J. S. Bach’s Organ Choral Prelude “Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” in the Transcription by E. Artemiev: The Trial of Comprehending “a Mystery of Holiness and God”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the feature film “Solaris” by Andrey Tarkovsky—one of the masterpieces in author’s intellectual cinematograph of the second half of the 20th century. The interpretation of the conceptual intention of this film as the comprehending of the “mystery of holiness and God”, which belongs to the prominent Russian philosopher and culturologist G. Pomerants, is outwardly paradoxical. In interviews and notes by An. Tarkovsky about “Solaris”, in numerous film studies and critical essays by domestic and foreign authors, religious problems are barely outlined, the priority role is given to the philosophical, ethical and sociocultural aspects of the future “contact of minds”. At the same time, the particular artistic and sensual significance of the musical line (by the composer E. Artemiev) is ignored or perceived in a deliberately simplified way. The key element of this soundtrack is a quote from J. S. Bach’s music — the Organ Choral Prelude “Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” BWV 639. This quotation (in fact, endowed with the function of a link between the imaginative spheres of “The Earth” and “The Ocean Solaris”) sounds four times throughout the film — at first in the original version and subsequently in specific electronic “instrumentations”. The implied confessional-liturgical text of the Protestant chorale of the 16th century (J. Agricola) is organically combined with the musical-exegetical interpretation of the High Baroque era (J. S. Bach), as well as with the composer’s later “impression” about this interpretation (E. Artemiev) and mysterious “sound esotericism” of Solaris. Under the conditions of the film’s multi-level artistic structure, the choral motif of the “penitential soul” is set off by bright pictorial and associative “comments” from world religious painting, and the scenario description of the alien “Ocean as Super-mind” is clearly likened to the Divine “absolute morality”.

References

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DOI (чистый, не ссылка)
10.26176/mosconsv.2022.51.4.07