Depreciation or admiration? About Zbigniew Herbert’s Violin and Harpsichord

Abstract

In Zbigniew Herbert’s early works from the volume Hermes, pies i gwiazda (Hermes, a dog and a star, 1957), one can find cues indicating that contacts with music were his source of ambivalent feelings and reflections. This is evidenced by, among other things, his observations and opinions on symphonic music, expressed in poetic prose Po koncercie (After the concert), as well as considerations regarding the sound of musical instruments in the prose of Skrzypce (Violin) and Klawesyn (Harpsichord). In both these works, one can see the presence of the mechanism of unmasking, characteristic – according to Stanisław Barańczak – of many poetic statements by Herbert, which organizes the works’ construction. The poetic prose of Skrzypce (Violin) initially seems to be the unmasking of the intellectual abuse that “musical reviewers” admit, wanting to explain why violins sound in the special moving way (“cry”). Herbert’s intention, however, is first of all to indicate the reasons that determine the nature of these sounds, causing ambiguous feelings and opinions. In turn, the poetic prose of Klawesyn (Harpsichord) initially seems to be the unmasking of the incompetence of someone looking at the not well-known musical instrument for the first time. However, the poet’s intention is to develop a valuable reflection on the peculiar sounds. These sounds are described figuratively in the last sentence in a way indicating their aesthetic ambivalence (“And there really is only a cuckoo tangled in the thicket of silver leaves”). Herbert’s Considerations of the violin and harpsichord are a way of expressing ambiguous judgments about music. They are also a confirmation of his preference for making poetic statements ambiguous.