The Routledge Companion to Vsevolod Meyerhold

2Meyerhold, the Musician

Nathan Thomas

DOI: 10.4324/9781003110804-5

Introduction

Meyerhold was a musician.

At a rehearsal on 25 April 1936, Meyerhold said he remembered the quote from Hoffman: ‘All humanity is split into mere people and musicians’ (Meyerhold 1978: 105). Meyerhold was quite clear as to which category he belonged. Music was at the core of his approach to theatre. Evgenii Vakhtangov noted that each of Meyerhold’s productions was a new theatre – each production could give a whole new direction (Vakhtangov 2011: 466). Generations of scholars accepted Vakhtangov’s assessment and framed Meyerhold’s career through a prism of innovation and change. This chapter will focus instead on the part of Meyerhold’s creative work that remained ...