Soundtrack: The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

Here's another gimmick to add to our list of gimmicks! For every book we attempt, one of us has to suggest a soundtrack to our reading, the perfect music to get us immersed in the atmosphere of our material. It might be something which is especially evocative of a particular historical era or simply something that matches the mood or tone of the writing. Think of it as a Melbourne University style brand of interdisciplinary madness. Or better yet, don't!
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First up is Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, for a which a score actually sprung to mind while I was reading it: Slavonic Dances by the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904). Yes, I realise that Czech and Russian are by no means the same thing. However, I pray that you will forgive that slight lapse!

The Slavonic Dances were composed in two sets (Op. 46 and Op. 72) in 1878 and 1886. The period of their composition and publication therefore neatly intersects with the period in which Ivan Ilyich was conceived and written - Tolstoy's work was published in 1887 and was his first major work of fiction since Anna Karenina in 1877. Modelled on the rhythms and melodies of his native Bohemian folk music, the dances are a fine example of the romantic nationalist music of the era which reacted against the dominance of German and French ideas of music, asserting the value of local folk and religious traditions.

Why Dvorak, though? There were certainly well-respected Russian nationalist composers writing at the same time as the Czech, including the Big Five (Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin). To be perfectly honest, it is simply because I prefer Dvorak's music to that of any of his contemporaries, up to and including Brahms. He is compulsively tuneful, and has the most wonderful and intuitive way of playing with chords, constantly changing keys and modes unexpectedly yet naturally and melodically. He is also deeply evocative of the era and of the Slavic spirit of the times (this power of evocation was apparently very transferable, as he later became famous for his 'New World' music, which did for America what the Slavonic Dances did for Bohemia).

Of course, alternatively you could just listen to some Smiths or something like that, just to get you thinking about death and being sad and stuff!

(Here's a slightly idiosyncratic version of a couple of dances from Op. 72 by Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. They show off a bit...)

- Samuel