Absolute and Program Music: An Early Document of Konstantin Iliev’s Aesthetic Thought
Absolute and Program Music: An Early Document of Konstantin Iliev’s Aesthetic Thought

Summary/Abstract: This contribution provides a semi-diplomatic transcription, reading version, and English translation to Absolute and Program Music, the oldest extant writing by the Bulgarian composer and conductor Konstantin Iliev (1924 – 1988). This short text was his coursework to graduate from the Faculty of Theory at the Bulgarian State Music Academy Sofia in 1946. Created in communication with a lecture on music aesthetics in 1945/1946 read by Bulgaria’s first academic music historian, Stoyan Brashovanov, the paper went beyond course requirements and offers a first glimpse on Iliev’s early aesthetic thought. Since Brashovanov does not seem to have graded the text and it is one of very few other student works in his estate’s fund at the Central State Archive Sofia, the second part of this contribution tackles the question, how Iliev’s paper remained in Brashovanov’s possession. After discussing the possible origins and immediate contexts of Absolute and Program Music, I present my argument: Iliev wrote this coursework under the impression of Brashovanov’s lecture but deviates from them in several minor aspects. Instead of Brashovanov, who clearly uses the energeticist and dynamist terms so prominent for inter-war years musicological discourses, Iliev prefers the more traditional romantic idea of composing as a feverish creative state of mind that serves to re-establish a broken equilibrium between artists and their surrounding world. Finally, although the paper appears hastily written, Iliev seems to have used it to convince Brashovanov of himself. Thus, Iliev sought Brashovanov’s support in the Academy’s upcoming Council meeting when faculty decided to grant a one-year specialization scholarship at the Prague Conservatory to the young composer.

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