«Pictures at an Exhibition» by Modest Mussorgsky: the correlation of melos and colourfulness

Background. The “melos” and “colourfulness” terms are used in various meanings both, in music and fine arts. The ambiguity of these concepts in our time of unlimited possibilities for creative experiment and bold search for new semantic levels, interest in establishing versatile inter-scientific relations allows us to apply innovative analytic methods to the works of art. Among these methods, intermedial inter-disciplinary researches seem to be extremely promising, especially when applied to such traditional, well-established forms of art as academic painting and music. The article uses the innovative method of intermedial research, which consists in attempts to trans-code the elements of the musical semiotic system into a pictorial one and vice versa. B. Asafyev (1987, р. 83) determined the “melos” in music as an abstract notion that unites all the forms of melody and the properties of melodiousness: the qualitative, expressive sides of all kinds of sound correlations as sequences in time. The consistent movement of sounds in a piece of music is called “a line” (for example, a “melodic line”) that gives the reason to see a certain parallel between music and painting. Accordingly, the concept of “melos” in music correlates with the concept of “linearity” (graphics) of a picture. The notion of “colourfulness” was first introduced in the fine arts. The colourfulness is a total of correlations of colour tones, hues, which create a certain unity and are an esthetic reflection of the colour diversity of reality (based on Bilodid, I., 1973, p. 232 and others). In musical science there is no well-established definition of this concept, however, we find such attempts: “Colourfulness [in original –’kolorit’ – translator’s note] (from the Latin ’color’) in music – is the predominant emotional colouring of one or another episode, which is achieved by using various registers, tones, harmonic and other expressive means” (FDSTAR. Electronic music. The site of composers, CJs and DJs). The adjoint concept “colouristics” is used, which is described as follows: “… colouristics – music of subtle and colorful sounds, in which all tones are distinguished (the beginning of the Etude in G sharp minor by Chopin, the scene of the transformation of fishes in the 4th Picture of “Sadko”, bell harmonies by M. P. Mussorgsky, S. V. Rachmaninoff)”(Maklygin, A., 1990, in Musical Encyclopedic Dictionary). The purpose of this article is an attempt to determine the correlation of melos and colourfulness in the musical and fine arts on the example of musical portraits and landscapes from the M. Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” cycle. Research results. The “Pictures at an Exhibition” piano cycle is created under impression of works by Viktor Hartmann, the artist, architect, and designer. The content of the cycle is a vivid example of music and painting interrelation, therefore it gives an occasion to detailed intermedial analysis to understand the melos and colourfulness correlation in the musical pictures. So, the peculiarities of the melos in “The Gnome” are the quick broken zigzag lines, contains brief chromatic motifs, separated by pauses, grace notes and trills. A special role is given to syncopation, which imitate the Gnome’s limping gait. The texture of M. Mussorgsky’s piece – the octave movement in the party of the right and the left hands without a clearly defined accompaniment can be seen as a musical analogy to colourfulness of V. Hartmann’s sketch with its transparent background. Thus, in Mussorgsky’s play “The Gnome”, melos prevails over colourfulness that coincides with the ratio of melos / color in V. Hartmann’s sketch, since the artist gave preference to drawing creating this picture as monochrome one. “The Old Castle” is extremely colourful, as the composer deals great importance to modal, harmonic and textural factors. In general, it can be argued that the composer inherits the ratio of drawing and colouring in the painting by V. Hartmann, embodying the overall emotional and colourful palette of the picture with the help of tonality (“mysterious” G sharp minor) and texture (basso ostinato as an expression of the statics of the massive old building). Melos prevails over colourfulness and expresses the individuality of images in the “Samuel” Goldenberg and “Schmu&amp;#255;le”, the musical portrait based on two paintings by V. Hartmann (“Poor Jew”, “Rich Jew in the Fur Hat”). The melodic (linear) component of the work is represented by two musical themes. The first is a characterization of a rich man, in which ascending intonations are used as a symbol of his high social status, by analogy with the proudly raised head and upward glance in the painting by V. Hartmann. The melodic theme of a poor Jew with a downward motion corresponds with the image of the poor man’s stooped figure. “Colour” of the musical portrait, as in the V. Hartmann’s painting, serves only as a background. In the piece “Catacombs. Roman Tomb”, the colorfulness prevails over the melos, The “gloomy” tonality (B minor) and the figurative textural techniques used by the composer (the sound of the melody against the background of tremolo octaves in high register, which can be compared with flickering lantern light in the darkness of the tomb, also juxtaposition of the fragments of the theme in different registers, creating contrasts of light and darkness), clearly reflect the overall colouring of the painting by V. Hartmann. In the musical portrait “The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba Yaga)” melos prevails over colorfulness, because it is with the help of melodic means that the portrait of a fairy-tale character is depicted, while the coloristic component of the music in this composition corresponds to the sketch of V. Hartman (where the clock in the house’s form depicted) only partially and plays the role of a landscape background (tremolo and triplets in accompaniment performing a coloristic function). “The Bogatyr (Great) Gates (In the Capital in Kiev)” is based on V. Hartmann’s the architectural and painting project of the city gate. Melos of the composition is presented by three contrasting themes. The graphic drawing of some fragments of these themes associatively correlates with the individual elements of the graphics of V. Hartmann’s picture (the peaked line of the passage in the right hand’s party, the tremolo-like figures). The colourfulness of the piece expresses in part by its texture and tone (E Flat Major, according to N. Rimsky Korsakov, the tone of “walls and cities”). In V. Hartmann’s painting, the drawing prevails over colour; however, M. Mussorgsky rethought the melody / colourful ratio in the piece. Melos conveys only some of the features of the drawing, its most important lines, while textural and coloristic musical means reproduce both, the linear side of the image and colouristics as such, that is, the colouristic component dominates. Conclusions. 1. The melos/colourfulness correlation in M. Mussorgsky’s cycle is regulated as follows: melos prevails over colouring in the pieces “The Gnome”, “Samuel” Goldenberg and “Schmu&amp;#255;le, “The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba Yaga)”; colourfulness prevails over melos in “The Old Castle”, “Catacombs. Roman Tomb”, “The Bogatyr Gate in Kyiv”. 2. The melos / colourfulness correlation in the analyzed pieces from M. Mussorgsky’s cycle corresponds with the melos / colourfulness correlation in the respective V. Hartmann’s paintings. The musical portrait of Baba Yaga in “The Hut on Hen”s legs” is an exception: V. Hartman painted the stylized clock as an example of decorative and applied art, but M. Mussorgsky emphasized the reflection of the fairy-tale image; as well as “The Bogatyr Gate”, where colouristics and volume prevail over grafics and planeness of the architectural sketch. 3. The main expressive means of creating a portrait, as a rule, is the melody (melos), and the landscape – tonality, texture, timbre (colourfulness). The intermedial analysis of the above portraits and landscapes from M. Mussorgsky’s piano cycle confirms this concept.