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Abstract:

The present bibliographic list is the most comprehensive working material to date for an alphabetical bibliography of publications of musical works written on the words of Zinaida Gippius. Based on the works of Aleksey Ikonnikov, Mark Gekhtman, Marina Lobanova, Elena Lobanova and Armen Gevorkyan, it covers the period from 1906 to 1996 and includes the names of five composers: Vsevolod Bagadurov, Lev Drizo, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Nikolai Roslavets. It gathers data from eleven editions and six republications; three of these seventeen publications are produced abroad. The list and the preamble which introduces it show that the lyrics of thirty poems by Gippius, published for the first time in Russia, were set to music, and that, at the present time, no musical piece on the verses emerged in exile was found. The use of the same Gippius’ poems by different composers, as well as uncompleted projects of musical creations on the texts of the writer, their story being related in the preamble, are noted facts of particular value for the study of personal and artistic relationships between musicians-composers and the literary environment. The number and varied craftsmanship (from the correct syllabic tonic to free verse) of Gippius’ poems, chosen or noticed by the finest Russian musical avant-garde, serve to a certain extend as a refutation of the myth of the “non-musicality” of both her texts and the poetess herself.