IMPROVISATION VERSUS SPECIALLY WRITTEN MUSIC

By 1911 (in many ways an important year in the history of Russian film music) three different styles of accompaniment began to take shape, each having its own party of supporters and its star performers. I.Khudyakov wrote: ‘A moving picture can be illustrated in three ways: by “ready made” music, by music specially composed for the occasion, or by improvisation.’43 _{The three styles of accompaniment varied in the}

extent to which they had been specifically composed for a particular film.

Improvisation was the middle way between so-called ‘compilation’ (ready-made musical fragments loosely attached to action) and special music. In Russia at the turn of the century the very word ‘improvisation’ had an exciting ring; it invoked the lost paradise of commedia dell’ arte and eighteenth-century musical evenings in aristocratic salons. Konstantin Argamakov, a popular musician and improvisator of the 1910s, who never actually played for films, gave concerts at which he would compose music to themes prompted by the audience. There were famous improvisators in the cinema world as well. I.Khudyakov, for example, whose classification I cited above, was unanimously recognised in Moscow as an incomparable cinema improvisator. As another well-known film musician of the 1910s, Alexander Anoshchenko, recalled:

When he appeared by the screen the piano accompaniment to the picture made such a powerful impression that it became accepted by the more intelligent members of the public as an art in itself. Extremely well-read musically and possessing a good musical memory, Khudyakov compiled an elegant musical and dramatic selection of themes, which he drew upon for his improvisations illustrating the development of a film’s dramatic action.44

The thousand themes mentioned in Khudyakov’s film illustration handbook give a good idea of his musical erudition as a practising accompanist.45 _{However, in spite of Khudyakov’s unchallenged competence in the}

field, his ideas on improvising for cinema met with objections. Improvisation as a method was criticised for a number of disadvantages. First, the technique was not suited to orchestras. The champions of improvisation did not, however, see this as an inconvenience. Khudyakov put the point as follows: ‘Only the individual can create: collective creativity is impossible. Therefore the illustration of film by means of ensembles (orchestras, trios, accompanied voices) is a nonsense.’46 _{Second, although improvisation was}

commonly believed to require some very special skills, in its everyday cinematic application it would often result in the famous ‘tumpety-tumpety’ effect. Third, as opponents of improvisational accompaniment used to point out, in practice the boundaries between improvisation and compilation were blurred (it should be added that it concerns terminology as well: the word ‘improvisation’ was sometimes used as a generic term for any non-orchestral film music). In an article written in 1915, Sabaneyev denied that cinema music was a legitimate form of improvisation at all:

I know some people who warmly welcomed the art of illustrative musical accompaniment, and who assumed that this was a reincarnation of the forgotten art of ‘improvisation’ that flourished in the age of classicism. But this form of improvisation was genuinely artistic, whereas what we have in cinema today is tasteless vamping to film, slick (and not so slick) plagiarism, the art of distorting great works of art. The two are not in the least comparable.47

Surprisingly, Alexander Scriabin, who would be the last person one would suspect of being interested in film music, had something to say about the topic, at least in informal conversation. After his death, his close friend and constant companion, Leonid Sabaneyev, published a book of memoirs in which he reproduced a conversation that took place after one of their improvisation sessions at the composer’s home. Scriabin’s second wife Tatyana was also present:

Scriabin…did not recognise improvisation as an art.

‘Of course, I could earn money at it,’ he joked, ‘I reckon I would make a good cinema improvisator. You know, I have a relative who plays the piano in a cinema on the Arbat—his name is Scriabin as well.’

‘I shouldn’t think they would pay you much, Sasha,’ teased his wife, ‘That relative of yours improvises a lot better than you do… You haven’t really got a gift for it’

‘I just don’t happen to think that there’s any real merit in improvisation or in the ability to improvise,’ replied Scriabin. ‘Every form of creativity rests on planning and thought, and there can be no planning or thought where improvisation is concerned.’

But despite what he said, his works did ultimately spring from a genius for improvisation.48

Usually, those who rejected improvisation were also advocates of music specially written (or pre- programmed) for each specific film. It takes a musicologist to venture into the history of scores composed

for silents. Instead, I will cite more radical ideas that were sounded in favour of refining music machines rather than using the services of composers.

It was Sabaneyev again who kept insisting on a clear-cut, one-to-one relationship between acoustic and visual sequences:

Just as there should be nothing accidental in this mechanical art, so there should be nothing accidental on the musical side either. It should be carefully arranged and strictly timed to coincide with specific moments in the drama; it should also be written down. I think it is just as mechanical as the drama itself. The reproduction of this musical composition should not be left to a single individual with his accidental moods, but should be played by an accompanying instrument that is as mechanical as the cinema itself. Instruments that record sounds and performances already exist— there are all kinds of pianolas and miniolas. Once a film has been shot, once it has recorded all the peripeteia of a drama, it should be ‘mechanically’ combined with the pianola ribbon and both these ribbons should then travel the world together.49

That is how it seemed to a musicologist who had no experience of accompanying films. Although this passage sounds like a manifesto rather than a practical recommendation (mechanical music never became widely used in Russian cinemas), this form of accompaniment was quite feasible even in the 1910s. Sabaneyev’s doctrine was put into practice by the Moscow cinema accompanist Alexander Anoshchenko in a test that, in its own way, predates avant-garde experiments with mechanical music: instead of punching a programme-tape by playing a tune on a ‘master-piano’ with a perforating mechanism attached, Anoshchenko punched the tape by hand, an idea roughly similar to that of ‘drawing’ music straight on to an optical soundtrack:

Once I demonstrated a waltz for Khudyakov that I had composed specially for the phonola or the pianola. The phonola and pianola are mechanisms attached to the keyboard of a grand piano, and a roll of paper ribbon with a perfectly recorded piece of piano music is fed into it. These ribbons could also be made straight from a score without having to be pre-recorded. A couple of levers allowed one to control the mechanism by changing tempo and loudness. The melody flowed in unison, an octave higher than the quiet background, which was formed by many rapidly moving, abrupt sounds, and within this pattern of sound the chords followed one another in smooth succession. Khudyakov, himself a sophisticated musician, liked my composition. He also observed that a human musician could not play it by hand on a piano. I explained my idea of using instruments like this to improve film illustration. Although we had a lot in common as far as our general aesthetic tastes were concerned, on this issue our views differed quite sharply. I dreamed of a musical film drama, constructed in synthesis, with music recorded on ribbon for the automatic piano. Even a pianist with only rudimentary qualifications would be able to ‘conduct’ the instrument and co-ordinate it with the film. In the majority of cinemas this would facilitate both the task of the accompanist and the lot of the audience, who would experience an artistic illustration via the actual sounds of the piano. Khudyakov was quite opposed to this idea, since he subscribed to the aesthetic principles of John Ruskin and William Morris, who did not accept that works of art could be produced by machines. Accordingly, Khudyakov held that a cinema picture was merely the shadow of an art that only came to life artistically thanks to the creativity of the musician accompanying the picture. Khudyakov was a great artist of improvisation.50

As to Khudyakov himself, he formulated his position in a way we are already familiar with:

Film illustration demands a creativity that only a human being possesses. If you try to use mechanical music for this purpose—however good it may be, however well it may coincide with the feel of the

picture or adapt itself to the changes of mood within the picture—it will never replace the live illustrator. A machine can never create or replace the human soul, and any artificiality will always produce a most jarring effect.51