The film music by Boris Tchaikovsky: “Timbral optics” and “Visual acoustics”
Abstract
There is something inexplicable in the fact that the film music of the greatest Russian composer of the 20th century, Boris Alexandrovich Tchaikovsky (1925–1996), hasn’t yet
been seriously analyzed – not only as a part of his multifaceted legacy, but also as one
of the very meaningful pages in the history of music and cinematography. The entire “literature” about the film music of the artist is limited with several synoptical essays (sometimes
with gross factual errors and incredible contextual comparisons). But after all he, together
with S. Prokofiev, D. Shostakovich, G. Popov, definitively changed the status of music
in the Russian cinematography. It is unlikely that this gap, incomprehensible to any professional, aesthetic and moral logic, can be explained only by the fact that the composer
imposed a strict ban on the making the studies devoted to his life and work during his lifetime.
He was the only composer in the country awarded with the title of People’s Artist of the USSR
and the USSR State Prize, who refused official appraisal, although supposed chroniclers
and various interviewers always surrounded him. The need for a phenomenological understanding of musical and cinematographic logic of Boris Tchaikovsky became evident after
the completion by the article’s author the first monographic study of all the orchestral scores
of the composer. B. Tchaikovsky knew cinema very well, he appreciated the unique features
of the cinematography, used its expressive possibilities in his symphonic and chamber music
in his original way. The composer created a gallery of vivid images in the film music beloved
by millions, although many don’t realize its authorship. The poetics of B. Tchaikovsky’s film
music raises a number of issues primary to the holistic understanding of the composer’s style:
the role of music and the sound-timbre palette in the process of film-making; the “optical”
properties of musical timbres, acoustic images as visual projections; the typology of timbral
extension and cinematographic chronos; the linking of musical and visual plasticity, and
others. For the first time are published the judgments of B. Tchaikovsky revealing some of his
views on the essence of music in cinematography and the peculiarities of the interaction
between the composer and the director. As the main analytical material are used such outstanding films like “Seryozha” by G. Danelia, “Burn, O Burn, my Star” by A. Mitta, “French
Lessons” and “A Raw Youth” by E. Tashkov, “Aibolit-66” by R. Bykov, “The Marriage
of Balzaminov” by K. Voinov and others.
Keywords
B. Tchaikovsky, Soviet cinema, film music, timbral poetics, G. Danelia, I. Talankin,
R. Bykov, E. Tashkov, K. Voinov, A. Mitta, Yuli Fajt.
For citation
Abdokov Y.B. The film music by Boris Tchaikovsky: “Timbral optics” and “Visual acoustics”. In: Theatre. Fine Arts. Cinema. Music. 2022, no. 2, pp. 104–139.
DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2022-2-104-139
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Received: 16.02.2022
Revised: 25.04.2022
Accepted: 29.04.2022