THE  OBER-FIM  VARIATIONS  of  N. N. LODYZHENSKY,

PIANO QUINTET

Readers of the Gesellschaft will be familiar with the name Nikolay Nikolayevitch Lodyzhensky, and with the outlines of his career, from his youthful association with the “Mighty Handful” in St. Petersburg and his musical aspirations to the dramatic and decisive shift toward a career of government service in foreign lands, climaxing in his discovery of the Invisible City of Kitezh and his mutually beneficial relationship with the magical “Ober-Fim” (the felicity of whose reign can be gauged by the absence of historical records which are after all usually a chronicle of calamities and oppressions).

The Ober-Fim Variations dates from the period of Lodyzhensky’s sojourn in Kitezh: the story of its origin exists in a number of versions, similar in general outline though differing in interesting details.  But before embarking on the telling of this tale, it is advisable to say a few words about the nature of philosophy in the Kingdom of Kitezh.  

One remarkable feature is that all knowledge comes directly from the Ober-Fim, who receives enlightenment in the state of dream.  A gentle voice, the Tutelary Spirit, speaks to the sovereign in that pellucid moment just before awakening, in a language surcharged with transparent meaning, a language in which sonorous beauty merges with significance.  Waking, the ruler finds himself clutching, as it were, the burnt husks of precious gems – enigmatic phrases with the meaning scorched from them, surrounded with an aura of painful nostalgia.  

This has led the wise men of Kitezh to evolve a philosophy of the positive power of paradox, a belief that apparent contradictions either resolve into transcendent synthesis, or that they reflect an irreducible mystery within and around us that should be explored and celebrated in art.  Hence the prime importance in Kitezh of music, and at this point we can resume the story of the composition at hand.   

Troubled one morning by a particularly poignant poem, the Ober-Fim, as was his custom, summoned his royal musicians and, dictating his dream, requested they improvise upon it, hoping that the sweet eloquence of music could recapture the lost feeling the words once held for him.  But none of the ancient scales, and none of the treasured instruments of Kitezh could capture the elusive mood he sought. The Ober-Fim became listless, lost in day-dream, until eventually the waking world seemed naught but an interminable reverie from which only sleep could provide solace.  The affairs of state were neglected, as were the celebrated festivals.

At last Lodyzhensky was summoned, and the radical proposal was made that a music from outside the legendary kingdom should be attempted.  Through his acquaintance with Rimsky-Korsakov, Lodyzhensky had developed a familiarity with the so-called octatonic scale system whose piquant progressions, dreamily floating keys and endless unfulfilled yearning seemed to the musician appropriate to the circumstance. The monarch, now langorous and pale, whispered his dream: the musician listened with inclined head,  scribbled some notes on parchment,  retired to a chamber with his beloved piano, and finally emerged with the current work, The Ober-Fim Variations, for string quartet and piano.   

Such, in a general way, is the story of this work’s provenance, and it must be admitted that the foregoing goes some way toward elucidating a number of  perplexities of a purely artistic nature – paradoxes, the pleasure of whose discovery I leave to the energetic scholar. At the same time it must be admitted that not everyone subscribes to so literal an interpretation: for some, the historical Lodyzhensky is the only Lodyhensky, the “years away at the Balkans” are no actual “journey to the East” and the only Kingdom of Kitezh is that which he conjures in the solitude of his winter’s exile, dreaming of his distant, ruined estate.

Meanwhile it must be acknowledged that most influences are mutual: not only did the mythical sovereign inspire the obscure composer: the presence of the musician in that previously xenophobic land has led to innovation in the realm of philosophy. For there are now those in Kitezh who say  there are two Lodyzhenskys, mirror–images from opposite worlds: one improvises in increasingly tangible forms, the other composes, striving for ever greater fluency, tending toward the illusion of spontaneity.   Some have concluded that, should these two activities converge, and the two Lodyhenskys encounter one another, they would both cease to exist, while their worlds would be annihilated.  Others have whispered, on the contrary, that the consequence of such a meeting would be a new world, perhaps the only world actually possible, a world fraught with irreducible paradoxes: our world.

Here follows the text of the Ober-Fim's dream-poem (translated into English):


There, along the path where the Prince and the Pauper meet
At the horizon where mind touches world,
There, where Beauty crumbles like a wave
And the pearl-fishers feel the unbearable memories melt,
There where all is movement and grace
Does music cease to be of us
For we, triumphant, winged, are of it.