Information about the author:
Dina M. Magomedova
Dina M. Magomedova, DSc in Philology, Leading Researcher, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25А, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia; Professor at the Department of Russian literature, Russian State University of Humanities, Miusskaya Sq., 6, 125047, Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5299-3361
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Abstract:
This article examines the evolution of the concept of music in the works of M. Kuzmin as part of the general context of Russian Symbolist theory. A professional musician, Kuzmin, like all other Symbolists, began with the cult of Richard Wagner in the 1900s. However, there was always a second cult figure in his creative consciousness, to which most symbolists were indifferent — W.A. Mozart. From the second half of the 1910s, Kuzmin increasingly contrasted these composers, casting his preference for Mozart. In so doing, Kuzmin made an aesthetic and even ideological choice between two different artistic worlds. In 1924, he translated Mozart’s mystery opera “The Magic Flute” into Russian. In the article, the mystery plot of redemption in Wagner’s musical drama “Parsifal” is compared with the mystery of initiation as a personal choice in Mozart’s opera. It is argued that M. Kuzmin created an alternative concept of music in the theory of Russian Symbolism.