Title: “The Nutcracker: Pas de Deux”
Composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
After seeing The Nutcracker very recently, one piece of music caught my attention, immediately reminding me of Lara and Yury’s love. It was the “Pas de Deux” between the Prince and the sugarplum princess (I believe), and it seemed reminiscent of these two characters in so many ways.
The harp and violin at the beginning of the piece seem to put to music the dignified and reserved beginning to their relationship in the novel: they’re meeting on various occasions, such as at the Christmas party of the Sventitskys’. The music beautifully crescendos helping to represent their ups and downs, or times together and times apart. The flutes join the violins and harps, which brought to mind images of the summer of 1917 shared by them both.
As the piece progresses the passion builds as horns and drums join in. The cosmic love between Yury and Lara is almost uncontrollable. With the mighty crash of the symbols, Tchaikovsky brings to life the magnitude and very nature of their love. Soon after this build up, it quickly quiets, taking a slightly more tragic note. This is as if to tell about the sad separation of the two, as Lara must leave Yury at Varykino with Komarovsky after Strelnikov is captured and shot. It is such a let down to all of us who had become so emotionally invested in the two, just as the decrescendo is a let down from the powerful surge before it.
With a last sudden jolt in the music, followed by a quick succession of flute notes, the piece recalls Yury’s death, building one last time, as Lara comes to his funeral. Ending, at last, with 4 resounding notes, the “Pas de Deux” reflects the end of this tragic, yet cosmic relationship.
Title: “Their Love Was So Gentle”
Author: Mikhail Lermontov
Translated by: Yevgeny Bonver
Their love was so gentle, so long, and surprising, With pining, so deep, and zeal, like a crazy uprising! But, much like foes, they shunned their meetings, confessions… And were cold and empty their short conversations. They left each other in suffering, wordless and proud, And only in dreams, saw the image beloved, farther. Death had come and commenced their date in the world, that is out... But they didn't discern in this new world each other. Since My Sister—Life was dedicated to Lermontov, it seemed only appropriate that one of his poems be used to describe the love of Lara and Yury. In “Their Love Was So Gentle,” I found the right balance of love and tragedy that was necessary for their love story. In the first two stanzas, we can read about the beginning of their love, which really blossomed in the summer of 1917 and grew and strengthened over time. The last part of the first stanza describes confessions and cold conversations, such as the conversation between Lara and Yury while Lara is ironing. After Yury hints at his feelings for Lara, she tells him to go off and find Mademoiselle Fleury and leave her to herself for a while.
A week after the conversation at the ironing board, Lara left Yury just as the poem describes, “wordless and proud.” As progress through the novel, being together or seeing each other occasionally, the dreams they must have of each other only are only suitable for their brand of cosmic love. As death takes Yury, and then later Lara in some forgotten labor camp, we can refer to the last line of the poem. “They didn’t discern in this new world each other.” It’s a beautiful way to sum up the tragedy between them. In this new world created through the revolution, they never got to truly be together without something breaking them apart again. They were doomed to live this tragedy as a result of their decision to pursue the love between them. As we learn though, their love is carried on in the form of Tanya, their daughter. How sad, that this is one last aspect of their love, that they are never able to fully know.
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