriabin, and Nikolai Medtner could forge a shared identity for the Russian people across social and economic divides. In this illuminating study of competing artistic and ideological visions at the close of Russia’s “Silver Age,” author Rebecca Mitchell interweaves cultural history, music, and philosophy to explore how “Nietzsche’s orphans” strove to find in music a means to overcome the disunity of modern life in the final tumultuous years before World War I and the Communist Revolution.
- GenresPhilosophyMusicHistory
335 pages, Hardcover
First published November 24, 2015
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About the author
Rebecca Mitchell
244 books3 followersNarrator Rebecca Mitchell is a performance artist and classically trained vocalist, as well as a professional host, emcee, and personality. Her natural flare for the dramatic, coupled with her love of being in the studio, brought her to the world of narrating in 2013.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 28, 2019
As noted in the synopsis, Nietsche's orphans comprised an educated group of imperial Russian intellectuals, philosophers, musicians, and wealthy patrons, who believed in the power of music to reunite all segments of society and literally create a new world order based on communality and equality. They derived this from the Nietchean symbolism of "Orpheus returned," the overweening composer genius whose creative energies would bring about this transformation. This was about all they agreed on. The author explores the various ways in which this vision was interpreted and anticipated through the prism of three prominent Russian composers who were hailed by various camps as the new Orpheus: Alexander Scriabin, Nicolai Medtner, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Scriabin was hailed by that party that so liberation in the new musical forms that were challenging the old (and largely German) compositional forms and the western tonal system based on the chromatic scale and the associated major and minor modes that had dominated since the Baroque. Scriabin himself accepted this role wholeheartedly. He proclaimed, and his staunchest acolytes firmly believed, that his climactic work "The Mysteries" would not only bring about the desired reunion and renewal, but the end of the world itself. Take that, Beethoven. Unfortunately, Scriabin's own world ended with blood poisoning in 1915. Nicolai Medtner, the least known of the three, at least in the West, was championed by the conservative element that considered the old musical forms and tonal system to contain eternal truths that Medtner would use to bring about a new salvation. This foundered on Medtner's own distrust in his abilities, and his difficulty with mastering large musical forms. Rachmaninoff was the champion of the most russophile element, who would complete Holy Russia's messianic mission of bringing the world into brotherhood through the creative Slavic spirit. This foundered because Rachmaninoff refused to accept the mantle and followed his own voice, marked by his ingrained pessimism and deep doubt of his abilities.
World War I brought about the final ruin of these grand hopes. The intelligentsia could not reconcile the fact that their worldview was ultimately derived from German philosophy and models, whereas Germany was now the enemy of enemies. Groups splintered along ethnic and theoretical lines, and the Revolution finished the process of disintegration.
To me, it is interesting that of the three musical messiahs, it was Rachmaninoff who is by far the most played and best loved today. I think that it was because he insisted on following his own way, rejecting a program from which he was philosophically and emotionally distant. Perhaps the lesson here is that truly great music, and truly great art, cannot be created to program, especially not program's devised by people as isolated from the real world as Nietsche's orphans. It is interesting that Rachmaninoff was bitterly criticized at the time for his popularity with "the masses," which one would have thought a prerequisite for a reunification of humanity.
Anyway, I have read the book in that light, and the author's intensive research and detail seem to me to provide an illuminating and ultimately tragic picture of the failure of well=intentioned people to direct creativity to their own vision.
Scriabin was hailed by that party that so liberation in the new musical forms that were challenging the old (and largely German) compositional forms and the western tonal system based on the chromatic scale and the associated major and minor modes that had dominated since the Baroque. Scriabin himself accepted this role wholeheartedly. He proclaimed, and his staunchest acolytes firmly believed, that his climactic work "The Mysteries" would not only bring about the desired reunion and renewal, but the end of the world itself. Take that, Beethoven. Unfortunately, Scriabin's own world ended with blood poisoning in 1915. Nicolai Medtner, the least known of the three, at least in the West, was championed by the conservative element that considered the old musical forms and tonal system to contain eternal truths that Medtner would use to bring about a new salvation. This foundered on Medtner's own distrust in his abilities, and his difficulty with mastering large musical forms. Rachmaninoff was the champion of the most russophile element, who would complete Holy Russia's messianic mission of bringing the world into brotherhood through the creative Slavic spirit. This foundered because Rachmaninoff refused to accept the mantle and followed his own voice, marked by his ingrained pessimism and deep doubt of his abilities.
World War I brought about the final ruin of these grand hopes. The intelligentsia could not reconcile the fact that their worldview was ultimately derived from German philosophy and models, whereas Germany was now the enemy of enemies. Groups splintered along ethnic and theoretical lines, and the Revolution finished the process of disintegration.
To me, it is interesting that of the three musical messiahs, it was Rachmaninoff who is by far the most played and best loved today. I think that it was because he insisted on following his own way, rejecting a program from which he was philosophically and emotionally distant. Perhaps the lesson here is that truly great music, and truly great art, cannot be created to program, especially not program's devised by people as isolated from the real world as Nietsche's orphans. It is interesting that Rachmaninoff was bitterly criticized at the time for his popularity with "the masses," which one would have thought a prerequisite for a reunification of humanity.
Anyway, I have read the book in that light, and the author's intensive research and detail seem to me to provide an illuminating and ultimately tragic picture of the failure of well=intentioned people to direct creativity to their own vision.
Displaying 1 of 1 review