ABSTRACT
In a we l l -known passage from Speak, Memory, V l a d i m i r Nabokov confessed to a surprising lack of appreciation for music: " M u s i c , I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds. Under certain emotional circumstances I can stand the spasms of a r ich v io l in , but the concert piano and al l wind instruments bore me in small doses and flay me in larger ones." 1 Ye t in spite of Nabokov 's professed lack of enthusiasm for music, musicians and the art of music occupy a distinctive niche in his early fiction, and over the course of his career Nabokov developed an individual ized approach to the use of the theme in his work. This article w i l l examine the evolution in Nabokov ' s treatment of music. It w i l l show how Nabokov init ial ly associates the theme of music with several themes famil iar from the Romant ic literary tradition, and then gradually reworks and refines this set of associations, eventually arriving at an ironic perspective that is quite different from his early approach. T o elucidate this development, we shall be looking at four prose works: "Bachmann," The Defense, " M u s i c , " and Lolita. Le t us begin wi th "Bachmann," an early story written in 1924. 2
"BACHMANN"
The very title of the story (and the name of its protagonist) signals the prominence of the musical theme in the work. The plot revolves around a three-year love affair between a married woman, M m e . Perov, and a celebrated pianist named Bachmann. A t the time of their first meeting,
70 Julian W. Connolly
Bachmann was both performing in concert halls and making recordings of his music: "the golden throb of the deep and demented music he played was already being preserved on wax." 3 The story focuses on the effect that M m e . Perov has on Bachmann and his art. After their initial meeting, the narrator asserts, M m e . Perov became an indispensable part of his life. He could not play without checking for her presence in the first row of the concert hall , and his performances grew increasingly more passionate and polished: "never before had Bachmann played with such beauty, such frenzy . . . with every performance, his playing became still more beautiful, still more frenzied" (Stories 119). When M m e . Perov falls i l l one evening and is unable to attend the scheduled performance, Bachmann refuses to play. He makes an insulting gesture to the audience and walks off the stage. His frantic manager persuades M m e . Perov to come to the concert hall despite her illness, but when she arrives, Bachmann has disappeared. She spends the night trudging through a shady commercial district, searching for Bachmann in dingy bars. It is late autumn, a cold rain is falling, and by the time she returns to her hotel, she is deathly i l l . Bachmann, however, is sitting there on her bed, oblivious to her pain and suffering. This night, their last together, is charged with profound emotion. She dies on the following day, but an "expression of happiness never left her face" (Stories 123). Bachmann now slips into irreparable madness. He dies seven years later, "forgotten by the world," in a Swiss asylum (Stories 116).
