diff options
| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-02-03 14:25:02 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-02-03 14:25:02 -0800 |
| commit | 9bdd7af823ae04329100b2ccb5f286382547a22c (patch) | |
| tree | d8dc67e5a6f22d023354d4992531fe8c1280d74a /77855-0.txt | |
Diffstat (limited to '77855-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 77855-0.txt | 3020 |
1 files changed, 3020 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/77855-0.txt b/77855-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eca1990 --- /dev/null +++ b/77855-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3020 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77855 *** + + [Illustration: MOUSSORGSKY + From a portrait by Repin] + + + + + MASTERS OF RUSSIAN MUSIC + + MOUSSORGSKY + + BY + + M. MONTAGU-NATHAN + AUTHOR OF “A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN MUSIC” + + LONDON + CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED + 1916 + + + + + To + F. H. S. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION 5 + + + PART I + + CAREER 13 + + + PART II + + MOUSSORGSKY AS OPERATIC COMPOSER 45 + + + PART III + + CHORAL AND INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 76 + + + PART IV + + SONGS 83 + + LIST OF PRINCIPAL WORKS 97 + + INDEX 98 + + + + + MOUSSORGSKY + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +It would be idle to enter upon a consideration of the life and work +of Moussorgsky without first making some attempt to expound his +æsthetic outlook. Fortunately this does not involve reference to a +library of volumes such as that left by Wagner. The German composer +was at considerable pains that the public should know something of +his artistic aims, and also, be it said, of his social and political +views, and those who approach his music knowing nothing either of its +import or of the personality of its composer have only themselves to +blame. + +With Moussorgsky it is a different matter, especially as regards +the British public, who until two or three years ago had no means +of obtaining any detailed information about either the man or his +work. He leaves nothing behind him in the shape of an artistic +confession of faith beyond the few scattered utterances that were +delivered in letters to his friends, and even these are for the most +part inaccessible to all who have no acquaintance with the Russian +tongue. This is the more unfortunate since in England the great +Russian composer first became known through one or two entirely +uncharacteristic works, examples which either had no artistic +significance whatever, or which represented his views only by their +text and not through its musical setting. + +In the first category is the “Song of the Flea,” which was accorded +the quite unmerited honour of being among the first of his works +to be brought to England; in the second is “The Peepshow,” which +consists of a commentary upon, and an exposure of, the prejudices of +lesser composers, but which tells us nothing of Moussorgsky’s genius, +his musical style, or his manner of applying his æsthetic principles +in his own compositions. + +There must still be a considerable number of British music-lovers to +whom Moussorgsky is known as the composer of one or two operas which +they have not yet had an opportunity of hearing, of a few songs, and +of some examples of symphonic music, such as the popular “Gopak.” + +It is this section of the public that one addresses when pronouncing +Moussorgsky to be one of the very greatest figures in the annals of +Music--apart altogether from his creative output. In the world of Art +it does not very often happen that a man who formulates principles +has a sufficiently commanding creative power to provide his own +convincing examples of the application of those principles. As a rule +the artist who talks of reforms has not himself been highly endowed +with the gift of artistic creation. + +In Moussorgsky’s art we have the reflection of his own convictions +and, what is more, their vindication. But since his works have an +appeal which does not depend upon a knowledge of the principles +they embody, there seems sufficient reason for supposing that the +creative qualities of the composer are at least equal in value to his +æsthetic preconceptions. + +The art of Moussorgsky is based upon three fundamental principles: +(1) That Art is an expression of humanity, and, like humanity, is in +a constant state of evolution; (2) that Art, as such, can therefore +have no arbitrary formalistic boundaries; (3) that as the expression +of humanity is an office which ought to be carried out with a full +sense of the responsibility attaching to those entrusted with it, the +artist is called upon to be sincere in any art-work he may undertake. + +Anyone who had lived in an artistic environment of his own making, +who had never been in touch with an outside world that looks upon +Art as a means of whiling away a superfluous hour, who had never +known of that problem with which the public artist is continuously +being confronted--the problem of how suitably to compromise with the +dull-witted section of humanity--would wonder why it should have +seemed necessary to Moussorgsky, or anyone else, to propound as his +confession of faith a series of such platitudinous axioms. Moreover, +in perusing the bare narrative of Moussorgsky’s life, one would not +discover on the surface anything entitling one to suppose that he in +particular should have been able to recognize the need for dwelling +upon matters that are to be clearly understood only by those who have +never been contaminated by close contact with the World. + +It is only between the lines of that narrative that one can discover +the key to this mystery. In other walks of life than Art one hears +of the “conversion” of individuals who have hitherto followed the +moral line of least resistance. At a certain moment in their lives +there has come a sudden awakening, a realization that honesty and +decent behaviour as a whole should not be reckoned a policy, but an +obligation towards oneself. + +A thief may arrive at such a psychological crisis through being +brought face to face with a circumstance revealing to him for the +first time that it is pleasant to be able to look his neighbour in +the eyes. A drunkard, surveying in a sober interval the ruin brought +upon his family, may resolve that there must surely be a happy medium +of temperance between the states of drunkenness with wine and what +Baudelaire called drunkenness with virtue. A great national crisis +may open the eyes of a politician so that he will henceforth consider +the party principle and his acquiescence in it as the betrayal of a +trust. + +Such specimens of erring humanity, when awakened to a sense of duty +towards themselves and their fellows, are reckoned “converted.” + +Moussorgsky, in his early days a musical “rake,” became a converted +musician. + +He saw that Music was the sick man of Art, and that his past attitude +towards it was not likely to improve its condition. He saw that music +is given to man that he may give utterance to emotions inexpressible +by words. From this starting-point he was not slow in reaching the +conclusion that a nation which is satisfied to depend upon foreign +art-products has not yet become worthy to be reckoned in the full +sense a nation; that in conveying ideas which are too subtle for +verbal expression, music is ministering not to the mind but to the +temperament; and consequently that it would be absurd arbitrarily to +confine the expression of the subconscious emotions of one generation +within the forms employed by a previous generation. Finally he +perceived that, if Art was to be taken seriously as an expression of +humanity, it must no longer remain in a condition in which no earnest +human being could look upon it other than as a frivolous pastime. + +Moussorgsky, once “converted,” began to urge the necessity of +expressing national aspirations by means of Art, of abolishing +the laws that were a mental product of a previous generation and +could therefore have no bearing upon the temperamental needs of the +present, of emancipating Music from a condition in which its relation +towards the other arts was that either of a brutal master, or a +lying, though nicely-mannered servant. + +There are conventional terms which contain the essence of the +qualities considered by Moussorgsky to be indispensable conditions to +the welfare of his art. They are Truth, Freedom, and Progress. + +The presence of the word Truth upon his banner did not cause a great +deal of concern among his contemporaries. They did not recognize that +artistic truth was a rarity. But the remainder of the legend seemed +to them to aim at the very foundations of the art of Music. + +The attitude of musicians towards music in Moussorgsky’s day was +not strikingly dissimilar from that observable in the twentieth +century. There was a reverence for tradition that was little short of +a mania. The older a masterpiece became, the more they venerated it. +The best music of the immediately previous generation was tolerated +apparently on the ground that it might one day become a classic. +Music of the present generation was by common consent ignored. To +such as these, therefore, the word Progress seemed to contain a very +impertinent challenge. But what of Freedom? Moussorgsky refused to +observe the laws that, according to him, had been formulated for +the benefit of those who wished merely to imitate the composers +of the past. It is generally assumed that he was too impatient +of technique to trouble himself about acquiring any considerable +knowledge of it. His complaint that, while he could discuss art with +painters and sculptors, he found that musicians never got as far as +Art, but confined themselves to questions of technique, explains in +some measure his attitude. “Is it,” he asks, “because it is my weak +point that I hate it?” This inquiry is not directly answered, but +is followed by a justification couched in metaphor. He likens the +exploitation of technique to the behaviour of your host who persists +in making known to you the ingredients of the delicious pudding he +offers you. + +It would seem as though Moussorgsky found, in the technical training +prescribed for musicians, something which caused the student +to contract an ineradicable habit of looking backward. This he +considered inimical to the progress of the art. Naturally, it is +urged against him that, as a great deal of his work had to be revised +by Rimsky-Korsakof, he himself would have profited had he attained +a greater technical proficiency. As to this it is impossible to +judge fairly without comparing the originals with Rimsky-Korsakof’s +versions. When that is done one begins to perceive that a great +deal of the so-called “incorrect” or “crude” is music that did not +receive the sanction of his contemporaries, or of the immediately +succeeding generation, for the simple reason that he was at least +three generations ahead of his contemporaries. The advanced musician +of the present day is, therefore, protesting against the emendations, +because he finds in the original version something that he would +himself be proud of having invented.[1] + +But apart altogether from this aspect of the question, if we compare +the creative work of the emendator and the emendated, we discover +that while Rimsky-Korsakof’s most recent music is beginning to sound +old-fashioned, Moussorgsky’s music of forty years ago is not. From +which we are entitled to infer that the music of a composer who +happens to be a great genius, though technically deficient, has a +greater vitality than the music of one who is a great artist and +technically proficient. + +If that be a correct inference, it would seem to be in the interests +of musical progress that a few partnerships should be arranged +between geniuses who are hampered by a want of technique, and +artists whose training has destroyed or marred their prophetic vision. + +This would perhaps prove a fruitful means of bringing into the +world a store of living music, of music that would not remind us at +intervals of some dead and gone composer. + +The consideration of Moussorgsky’s opinions cannot in any case lessen +one’s appreciation of his music. + +It will be found that whereas many will vehemently contest the +validity of Moussorgsky’s artistic principles, exceedingly few will +hear his music without supreme enjoyment. The acceptation of these +principles has been forced upon the musical world on every occasion +on which a genius has arisen. But the musical world has apparently +never become conscious of having accepted them. It prefers to go on +denying the existence of the mountain range in which the stream of +great music has its source. + +The study of Moussorgsky’s life and work affords a rare opportunity +of observing that a composer who is frankly a futurist is not +necessarily either a fool, a wag, or a knave. For in listening to his +music, we of the present generation cannot imagine for the life of us +what all the pother was about. It is all quite acceptable. But the +principles--which are new to us, and, unlike the music, will always +be new to a wicked world--those we cannot ever bring ourselves to +uphold! + +“When our efforts to put the actual living man in our music are +appreciated, ...” wrote Moussorgsky to his friend Stassof, “then +shall we have begun to make progress....” + + + FOOTNOTES: + + [1] In Yastrebtsef’s “Recollections of Rimsky-Korsakof” (now + in course of serial publication by the _Russian Musical + Gazette_), many of the latter’s utterances on this subject + are recorded. + + + + + PART I + + CAREER + + + I. + +Modeste Petrovich Moussorgsky was born on March 16th (O.S.), 1839, at +Karevo, a village situated in that district (Toropets) of the Pskof +Government nearest to the Muscovite boundary. The household at that +moment consisted of his father, Pyotr Alexeyevich, a small landowner; +his mother, whose maiden name was Shirikof; a brother, Filaret; and +the all-important nurse. + +The child’s surroundings from the very first were such as to +contribute most happily to the development of his particular form +of genius. His father appears to have enjoyed music, although not +displaying any executive ability; his mother was a very fair pianist. +For her influence he was never tired of expressing his indebtedness +in terms such as leave no room for doubt as to his filial affection. +But it was to his nurse, as was the case with Pushkin, that he owed +the very seeds of his art. “My nurse,” wrote the composer in after +years, “made me intimately acquainted with Russian folk-lore.” Her +stories of the terrible Kashchei, the fearful Baba Yaga, the heroic +Ivan Tsarevich, and the inexhaustibly beautiful Tsarevna, played +so vividly upon the child’s imagination as to keep him awake at +night for hours together. As soon as he realized the functions of +the piano, he set about making childish musical pictures of these +personages. For the first ten years of his life he enjoyed a rural +environment, and at an early age he displayed that affection for the +land and its denizens that characterized his later outlook upon the +world. + +Naturally it fell to his mother to give him his first lessons in +music. Seeing that the only region in which Moussorgsky ever reached +technical excellence was in that of piano-playing, it may be supposed +that her instruction was not wanting in method. But perceiving, no +doubt, that his studies would be of greater value if carried on under +the guidance of someone trained in the art of teaching, she lost no +time, once the boy’s gift was evident, in engaging a governess--a +German, whose qualifications were unexceptionable. In her hands +little Modeste made quite rapid strides. At the age of seven he could +already give a fair account of some light pieces of Liszt, and when +only nine he astonished the guests at an evening party by his mastery +over a concerto by John Field. + +A few years later the two brothers were taken to Petrograd and +placed in a school. Modeste was eventually to enter the army, but +the parents, rejoicing at his evident gift for music, determined +to do everything in their power to develop it. Necessary inquiries +having been made, their choice fell upon Herke, a teacher with a +considerable following, whom they engaged to direct the youngster’s +studies. The master was able at once to endorse the opinion of +Modeste’s parents, and undertook his training with great enthusiasm. +The little fellow soon showed that his teacher’s confidence was not +misplaced. He made such progress that after a year’s tuition he was +allowed to take part in a small concert; he acquitted himself so +well, and attracted so much attention, that his delighted master +bestowed on him a copy of a Beethoven sonata as a mark of his esteem. + +In 1852, Moussorgsky entered a private preparatory institution, +from whence he passed into the school for Ensigns of the Guard. His +first composition was an “Ensigns’ Polka,” which he dedicated to his +comrades. Herke, with whom he was still taking lessons, insisted on +publishing the piece. During the last two years of his course at the +school, which ended in 1855, he was obliged to devote rather less +attention to music; his military studies were taking up a good deal +of his time. He went to Herke once a week, and was allowed also to +attend when the daughter of the school director took her lessons. + +Moussorgsky appears to have been a particularly diligent scholar. His +biographers record that at this time, in addition to his military +and musical studies, he displayed a decided liking for history and +philosophy; he is said to have begun a translation of Lavater while +still in the early ’teens, surely a remarkable taste in a youth. +Hardly less odd, perhaps, was the desire to acquaint himself with the +basic principles of the music of the Greek Church, for which purpose +he studied privately with one of the school staff. A little later in +life he had every reason to congratulate himself on having made these +researches. Moussorgsky wrote no music which could be called, in the +strict sense of the term, sacred, but in the two music-dramas, “Boris +Godounof” and “Khovanshchina,” as well as in a satirical song, he has +proved that the hours passed with the priest Kroupsky were well spent. + +Already during his school-days he had made one or two musical +friends; among them was Azanchevsky, who eventually became Director +of the Petrograd Conservatoire; and on entering the Preobajensky +regiment of Guards (in 1856), he found himself among quite a number +of young amateurs of music. Sub-lieutenant Orfano had a weakness, for +which his name seems to account, for Italian opera; Orlof’s taste +ran in the direction of the military march; Demidof, afterwards a +friend of Dargomijsky and class inspector at the Conservatoire, +was a popular song-writer; while Prince Obolensky, the nature of +whose proclivities is not defined, was deemed worthy to receive the +dedication of a little piano piece written by Moussorgsky at this +time. + +It is clear that the young composer had no intention of limiting his +efforts to the region of salon music, for not long after his entrance +into the Preobajensky he began his first attempt at opera. Here, +however, desire outran performance, and neither the libretto which he +tried to adapt from Hugo’s “Han d’Islande,” nor its abortive musical +setting, resulted in anything more tangible than the respectful +admiration of his comrades. + +It is likely that, had his musical environment not been enlarged, +he might not have been encouraged to widen his outlook upon the art. +Hitherto his social circle had consisted of young men who regarded +music purely as a diversion, and the possession of a pleasant +baritone voice and a marked talent for piano-playing was sufficient +to secure a considerable popularity among them. + + + II. + +Towards the early autumn of 1856, however, he fell in with someone +whose aims were a little more elevated, someone serious enough to +realize the futility of Moussorgsky’s musical life at that moment. +This was A. P. Borodin, now known to the world as the composer of +“Prince Igor,” but then a young man of some twenty-two years who +divided his time between scientific research and the pursuit of +music. Borodin has left us a pen-picture which describes in graphic +fashion the young guardsman himself and the musical society he was +then wont to affect. + +“My first meeting with Moussorgsky took place in September or +October, 1856. I had just been made an army surgeon. Moussorgsky was +then seventeen years of age. We met in the hospital common-room. We +were both rather bored by our duties and were glad of an opportunity +for conversation. In a few moments we had discovered our common +interest. That evening we had been invited to the quarters of +the chief medical officer Popof. The latter had a marriageable +daughter.... Moussorgsky was at this time a real dandy ... with +the airs of a great personage.... He had a rather affected way +of talking, and his conversation was interlarded with French +expressions.... He would seat himself at the piano and play snatches +of ‘Trovatore’ or ‘Traviata,’ to the delight of the assembled company +of ladies.... I only saw Moussorgsky three or four times, and then +lost sight of him....” + +More important in its effect upon Moussorgsky’s musical development +was his meeting, a month or so later, with Dargomijsky, to whom +he was introduced by one of his comrades, Vanliarsky by name. The +composer of “Russalka,” which had just been produced, took a great +liking for the young officer, and under this influence the latter’s +taste rapidly underwent a change. He began to feel a need for a more +serious type of music and a more discriminating audience. As time +went on he became conscious that beneath his superficial respect +for the vanities of life and of art lay a desire to come to grips +with their realities. There was thus a good deal in common between +Dargomijsky and his young disciple. + +Just about a year after the chance meeting described by Borodin, +Moussorgsky became acquainted with two others, whose names are now +invariably associated not only with his own and Borodin’s, but +with that of Rimsky-Korsakof, who afterwards joined and completed +the little côterie subsequently famous as the “Five.” These two, +Mili Alexeyevich Balakiref and Cesar Antonovich Cui, were frequent +visitors at Dargomijsky’s. In the previous year Balakiref had come +to Petrograd to complete the musical studies he had until then +been prosecuting under the guidance of Oulibishef, the biographer +of Mozart. Oulibishef had given his young _protégé_ a letter to +Glinka, and the composer of “A Life for the Tsar” had been mightily +pleased to meet with one who was so obviously suited to conduct a +propaganda on behalf of his cherished nationalistic ideal. Balakiref +was not long in the capital before he met Cui. Both were young men +under twenty, and their common dissatisfaction with the condition of +musical taste in Petrograd served as a bond of friendship. Cui had +known Dargomijsky for some little time, and was thus well versed in +the principles of the Glinkist ideal. Balakiref and Cui resolved that +the prevailing taste for all things foreign must be discouraged, and +that, in music at any rate, a national style should be founded which +should oust the German, French, and Italian traditions that had so +long been objects of worship in Russia. + +Moussorgsky’s association with Dargomijsky and his two disciples was +the means of leading him to the study of a work of which, in one +sense, “Boris Godounof” is to be considered the prototype. Glinka’s +“A Life for the Tsar,” of which he appears hitherto to have known +little or nothing, contains at least two of the elements that are +characteristics of Moussorgsky’s music-drama. It has a purely Russian +subject, and it glorifies the Russian people. Here, then, was a work +which could hardly fail to inspire a man who had but lately turned +away from the facile successes of the drawing-room. + +Besides these, there are other components to be discovered in +Moussorgsky’s operatic and vocal works which are to be traced, not +to the influence of Glinka, but to that of Dargomijsky. Discussion +of this influence must, however, be deferred; for the moment we +are concerned only with drawing attention to the circumstances +responsible for Moussorgsky’s remarkable emancipation. The young +guardsman had found himself; he had seen, as it were, a reflection of +his own latent creative powers and tendencies in the works of Glinka +and Dargomijsky; the patriotism of the first and the sincerity of +the second drove him to realize that this type of music must for the +future monopolize his attention and interest. He would, in his own +words, devote himself to “real” music. + + + III. + +As up to this time Moussorgsky’s musical activities had been largely +of a social kind, he felt that in order to take his place, as he +desired, beside his new associates, he must render himself conversant +with the form and structure of music; to this end he resolved to +take lessons from Balakiref, whose knowledge was sufficiently wide +to enable him to take the place of leader in the newly established +côterie.[2] + +Balakiref’s account of his method of instruction is a little +astonishing. Master and pupil played through, in four-handed +arrangements, the works of the classic masters, and those of such +moderns as Schumann, Berlioz, and Liszt. “So well did I explain to +him their musical form,” says a communication to Stassof, “that he +was soon able to compose a symphonic Allegro which was not altogether +wanting in merit.” + +Balakiref was plainly cognizant that these lessons were not to be +regarded as comprehensive. He avows that his own knowledge did not +permit of anything more than the analysis of forms, that he was +unable to undertake instruction in harmony; but he appears to have +been satisfied that for Moussorgsky such knowledge was negligible. +He was at all events sufficiently pleased with his pupil’s early +essays in composition to recommend them for performance, with +the result that one of two orchestral scherzos (that in B minor) +was played in 1860 at a concert of the Russian Musical Society, +under the conductorship of Anton Rubinstein. The choral setting of +Sophocles’ “Œdipus,” also written at this time, was performed in the +following year--Constantin Lyadof, the father of the famous composer, +conducting. + +With the development of his creative capacity, Moussorgsky began to +conceive an aversion from his military duties, and his transference +to a station at some little distance from Petrograd served to +increase his desire to be freed from them. Arguing to himself that +absence from the capital would involve a cessation of his musical +activities, he resolved to send in his papers. + +Stassof’s reminder that the great Lermontof had contrived to +reconcile the two occupations of poet and soldier met with the +laconic reply: “Lermontof and I are two different people.” He had +also to argue with his other friends. Despite all remonstrance, he +carried his determination into effect and, forsaking Mars, devoted +himself henceforth to St. Cecilia. + +The cause of Moussorgsky’s subsequent physical degeneration is now +known to have been intemperance, but there can be little doubt +that his nervous system was far from normal. More than once in the +chronicle of his short life one finds a record of nervous breakdown. +The first of these occurred shortly after the severance of his +connection with the army, and in consequence he was obliged to betake +himself from Petrograd for a time. The medicinal waters at Tikhvin, +the birthplace of Rimsky-Korsakof, brought about an improvement in +his health which enabled him to resume his activities as a composer. +During the summer he wrote a “Children’s Scherzo” and an “Impromptu +Passionné,” both for piano; the latter, which is said to have been +inspired by a perusal of a then popular “problem” novel, was not +published until after his death. + +The change in Moussorgsky has been referred to as a physical +degeneration; it should be understood that the later intellectual +decay did not manifest itself during the period now under review. +On the contrary, he has left indisputable evidence of a spiritual +awakening which seems to have begun soon after his resignation +from the army. In a letter to Cui, written from his mother’s +house at Toropets, he records his exasperation at the behaviour of +the reactionaries who had set themselves energetically to oppose +the emancipation of serfs, which had just then been effected. The +composer of the “Ensigns’ Polka” was becoming aware that the real +greatness of Russia lay in the temper of its people. The triumphs +of the smart guardsman were forgotten; he had now an altogether +different social ideal. + +Borodin, who again met Moussorgsky in the autumn of 1859, was +apparently struck rather by the physical than the mental change, +although the former tells us that the latter’s views on music had +undergone a remarkable transformation. “He looked much older, had +grown stouter, and had lost his military bearing. As might be +supposed, we talked a good deal about music. I was at that time a +devotee of Mendelssohn; of Schumann I knew nothing.... Ivanovsky +(assistant professor at the Medical Academy), seeing that we had a +common ground of sympathy, asked us to play a four-handed arrangement +of Mendelssohn’s A minor symphony. Moussorgsky demurred at first, +but consented on condition that the Andante, which he submitted was +not symphonic and savoured of the ‘Songs without words,’ should be +omitted.... Later Moussorgsky spoke enthusiastically of Schumann’s +symphonies.... He began to play excerpts from the one in E flat. +Arrived at the development section, he stopped for a moment, saying: +‘Now for the musical mathematics!’” + +Further light upon Moussorgsky’s changing outlook on life is shed +by his choice of a mode of living on his return from Toropets to +Petrograd. He now joined a party of young progressives, whose views +on the prevailing topic are revealed in the name given to their +côterie, “La Commune.” + +Some half-dozen of them shared a flat, each having a private +room; their evenings were spent in a common-room, in which took +place lively discussions on music, art, and sociological matters. +This arrangement was of a kind very popular at that time among +students, single officers, and State employees. Their “gospel” was +Chernishevsky’s socialistic volume, “Shto dyelat?” (What is to be +done?), in which the problems of the newly freed peasantry had been +dealt with. + +In this circle Moussorgsky was the only member not employed by the +State. But after a time he discovered that to live by music alone +was impossible, and he began to undertake translation work. This +occupation, while solving the one problem, raised another. His health +began once more to give way. His brother Filaret tried to induce him +to give up the “Commune.” Moussorgsky at first refused, but when a +little later his constitution gave signs of a breakup, he gave way, +left Petrograd, and established himself at Minkino. This sojourn in +the country, which lasted until 1868, was altogether beneficial to +his health. + + + IV. + +Although Moussorgsky was worried both by a decline in health and +by money matters, the period spent with the “Commune” was not +entirely unfruitful. Considering, indeed, the ultimate fate of the +composition which represents that period, it may be regarded as +singularly important. + +One of the literary topics discussed by the little côterie had been a +newly issued Russian version of Flaubert’s “Salammbô.” + +Moussorgsky’s work as a whole shows far less of a predilection for +Orientalism than that of his colleagues of the “Five.” Yet this +subject appealed to him sufficiently to suggest itself as the plot of +an opera, and having contrived to adapt the original for its dramatic +purpose, entered upon his first serious operatic undertaking. On +his departure from Petrograd he put this on one side. It was never +resumed, but various fragments of the three completed scenes were +afterwards drawn upon, and are now to be heard in the mature works +with which the world is familiar. Thus “Salammbô,” although itself +an abortive work, may be considered as foreshadowing the composer’s +maturity. The songs composed contemporaneously, “Night” and +“Kallistrate,” are also to be classed with his later vocal works in +point of quality and style. + +In the meantime Moussorgsky had fallen more and more under the +influence of Dargomijsky. The latter’s epoch-making opera “The Stone +Guest” was attracting the attention of the Circle as a whole, and +performances of the completed portions were a prominent feature +of the gatherings which now took place at Dargomijsky’s house. +Moussorgsky’s share in the proceedings was the doubling of the parts +of Leporello and Don Carlos, but his attention to the work did +not end with this; he had arrived at a complete agreement with its +composer as to the method of operatic construction employed therein. + +“When Moussorgsky left St. Petersburg for the country in 1866,” says +M. Olenin d’Alheim, “his friends in parting with him expressed the +hope that he would return with an opera. No sooner had he settled +down to country life than he hastened to comply.”[3] + +Of the Circle two other members had begun to write operas, of which +the method of construction was to be in conformity with that of “The +Stone Guest.” Balakiref had taken the subject of “The Golden Bird,” +in a version resembling Grimm’s story, whilst Borodin was occupied +with a setting of Mey’s “The Tsar’s Bride,” a dramatized record of +an episode in the life of Ivan the Terrible. Both these attempts +were abandoned. Balakiref discovered that he had no gift for Opera, +and Borodin soon realized that his vocation lay in following Glinka +rather than Dargomijsky. Lyricism and not dramatic realism was the +medium natural to him. As to Cui, he was not precisely disenchanted +with the Dargomijskian method; it may be said that he persevered with +the decreed principles, but in putting them into practice he was but +partially successful. + +Moussorgsky’s choice of a libretto fell on Gogol’s well-known play +“The Matchmaker.” The task of providing this with a musical setting +would hardly have attracted anyone who had not been in complete +sympathy with the propaganda on foot in the Circle. Viewed even as +a demonstration of the principle that “the word must be reflected +in the sound,” which was Dargomijsky’s watchword, Gogol’s “utterly +incredible comedy” might well have been considered as presenting +certain insuperable difficulties. “The Matchmaker” is throughout +in colloquial prose; no one who had been brought up to respect the +settled traditions of Opera could for one moment have dreamed of +such a libretto. With Moussorgsky it was different. He knew “The +Stone Guest”; it never occurred to him to regard it as a “recitative +in three acts” (it was thus described on its first performance by +a cynical critic); he saw in it an attempt to give dignity to the +name of Opera, and as this had become his own particular desire he +resolved to make a similar attempt. + +When Moussorgsky returned for a short time to Petrograd, he did not +bring an opera with him. But, far from showing any disappointment, +his friends displayed the greatest interest in the plan of the +projected work. On leaving the capital once again he addressed +himself immediately to the composition of the music for “The +Matchmaker.” Writing on July 3rd, 1868, to Cui, from the village +of Chilof, he reports progress: “... No sooner had I got away from +St. Petersburg than I finished the first scene.... The first act is +divided into three scenes.... I am trying to work out the various +inflections of intonation which will be heard from the performers in +the course of the dialogue, and this, moreover, is to be observed +in the minutest particular. In this, in my opinion, is to be found +the secret of the greatness of Gogol’s humour....” To this letter +Moussorgsky adds a postscript, dated July 10th: “I have finished the +first act.... There will be four instead of three scenes: it had to +be.” The composer’s enthusiasm for the subject is shown in a further +communication to his friend, written a month or so later: “What a +subtle imagination Gogol has! He has studied the peasant class and +has discovered some most captivating types among them.... His old +women are priceless.” + +In addition to his actual creative work Moussorgsky had for some +time been striving to improve his very deficient technique. “In +Balakiref’s community,” writes Rimsky-Korsakof in his Memoirs, +“it was the custom to regard such studies as those of harmony and +counterpoint as negligible....” If Moussorgsky at that time (1866-67) +was capable of “making a virtue of his ignorance,” it is certain that +he very soon realized the futility of so doing, even if he did not +reveal his altered attitude to his friends. + +It is unfortunately impossible to determine his progress. “The +Destruction of Sennacherib” (after Byron’s poem), a work for chorus +and orchestra, is supposed to have been an “exercise” prompted by the +consciousness of an improvement in the art of instrumentation, but +this, like the “Night on the Bare Mountain,” composed in 1867, has +been published in the later version, in which the instrumentation is +that of Rimsky-Korsakof; the version of the latter now used is so +different from the symphonic tableau of 1867 that it throws no more +light upon the composer’s technical capabilities at the date at which +it was written than does the choral work. + +Some interesting specimens of vocal writing are also to be associated +with this period. Among them are the popular “Gopak” (to a text by +the Ukrainian Shevchenko); “The Seminarist,” a song in the satirical +vein, which portrays a theological student “whose efforts to grapple +with some Latin substantives are sadly disturbed by the intruding +mental vision of his teacher’s fair daughter”;[4] “The Orphan,” a +wonderful example of the musical reflection of the spoken accent; and +“Yeremoushka’s Cradle Song.” + +Such specimens as “The Seminarist” and “The Orphan” are obviously +by-products of “The Matchmaker” period. In the one we are able to +recognize the spiritual affinity between Moussorgsky and Gogol; in +the other we may observe the realization of the Dargomijskian ideal +in a small form. + +The period above referred to was destined to reach an abrupt +termination. “The Matchmaker” was never finished. On the resumption +of the meetings of the Circle in the autumn of 1868, the first act +was given a drawing-room performance at Dargomijsky’s house, the +parts being played by the composer, Dargomijsky, Velyaminof--an +amateur vocalist--and the two sisters Pourgold--Alexandra in the +title-rôle, and Nadejda, who afterwards married Rimsky-Korsakof, at +the piano. The last-named composer records in his Memoirs that the +fragment made a profound impression, especially upon Stassof, to whom +the work was afterwards dedicated. The composer of “The Stone Guest,” +we are told, considered that Moussorgsky had a little over-reached +himself, in what respect does not transpire; one imagines that +exception was taken to the meticulousness with which in “The +Matchmaker” Moussorgsky sought a co-ordination of text and music. + +The cause of Moussorgsky’s sudden resolve to abandon his “_opera +dialogué_” was that the subject of “Boris Godounof” had been +suggested to him. In that section of the musical world in which +this great national music-drama is well known, there must surely be +something approaching unanimity of opinion that of the two the latter +work could less be spared. “Boris” is of course a much more genial +score. And without approaching at all closely the conventional opera, +it is at all events more in conformity with that type than the quite +revolutionary “Matchmaker.” But if, as one hopes may be, the reform +of Opera is ever carried to the same lengths as have already been +reached in the domain of the drama pure and simple, Moussorgsky’s +fragment must then be estimated at a higher value. It is a work that +makes no concessions whatever. It is a musical comedy in which the +effect of the humour of the original is heightened by its musical +setting. “The Matchmaker” demonstrates that music may be married to +drama without danger of its becoming a mere handmaiden of the other +art. Moussorgsky has been himself a matchmaker; the marriage he +brought about must surely have received the sanction of St. Cecilia; +it is a great misfortune that the union should have been shortlived. + + + V. + +On Moussorgsky’s return to urban life he sought the hospitable +shelter offered by some friends of his mother, Opochinin by name. +Here he continued to live for two years, during half of which period +he held a post in the Department of Woods and Forests. The composer +has left tributes to the kindness shown him by these friends in +the shape of various dedications. The unfinished song entitled +“Death--an Epitaph” is inscribed “To N.P.O...chi...n,” and is said +to have been inspired by his grief at the lady’s death. It was under +the Opochinins’ roof that much of “Boris Godounof” was written. +Its subject was suggested to the composer by Vladimir Vassilievich +Nikolsky, a professor at the University of Petrograd, whom +Moussorgsky had met at the house of Mme Shestakof, Glinka’s sister. +For the libretto he went to the famous work of Pushkin, interpolating +certain interesting historical episodes from Karamzin’s chronicles +of the period. This initial version was subsequently modified to no +small extent, not without some reluctance, however, on Moussorgsky’s +part. + +Aware that a successful treatment of the subject would entitle him +to wear the mantle of no less a man than Glinka, he threw himself +into his work with immense enthusiasm, and “Boris” progressed with +wonderful rapidity. Begun on September 6th, 1868, it was completed +within a year. Its first act was finished in a little over two +months, and won the warm approval of Dargomijsky, who, despite his +failing health, still took part in the meetings of the Circle. There +was, however, a complete unanimity of opinion as to certain defects +in the general plan of “Boris,” one of them being an absence of +feminine interest. To this the composer demurred. + +But when in the autumn of 1870 he submitted the work to the operatic +authorities, he was forced to see that even if the criticism was +uncalled for, the hiatus complained of would militate against his +chances of seeing the opera accepted. + +The Imperial Operatic Committee consisted of Napravnik, Manjean, +and Betz, the respective conductors of Russian, French, and German +Opera, and Ferrero, a double-bass player who was apparently watching +over the interests of Italian music. The novelty of the composer’s +music was not viewed with the sympathy it commanded in his own +immediate circle, and the absence of a prominent female character +was pronounced by the Committee to be a vital defect. There were +some other quite frivolous objections, among them the point raised +by Ferrero, who took exception to certain “impossible” passages for +his own instrument. Moussorgsky was of course deeply offended, but he +seems to have realized that his scenario left much to be desired. At +any rate he set about making some radical alterations. He inserted +the Polish Act, which brought in a love interest; and the scene in +the Kromy forest, hitherto the penultimate, was now placed at the end +of the opera. The episodes of the striking clock and the parakeet, +which occur in the second act (the Tsar’s apartments), were also +added. + +The whole of the year 1871 was devoted to the reconstruction of +“Boris.” Moussorgsky was guided in this labour by several of +his friends, Stassof the critic, Hartmann the architect, whose +name he has immortalized in “The Picture-Show,” Nikolsky, and +Rimsky-Korsakof, with whom he had now begun to share rooms. + +One imagines the latter to be right in supposing this to be the +single instance of two composers thus joining forces. He gives +us an assurance that each of the pair was able to carry on his +work (Moussorgsky was occupied with the revision of “Boris,” and +Rimsky-Korsakof was composing his first opera, “The Maid of Pskof”) +without any sort of clash. The latter spent two mornings a week at +the Conservatoire (he was already a professor in that institution); +the former left the house at about noon to attend to his official +duties at the Ministry of Woods and Forests, and often dined at the +Opochinins’. “Nothing,” records Rimsky-Korsakof, “could have turned +out better.... In that autumn and the following winter there was a +constant exchange of ideas and plans.” + +This arrangement became really opportune when Gedeonof approached +the Circle with his historic proposal. The then Director of the +Imperial Opera brought forward his “Mlada” project, soliciting the +co-operation of Borodin, Cui, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakof. The +scheme of “Mlada” was to be a combination of ballet, opera, and +fairy-tale, on a subject taken from the chronicles of the Polabian +Slavs. The ballet dances were entrusted to Minkus, and the rest of +the music to the four composers named. The second and third sections +of “Mlada” fell to Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakof; and as the pagan +deity Chernobog figured prominently in the libretto, the former +proposed to make use of the unpublished “Night on the Bare Mountain,” +in the programme of which the Black god is a protagonist. + +For reasons not unconnected with finance, Gedeonof was obliged to +renounce his ambitious project, and the four composers were left with +their musical material on their hands. Long afterwards, when editing +Borodin’s compositions, Rimsky-Korsakof, at the suggestion of Lyadof, +went to this subject for the literary foundation of his opera-ballet +“Mlada.” + + + VI. + +Moussorgsky returned at once to his work on “Boris.” While yet thus +occupied Stassof, whose judgment had so often been sought in the +choice of a libretto (it is supposed that he had been consulted +in the matter of “Mlada”), recommended to Moussorgsky the subject +of “Khovanshchina.” In Stassof’s opinion “the antagonism between +the old Russia and the new, and the triumph of the latter, would +provide excellent material.... Moussorgsky,” continues the critic, +“was of the same mind.... He set to work with ardour. To study the +history of the Raskolniks (Old Believers) and the chronicles of +seventeenth-century Russia involved immense labour. The many long +letters he wrote me at this time were full of information as to his +researches and his views in regard to the music, characters, and +scenes of the opera. The best sections were written between 1872 and +1875.” + +It so happened that, during the earliest days of his occupation with +this subject, it was proposed to stage a fragment of “Boris Godounof” +at the Maryinsky Theatre on the occasion of a “benefit” given to the +_régisseur_ Kondratief. The portions chosen were the Inn scene--the +famous Petrof undertaking the rôle of Varlaam--and the scene at the +fountain, from the Polish Act. The performance, which took place in +February, 1873, was so successful that it was decided to stage the +whole opera forthwith. From Rimsky-Korsakof one learns that, at a +supper held after this preliminary performance, the composer and his +opera were toasted in champagne. + +The circumstance of this somewhat belated acceptance of “Boris +Godounof” called forth the caustic communication (in a birthday +letter) addressed to Stassof on January 2nd, 1873: “... When we are +crucified by the musical Pharisees, then shall we have begun to +make progress.... It is highly gratifying to think that whilst they +are reproaching us for ‘Boris’ we are absorbed in ‘Khovanshchina.’ +Our gaze is fixed upon the future, and we are not to be deterred by +criticism. They will accuse us of having violated all the divine and +human canons. We shall just say ‘Yes,’ adding to ourselves that there +will be ere long many such violations. ‘You will soon be forgotten,’ +they will croak, ‘for ever and aye,’ and our answer will be: ‘_Non, +non, et non, Madame._’” In a postscript he explains to Stassof that +the final French denial is a quotation from a certain Princess +Volkonsky. + +The first complete representation of “Boris Godounof” took place on +January 24th, 1874, at the Maryinsky Theatre. With the result of +this performance Moussorgsky and his friends had every reason to +be satisfied. “We were all triumphant,” says Rimsky-Korsakof. The +reception of the work by the public was in no respect lacking in +warmth. Bands of enthusiasts left the theatre singing passages from +the familiar folk-tunes it contains. “Four wreaths, appropriately +inscribed, were brought to the theatre on one of the evenings, +but through the machinations of an infuriated opposition, their +presentation, intended to take place during the performance, was +obstructed, and they had to be sent to Moussorgsky’s private +dwelling.”[5] + +The “infuriated opposition” appears to have been organized by the +reactionary critics. These accused the composer of “technical +ignorance, vulgarity, want of taste....” It would appear that the +critical faction wielded a power so great as to defeat popular +enthusiasm. After running for twenty performances, “Boris Godounof” +disappeared from the placards of the Imperial Opera, and was kept +quite in the background for many years. + + + VII. + +The period in which the preparation of “Boris Godounof” bulks so +largely is also notable for some other important compositions. + +The first among these is the satirical song known as “The +Classicist.” The arrogance of “The Invincible Band” as a whole, and +particularly that displayed by Cui in his criticisms, was a constant +source of vexation to the orthodox party. Balakiref, as conductor +of the Russian Musical Society’s concerts, came in for a good share +of the opprobrium heaped upon the Circle; and the constitution of +a programme, given in 1869, in which the compositions of the “New +Russian School” figured somewhat prominently, was warmly criticized +by such writers as Serof, Theophilus Tolstoi, and Famintsin, on the +score of its neglect of the classics. The chief object of the attack +was Borodin’s E flat major symphony, the leading assailant being +Famintsin. A short time after this, Rimsky-Korsakof’s symphonic +tableau “Sadko” was performed. Its theme had been suggested by +Moussorgsky, who at one time had intended making use of it himself, +and his ire was thoroughly aroused when Famintsin greeted the work +with a particularly spiteful article. It needed no more than a +mere suggestion from Stassof to provoke the composition of “The +Classicist,” a satire on the reactionary critic with a special +allusion to the disapproval of certain manifestations of modernism in +“Sadko,” from which work “The Classicist” contains a quotation. + +A few months later Moussorgsky applied himself to a general +castigation of the opposing party by means of the thongs of satire. +“In ‘The Peepshow’ he did not confine himself as before to the +lampooning of one critic, but committed himself to a characteristic +reproduction of the particular musical foible of each.... It invites +inspection of a series of puppets in a showman’s booth.”[6] Zaremba, +director of the Conservatoire, the pietist for whom the minor mode +signified original sin, the major, redemption; Theophilus Tolstoi, +an unqualified critic whose ignorance and whose admiration of Patti +have been suitably dealt with by Cui in a “fable” which is really a +masterpiece of satire; Famintsin, whose appearance is accompanied +by a reference to some law proceedings instituted against Stassof; +and lastly Serof the Wagnerian, referred to by means of a quotation +from his “Rogneda”--these were the subjects of Moussorgsky’s musical +caricature. When a further attack was suggested--Stassof proposed a +song to be called “The Crab”--Moussorgsky must surely have considered +that this would be tantamount to thrashing a dead horse; at any rate +he did not act upon the hint. + +Another work belonging to this period, one which possesses a far +greater significance as a work of art, is the set of seven songs +called “The Nursery.” The first of these, “Nurse, Tell Me a Tale,” is +dedicated to Dargomijsky, whose encouragement is responsible for the +subsequent completion of the series. In “The Nursery” is to be found +the most remarkable of the composer’s manifestations of genius. +In two respects these little sketches of child-life are absolutely +unconventional. In the first place, as the composer not only loved +children, but possessed the rare faculty of understanding them, he +does not portray them from the view-point of those “grown-ups” who +are so confident of the advantages of experience that they forget to +give credit for intuitive insight. Moussorgsky looked upon children +not as miniature and inexperienced men and women, but as beings +peopling a world of their own. Secondly, he repudiated the tradition +that when writing for the voice a lyrical method must invariably be +employed. The method of “The Nursery” is not the mere expression in +music of emotions aroused by the text. The music fulfils the function +of description concurrently with the text; it speaks with the +words; it describes, moreover, the very gestures and actions of the +_dramatis personæ_. + +The circumstances under which the “Picture-Show” was composed should +here be related, since it was in 1874 that Moussorgsky undertook +this novel kind of musical memorial. It was proposed by Stassof, +in the spring of that year, to hold an exhibition of drawings and +water-colours by the architect Victor Hartmann--one of the designers +of the Nijni Novgorod monument in commemoration of the thousandth +anniversary of the foundation of the Russian State--who had recently +died. Moussorgsky had been on very friendly terms with the artist, +and wished to pay a tribute of his own devising. He determined, +therefore, to attempt the reproduction of some of the pictures in +terms of descriptive music. Aiming at something more than a mere +reproduction, he gives, in the “Promenade” which connects the little +pieces, a clue to his own emotions when contemplating Hartmann’s work. + + + VIII. + +We have already recorded the enthusiasm with which Moussorgsky began +his preparation of the material for the libretto of “Khovanshchina,” +the subject recommended to him by Stassof in 1872. His researches +kept him busy until late in the autumn of the following year, when he +began work on the music. In course of its construction the libretto +underwent several changes of plan, some of them dictated by the +Censor. The music progressed but slowly, for the composer’s powers +had already begun to suffer from the excesses in which for some +time he had been indulging. He was unable to apply himself for any +length of time to one particular task, and had contracted a habit of +dividing his attention among a number of projects simultaneously. + +Thus with “Khovanshchina” little more than begun, he was deep in +plans for a comic opera on the subject of Gogol’s “Sorochinsk Fair.” +Like the former, “Sorochinsk Fair” was never finished; under stress +of poverty, however, the composer was prevailed upon by a publisher +to issue one or two numbers arranged for piano solo. These pieces +gave no indication whatever as to their dramatic import. + +Moussorgsky’s dissipated habits were by this time beginning to +estrange him from his boon companions. A certain eccentricity of +manner had also begun to show itself. What annoyed his friends +most was an affectation of superiority, which seems to have been +prompted partly by the success of “Boris,” by the unreserved praise +of Stassof, and by the admiration of people unworthy to express an +opinion on Moussorgsky’s work. In spite of these changes, however, +his connection with the Circle was not entirely severed, and the +composer of “Khovanshchina” occasionally brought to their evenings +the fruit of his intermittent labours upon that score. + +In 1879, Rimsky-Korsakof introduced into the programme of a concert +at the Free School of Music the chorus of Streltsy, Martha’s song, +and the Persian Dances. At another he gave a scene from “Boris.” +The conductor’s account of Moussorgsky’s behaviour at the rehearsal +of this concert shows pretty plainly the degree to which his mental +decay had already proceeded. + +The excerpt from “Khovanshchina,” given at the first-mentioned +Free School Concert, was performed by the then well-known singer +Mlle Leonof, who had recently opened a small academy of music in +Petrograd. This lady’s education had been somewhat scanty, but +she possessed sufficient acumen to perceive that while her name +would undoubtedly attract pupils, her capacity for instruction was +too slender to enable her to retain them. Moussorgsky’s financial +position was just then an extremely unfortunate one, and in order to +improve matters he engaged himself to Mlle Leonof as supervisor of +studies in her school. + +In the summer of 1880 he went with her on a concert tour of Southern +Russia, as accompanist and soloist. As, since his youth, he had +neglected the pianist’s repertoire, the choice of programme was not +by any means a simple matter. To cope with the situation he played +selections from operas with which he happened to be familiar, among +them the introduction to Glinka’s “Russlan and Ludmilla,” and the +bell music from the Coronation scene of “Boris.” + +In a letter dated January 16th, 1880, he communicates to the faithful +Stassof the glad tidings that at Nikolayef and Kherson the “Nursery” +songs have been performed with the most gratifying results before +an audience of children. During this tour, inspired by the Crimean +scenery, Moussorgsky composed three descriptive piano pieces; one of +them, described by Rimsky-Korsakof as a somewhat lengthy and quite +ridiculous Storm-fantasia--a reminiscence of the Black Sea--was not +committed to paper. + +It has been related that Moussorgsky’s work on “Khovanshchina” +was not continuous, and that other absorbing tasks occupied his +mind during its composition. Following Rimsky-Korsakof’s marriage, +Moussorgsky took up his abode in rooms which he shared with the poet +Count Golenishchef-Kutuzof. Two groups of poems by the latter were +set to music by Moussorgsky in 1874 and 1875. + +The first, “Without Sunlight,” contains six exquisite numbers. In +these the composer has ceased to be objective, and has for once +become introspective. It is perhaps in these songs that Moussorgsky +approaches most closely to the ideal of melo-declamation set up by +his precursor Dargomijsky. The vocal line is to some extent melodic +in character, but is rarely cast in continuous melody. On the other +hand they preserve a musical quality which is absent from the +quasi-conversational manner of “The Nursery.” + +The second cycle, “Songs and Dances of Death,” was composed at +different periods, the first three in 1875 and the last number +two years later. Their textual idea originated with Stassof, who +suggested to Count Golenishchef-Kutuzof the creation of poems dealing +with Holbein’s well-known work.[7] The “Trepak,” “Cradle Song,” and +“Serenade,” present the dread figure in rather more convincing a +manner than the fourth, “The Commander-in-Chief”--a picture of Death +surveying a battlefield. The somewhat inferior conception of the +music of the last has been attributed, no doubt correctly, to the +state of the composer’s health at the time at which it was written. + +Moussorgsky’s last years were spent in poverty and physical decay. +Already in 1876 his financial resources were reduced to the bare +pittance he received from the State department in which he was +employed. Writing to Stassof at this time, he spoke of supplementing +this beggarly income by taking engagements as a pianist. This led to +the arrangement with Mlle Leonof, and the Crimean tour. + +In 1878 he lost a dear friend through the death of Petrof, for whom +he had intended to write an important part in “Sorochinsk Fair.” +This event so affected him that he was unable to do work of any +description for a considerable time. Following the tour, he began +to model an orchestral suite with a Crimean programme, but got no +further than the preliminary sketch. + +The summer of 1880 was spent in the country, but his health showed +no signs of improvement. In the following February he journeyed to +Petrograd to attend a Free School concert, at which Rimsky-Korsakof +conducted “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” His work was acclaimed, +and he made his last public appearance in acknowledging the tributes +of this audience. A month later he became seriously ill as the result +of an attack of delirium tremens. His friends Balakiref, Borodin, +Stassof, and Rimsky-Korsakof were summoned, and they visited him +in turn at the Military Hospital up to the moment of death. This +occurred on his birthday, March 16th, 1881. + +Arrangements had already been made with a view to preserving as many +of his works as could be found for publication. Balakiref’s friend, +T. I. Filippof, was appointed executor, and he speedily found a +publisher willing to undertake their issue. The responsibility of +revising them was assumed by Rimsky-Korsakof, who devoted many years +to this labour. + +Moussorgsky was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, and a +monument--the work of Bogomolof and Gunsburg--was erected to his +memory. + + + FOOTNOTES: + + [2] The associated reformers, Balakiref, Cui, Borodin, + Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakof, have been collectively + designated in a variety of appellations, some of them + disrespectful. They are referred to elsewhere in this + volume as “The Circle,” the “Five,” and “The Invincible + Band.” + + [3] “Moussorgski.” Paris, 1896. + + [4] M. Montagu-Nathan, “A History of Russian Music.” (W. Reeves.) + + [5] M. Montagu-Nathan, _op. cit._ + + [6] M. Montagu-Nathan, _op. cit._ + + [7] “Death’s Doings,” by Richard Dagley, London, 1827, is a + work of a similar kind. + + + + + PART II + + MOUSSORGSKY AS OPERATIC COMPOSER + + + I. + +There is no ground for supposing that Moussorgsky’s lively +humanitarian instincts had been completely quiescent before they were +aroused by the spread of socialistic propaganda, consequent on the +great reformative act of Alexander (the emancipation of serfs) and +the appearance of Chernishevsky’s thought-provoking “What is to be +done?” + +In his biography, Stassof is able to dispel such an illusion. Therein +he quotes a letter, written him by Moussorgsky’s brother Filaret, +to the effect that the composer, long before reaching manhood, had +manifested feelings of complete sympathy with the humble serf, +considering the Russian peasant as the “real man” (_nastoyarshchy +chelovek_). + +When the moment came for Russian society as a whole so to regard the +peasantry, Moussorgsky did not hold himself aloof, but joined in the +movement of “simplification,” so enthusiastically set on foot by +young Russia. Thus in 1863 we find him associated with the “Commune,” +of which he remained for three years a member. + +Moussorgsky plainly belonged, then, to the “progressives” of his own +generation, in so far as concerns ethics. His music proclaims that as +a creative artist he was far in advance of that generation. + + + II. + +The choice of literary material as subject-matter for music-drama was +for such a man no vexed problem. He wished to glorify the Russian +people. + +Glinka had already made a beginning in this respect with his national +opera “A Life for the Tsar,” in which his hero was not the monarch, +but the loyal peasant who died for him. Before Wagner had made +his suggestion that the operatic art should have no dealings with +history, because history concerned itself mainly with the movements +of monarchs and rulers, Glinka had already given an effective reply. +What Moussorgsky did was not merely to adopt the Glinkist tradition, +but to improve on it. + +Already in his early operatic essay, based on Flaubert’s “Salammbô,” +he had given the chorus precedence of the _prima donna_. + +In “Boris Godounof” and in “Khovanshchina” he boldly confers upon the +chorus a protagonistic responsibility. At one stroke he dismisses +the Wagnerian objection to historical material, and repudiates the +proposed alternative, the legendary subject. He has no use for +symbolism, and declines to resort to the allegorical puppet as a +mouthpiece. He was a realist who knew that the People had something +to say, and he let them speak for themselves. While as a man he had +strong sympathies with the nationalistic ideal of Glinka, he had as +a composer very little, if anything, in common with the “father of +Russian Opera;” it is from Dargomijsky that Moussorgsky the artist +has derived. The “New Russian School,” inaugurated towards the end +of the fifties by Balakiref and Cui, had all but pledged itself to +an observance of the principles of operatic and vocal art drawn up +under Dargomijsky’s guidance, and afterwards had every reason to be +thankful that the pledge had never been signed and sealed. Among them +Moussorgsky alone was a life-long apostle of the composer of “The +Stone Guest.” Borodin, Cui, and Rimsky-Korsakof felt that they could +do no less than make experimental essays in Dargomijskian opera, and +if they were not all three obliged, as was Borodin, to confess that +the rigid abstention from all the old operatic practices was foreign +to their nature, they did not at any rate adhere very faithfully to +the Dargomijskian decree. + +With Moussorgsky it was quite otherwise. His attitude towards music +as an art was one of an almost transcendent seriousness. Art was to +be the means of throwing a high light upon the dignity of Life; Art +itself must therefore be dignified. “Life in all its aspects, ... the +truth whether palatable or no,” is the burden of his refrain in a +passionate letter to Stassof, written in August, 1875. + +With such a man concessions to a prevailing taste were not to be +thought of. Inspired by the precept of Dargomijsky, with whom he had +been on intimate terms, he set himself to build up a musico-dramatic +structure that could never become old-fashioned. Opera was no longer +to be an entertainment devised for the public of one particular +generation; it was to be an art, to have a purpose. + + + “SALAMMBÔ” + + III. + +Moussorgsky’s first serious attempt at Opera was the setting of +Flaubert’s “Salammbô,” already referred to. This was begun in 1863. +As has been said, the work appears to have been designed to give to +the collective human interest that prominence usually accorded the +individual. But this was not the only feature of the work testifying +to Moussorgsky’s respect for the operatic form. From Stassof we learn +that the composer paid very close attention to the question of scenic +detail, and that he made a diligent study of Flaubert’s novel with a +view to reproducing in his libretto everything likely to contribute +to a faithful dramatic rendering of the original. The design and +colour of costumes, lighting effects, and even the gestures and +demeanour of the characters were carefully studied by the composer. + +“Salammbô” was abandoned when still quite incomplete. Its music +has not, however, been lost to the world. Most of the fragments +composed were afterwards embodied with necessary modifications +in later works; the rest has been revised and edited by V. G. +Karatigin. “For the most part,” says Stassof, “this material has +gained by its translation,” and only once, according to this critic, +has the adaptation been disadvantageous. The theme of the arioso +in the third act of “Boris Godounof” is less appropriate in its +ultimate environment than in the original conception. The libretto +of “Salammbô” was written by Moussorgsky, but he interpolated some +verses borrowed from the unfortunate poet Polejaef, and from Heine. + + + “THE MATCHMAKER” + + IV. + +By the time that Moussorgsky entered upon his second dramatic essay +he had fallen completely under the influence of Dargomijsky, hence +his resolve to take a bold step towards a legitimate union of text +and music. + +“The Matchmaker” is directly inspired by Dargomijsky’s “The Stone +Guest.” The composer of the last-named work had achieved what had +never hitherto been attempted. He had taken the text of Pushkin’s +dramatic version of “Don Juan,” and had set it from beginning to +end without making a single alteration, ignoring, at the same time, +every operatic convention. There are no separate vocal numbers beyond +Laura’s Song, an interpolation sanctioned, or rather invited, by the +poet’s stage-direction: “She sings.” There is no chorus, for the +equally good reason that Pushkin’s work contains no “crowd.” With the +exception of this one lapse into pure melody, the score of “The Stone +Guest” is written in the recitative, which Dargomijsky considered to +be the only legitimate musical accompaniment of a dramatic text. + +In his setting of Gogol’s “The Matchmaker,” Moussorgsky takes a still +more daring step, for this comedy of middle-class Russian society is +written in colloquial prose. Far from being daunted, the composer has +actually reflected the intonation, demeanour, and the gestures of +each character in his music with a thoroughness that, while complete, +has no appearance of meticulousness. + +The scheme of Gogol’s work has been outlined by a writer who was +both a brilliant musical critic, and an authority on Russian matters +when authorities were few. In “The Russians at Home,” the late Mr. +Sutherland Edwards gave the following synopsis of “The Matchmaker”: +“In Gogol’s ‘Matchmaker’ we have a fine study of the bachelor as +character.... The main idea of the plot--and a highly philosophical +one it is--is this: that a bachelor of a certain age must necessarily +dread to alter his mode of life to suit that of another person. The +chief character of the comedy, who is considered a good match, after +considering the qualifications of a number of marriageable young +ladies who are all anxious to secure him, selects one; but no sooner +has he given his word than he repents. He is afraid of the total +change that must take place in his habits after he is married. It is +not a love match, for he is a middle-aged man and something more. He +reflects, but the bride is coming downstairs in her wedding costume +and there is no time for consideration. The handle of the door moves, +and it appears impossible to escape; but the window is open. He +leaps into the street and is saved. You hear him calling out to a +droshky driver, ‘Isvostchik! Isvostchik!’ He has disappeared for +ever, and the curtain falls.” + +This is a somewhat over-brief summary of the action, since it makes +no reference to the exceedingly funny scene in which the bachelor +finds himself in competition with three other characters who, as +typical suitors of the class and period under caricature, are the +victims of Gogol’s satire. But as Moussorgsky’s work goes no further +than the first scene, the rest may well on the present occasion be +neglected. In this one scene there appear but four of the eleven +characters: Podkolyossin, the bachelor; Kochkaryof, his friend; +Stepan, his servant; and Thyokla, the marriage-broker. + + + V. + +The score of “The Matchmaker” reveals that Moussorgsky was fully +qualified to accomplish with success the extraordinary task he had +set himself. “What is not the notation of the spoken word,” says Mr. +Calvocoressi in his monograph, “is the notation of pantomime.”[8] +There are, besides, examples of descriptive music in other directions +than these; such, for instance, as the quick sweep which describes +the silk dress of the chosen lady as “rustling as though a Princess +were passing”; and when the friend Kochkaryof, in reciting to the +reluctant Podkolyossin the advantages of married life, predicts +a family of “not merely two or three, but six at least,” there +is a group of two semiquavers, followed by another of three, and, +immediately after, a group of six for the definite number, and a +scale of 6|4 chords for the problematic brood. It should be borne in +mind that there is nothing in the least gauche about such apparently +ingenuous specimens of descriptive music. They may not be quite in +tune with our notion of humour to-day, but until some living master +can be persuaded to try his hand at the continuously descriptive, +we may congratulate ourselves on the preservation of Moussorgsky’s +example. + +Not less remarkable are the places in which changes of emotion and +mood are noted. After the breaking of a mirror, when Kochkaryof, +the cause of the mishap, consoles Podkolyossin with the promise of +a new one, the accompanying music is so perfectly appropriate to +the emotional situation that the bar prior to the spoken sentence +veritably anticipates for the listener its sense. Again, when at +the moment already described, in which occurs the friend’s detailed +picture of what married life may bring, Moussorgsky resolves a +high-pitched dissonance by dropping suddenly into a low, common +chord, minus its third, he shows us Podkolyossin’s general state of +collapse and his frozen stare as plainly as if we were watching the +action instead of merely listening to the music. + +The score, in fact, reveals how determined Moussorgsky was to observe +the letter as well as the spirit of the Dargomijskian method, a +method he made his very own. + +What the composer thought of this work may be gathered from the +letter he wrote to his friend Stassof, in 1873, after the completion +of “Boris.” “How can I best thank you?” he asks. “I have found an +answer at once. By making a gift of my very self.... Pray accept +my recent work on Gogol’s ‘Matchmaker’; examine these attempts at +musical discourse, compare them with ‘Boris.’... You will see that +what I now give you is without question myself.... You know how dear +to me is my ‘Matchmaker.’ And to tell the truth it was suggested to +me (in fun) by Dargomijsky, and (in earnest) by Cui.” In the printed +score is the formal dedication, which included the gift of all rights +in the work to Stassof. This was written, says Moussorgsky, “with a +quill pen in Stassof’s flat ... in the presence of a considerable +gathering.”[9] + +In Stassof’s own opinion there was a future for this type of opera. +It is many years since that view was expressed. It almost seems now +as though there were no future for any other kind. + + + “SOROCHINSK FAIR” + + VI. + +It is impossible to treat Moussorgsky’s other unfinished opera, +“Sorochinsk Fair,” as a serious dramatic work, since he himself did +not. There is not surviving a sufficiency of connected material for +it ever to assume companionship with Rimsky-Korsakof’s “A Night +in May,” in company with which story the original appears in +Gogol’s collection of “Tales of a Farm Near Dikanka.” The preserved +fragments, one of them being the justly popular “Gopak,” have been +edited by Lyadof and Karatigin. In the performance of these given +at the Moscow Free Art Theatre in the winter of 1913, they were +strung together by a spoken dialogue. The vocal music, which is only +in part declamatory, can hardly be considered as representing the +composer’s musico-dramatic manner, but it includes some very charming +melody, some of it being quite in the folk-style. A certain part of +the original music has had a curious history. Written in the first +instance for “Salammbô,” it served temporarily as a section of the +work now familiar as “A Night on the Bare Mountain,” was also used +in the composer’s contribution to the joint “Mlada” (Gedeonof’s +project), and was again made use of as an Intermezzo in this +unfinished opera. + +Musically considered, “Sorochinsk Fair,” while far from fully +representing its composer, bears undoubted evidences of his advanced +thought. Certain rhythmic and harmonic touches, plainly intended to +reflect a nice shade of meaning in the text, recall Dargomijsky’s +maxim, “The sound must represent the word,” and are an assurance that +Moussorgsky always had this in mind. + + + “BORIS GODOUNOF” + + VII. + +By means of his music-drama “Boris Godounof,” Moussorgsky first +became known to the world as a creative artist who, though hitherto +neglected, would have to be reckoned among the great innovators. For +the student of Russian music the work possesses several independent +points of interest. In the first place, it is clearly the offspring +of Glinka’s initial dramatic venture, “A Life for the Tsar.” It is +at the same time far in advance of its forerunner in its dramatic +as well as in its musical conception. It referred, as did Glinka’s +opera, to one of the most remarkable epochs in the history of +Russia. But while Glinka puts before his spectators a plot with a +heroic action as its salient, Moussorgsky occupies himself with +the revelation of the consequences of a dastardly act. Yet the +latter, despite his preoccupation with mental movement and +his neglect of physical, does not adopt the procedure of the +psychologist-musician. We do not find him indulging in a lengthy +exegesis of his own soul-states in presence of the stage tragedy he +depicts. He tells a simple though rather horrible tale. His narrative +does not bear the impress of the narrator’s temperament. “Boris +Godounof” is neither the cold compilation of the detached historian, +nor the revelation of the mental agony of a greatly interested and +concerned onlooker. A spectator of Moussorgsky’s version of the +tragedy is not first concerned with what he himself is thinking about +the dramatic occurrences, nor does he speculate upon the attitude +of the composer towards all this murder, strife, and intrigue. His +mind is chiefly occupied in observing their effect upon the people +participating in the drama. He finds himself glancing at the crowd, +and wondering what will be their demeanour in the face of the next +development. And Moussorgsky’s crowd never fails to respond. + +Operatic nationalism had begun with a Russian text; Glinka had +endowed it with a native musical manner. Moussorgsky made it an +absolute expression of nationalism. + + + VIII. + +The chapter of Russian history chosen by Moussorgsky as the material +of his drama is one which is to be considered as a turning-point in +the history of the Russian Empire. It refers to the interim between +two great dynasties. + +Looking into the future, Ivan the Terrible had perceived that his +weak-minded son Feodor, whom he regarded as “more like a sacristan +than the son of a Tsar,” was quite unfit to control the destinies +of a nation. Not long after his father’s death Feodor himself +became conscious of his incapacity. Accordingly he appointed Boris +Godounof, whose marriage into the royal family had been a step +prompted by ambition, as Regent. Godounof was not slow to discern +the potentialities of his new position. He saw that Feodor’s younger +brother Dmitri might one day stand between himself and the throne. +This youth lived on a property at Ouglich, willed to him by his +father. Godounof saw to it that his interests were not neglected in +this quarter, and among Dmitri’s entourage there were several tools +of the Regent. Their observations led Boris to assume that if this +boy lived there would be an end to all his ambitions. Godounof laid +his plans accordingly. On a May afternoon in 1591 young Dmitri was +playing in the courtyard of his palace. He was suddenly missed. The +stories of his assassination vary, but the one usually accepted +relates that Dmitri’s corpse was discovered in the church. Seven +years later Feodor breathed his last, supported in the arms of his +wife and his Regent, Boris, who had long since attained to something +like absolute power, now saw that the throne could easily be his. +“The Russian annalists,” says Prosper Mérimée,[10] “who were no doubt +ignorant of the Scottish legends, represent Boris as a new Macbeth +driven to the crime by the prophecies of his soothsayers.” Having +told him that he would one day reign, they paused in terror at what +they read in his future. He would reign, they added timorously, but +only for seven years. “What matter if it be but seven days,” cried +Boris, “so long as I reign.” + +As occupant of the throne, the consequences of his crime never +ceased to pursue him. A Pretender arose who claimed to be Ivan’s son +Dmitri. He had a large following, and was seized upon by the Poles +as a convenient instrument in the promotion of their revolt against +Muscovy. With the trouble at its height, Boris found himself on the +horns of a ghastly dilemma. He wished his son to reign after him. +If Dmitri was really alive his own son would never be Tsar. If his +terrible design of years ago had been properly carried out, as he had +always supposed, he must himself be a murderer, and with a conscience +grown livelier that thought was unbearable. + + + IX. + +Moussorgsky’s music-drama does not show us the assassination. We do +not see Dmitri’s bloodstained corpse. But we get more than a glimpse +of Boris’s remorse-stricken soul, and we are allowed to obtain a +fairly broad survey of the national mind. + +That this was intended to be the main business of Moussorgsky’s +“National Music-Drama” is plainly shown by the arrangement of his +dramatic material. Before the “plot” is entered upon there are two +scenes constituting a prologue. By this means the ostensible as well +as the real position as between monarch and people is revealed. +Boris, invited to place himself on the throne, guilefully dissembles +and demurs. His subjects, coerced at the instigation of Boris’s own +minions, simulate an anxiety lest the chosen Tsar’s reluctance be +maintained. A significant episode is the entrance of the mendicant +pilgrims (_Kalieki perekhojie_), whose sacred hymn is received with +an enthusiasm that is real. The people have been allowed to express +themselves. In the second scene news of Boris’s acquiescence arrives. +It is followed at a short interval by the Tsar himself, who, passing +across the Red Square to the Kremlin, is greeted by the crowd +assembled for his coronation. So far the text is of Moussorgsky’s +making. When proceeding to the discussion of the main plot, he is +able to draw upon Pushkin’s original literary substance. + +The first scene of Act I is laid in the cell of the monk Pimen, who +is engaged upon the concluding pages of a chronicle of Russian +history. From him the young novice Grigory Otrepief learns the +details of Dmitri’s assassination. His discovery that the murdered +Tsarevich would have been his own age makes him at once the victim +and the hero of his imagination. He becomes the self-appointed +avenger of the murdered Dmitri. + +Scene II shows him a fugitive defying ecclesiastical authority. He +has renounced the cloister and has taken his first step towards the +throne. He is resting at an inn situated on the Lithuanian frontier. +At the moment of his betrayal by two bibulous monks, he escapes +through the window and continues his journey towards Poland. + +The royal palace is the scene of the second act, which is the joint +work of Pushkin and Moussorgsky. The presence of the Tsar’s son +Feodor and his daughter Xenia is made a vehicle for the interpolation +of appropriate material of an episodic kind. The actual drama is +carried a step further by the Tsar’s reference to a map of Russia, +which is being examined by his heir. “All this territory,” explains +Boris to his son, “will one day be yours.” The atmosphere of +domesticity is dispelled by the entrance of the boyard Shouisky, +who brings news of serious trouble on the Polish frontier. It has +been declared that the corpse found at Ouglich was not that of +Dmitri Ivanovich; and that he, on the contrary, is a living and +energetic claimant of the crown. Boris, uneasy, orders an immediate +inquiry into the conduct of the assassination. Shouisky, as though +to reassure him, describes the appearance of the child’s corpse, +which he claims to have seen. On his withdrawal Boris is seized with +terror. The rack upon which his mind has for years been tortured +has been given a sharp turn by Shouisky’s recital, and the strain +produces a nerve-crisis. Boris, through a hallucination, has a vision +of the blood-stained corpse. An awful terror seizes him. + + + X. + +The next act is one which might well have been omitted from the +scheme, and in performance often is. It was inserted, it will be +remembered, to make good the deficiency of feminine interest. +Dramatically it has a sort of relation to the whole, since it is +complementary to the information brought by Shouisky and shows what +is happening in Poland. Musically it is not uninteresting, but, +considered as a part of the whole music-drama, it is as much a +blemish as is Glinka’s Polish Act in “A Life for the Tsar.” Glinka’s +weakness of invention is shared by Moussorgsky. Both of them failed +in the musical portrayal of Poland, because neither was able to +describe the Polish character in musical terms other than those of +the popular national rhythms. + +The act has as definite a foundation in history as any other section +of the drama, but it is negligible to the working out of this +particular plot. Otrepief has arrived in Poland and has found a +supporter. He has also found a maiden whose attachment to him is not +altogether dictated by her heart. Her aim is to share the throne +of Russia, and she is striving to strengthen his ambitious hopes, +knowing that upon them depends her chance of realizing her own. Both +Marina Mnichek and her religious director, Rangoni, the Jesuit, are +well known to history. As witnesses of their scheming, we feel that +this act is at least a little helpful to our understanding of the +drama. But the music, in its attempts to procure local colour, is far +from convincing. + +The fourth act is in two scenes. In the first the arrival of the +Pretender at the forest of Kromy, _en route_ for Moscow, is the only +feature of dramatic value. But Moussorgsky’s musical treatment of the +behaviour of the utterly irresponsible crowd of peasants, who welcome +the Pretender’s passage rather as a pretext for revolt than as any +real blessing, is a page which in itself creates an epoch in the +history of Opera. The “pure fool” left behind on the stage to wring +his hands in anguish at the darkness that is falling upon Russia is +the creation of Pushkin. It is a national type which lives again in +Dostoievsky’s “Idiot.” + +The final scene is apparently a continuation of that in which we left +Boris vainly trying to shut out the awful vision of the murdered +Prince. The Tsar’s Council, confident that the revolt of which +Shouisky has apprised them will be quickly suppressed, are discussing +the form of punishment to be meted out to the Pretender. Suddenly +the terror-stricken figure of the Tsar bursts into the hall. With +difficulty they calm him. Shouisky enters, and announces that he has +found one who can give a faithful account of the Ouglich crime, and +thus dispose of the Pretender’s claim. Pimen is ushered in. He tells +of an old shepherd, blind from birth, who heard in a dream a command +that he should pray at the tomb of Dmitri, now an angel, and whose +faith was duly rewarded with the gift of sight. Boris hearing that +his guilt is established, falls into a worse frenzy. He feels that +his end is near. Young Feodor is sent for, and with his last breath +the Tsar proclaims him his heir and successor. + + + XI. + +The choice of “Boris Godounof” as subject would appear, as has +been observed, to have been directly inspired by Glinka’s use of +historical material in “A Life for the Tsar.” The music, however, is +that of a composer who, after earnestly conferring with Dargomijsky, +found little difficulty in seeing eye to eye with him in regard to +the main principles of the “New Russian School.” + +The setting of “Boris Godounof,” considered in comparison with all +other operatic music, stands right apart from it. It is the artistic +product of a great national crisis. One can easily imagine that a man +so passionately in earnest as Moussorgsky would be immensely inspired +by the so-called “nihilist” movement, and that nothing would please +him more than to write an opera that would reflect the spirit of that +movement. + +It was the endeavour of the young intellectual of that time to +be natural. There was a crusade against “pose,” and not merely +deliberate but unconscious pose. One could dismiss the score of +“Boris” with a compliment well worth the paying by declaring it an +opera in which every bar of music is natural. Listening to the work, +one could imagine Moussorgsky never to have heard an opera, to be +entirely ignorant of the traditions of this form of art. With the +exception of the Polish Act, in which he seems to betray that for +him, as for Glinka, the vocabulary of musical terms in which the +Polish character could be rendered stopped short at the Polacca and +Mazurka rhythms, the composer has given us music that is appropriate, +sincere, and dignified, never departing from beauty and never +approaching anything in the nature of conventional pattern. + +When it has been said that the music is consistently natural, +it seems hardly necessary to mention that there are none of the +traditional operatic subdivisions or self-contained numbers, that +there are no formal overtures or _entr’actes_. The Prelude is of +sufficient length to establish the requisite atmosphere. That done, +the curtain rises. When it falls, the music, being there for a purely +dramatic purpose, ceases. When, as in the case of Grigory’s escape +from the Inn, there is a likelihood that the scene will continue in +the imagination of the spectator for a moment or two after the action +is shut out from view, the music comes to his assistance, but it has +a curtain of its own, and this too is quickly drawn. + + + XII. + +By Moussorgsky the leading-motive device is very happily used. His +leading-motives are flashes of thought, mere reminiscences. There +are the usual labels for characters and sentiments, but they are +used in moderation. There is nothing resembling the Wagnerian +philosophical disquisitions upon the attributes of a character on +its every appearance, or upon the ethics of an emotion whenever +suggested. Moussorgsky’s themes are used chiefly as links connecting +the series of tableaux of which the drama is made up, and not as +labels inseparable from the persons to whom they have been attached. +The most prominent motive--that associated with the idea of the +royal succession, heard in the dialogue between Pimen and Grigory +when the latter asks what age the murdered Prince would have been; +in the Introduction to the Inn scene heralding the presence of the +novice-Pretender; in Shouisky’s account of the Ouglich crime and +other places--does not at all times accompany reference to the +subject it represents. Although it appears occasionally in the Polish +scenes, there are places in which it might have been used quite +effectively but in which it is neglected. Other themes recurring with +more or less frequency and subtlety are the People’s motive, which +is heard in an altered shape in the Forest scene when the crowd is +baiting a captured noble; the short phrase which seems to refer to +Russia’s past and which appears at intervals during the scene in the +old monk’s cell, returning with Pimen’s narrative in the last act; +and those which apparently represent the sentiments and attributes of +the Tsar, his paternal solicitude and his insatiable ambition. That +the full power of the leading-motive device was recognized by the +composer is plain from the use of one of the Polish themes, when in +the Forest scene the Pretender speaks of his destination. Here the +main motive occurring under the words: “To our holy land of Russia +... let us seek the Kremlin” is heard in conjunction with a fragment +of the Polacca. These two are heard together also in the Polish act. + +The avoidance of formalism that characterizes the use of the +leading-motive is in accord with the note of the whole work, +simplicity. The moments of mental stress, the dramatic crises, are +not with Moussorgsky the signal for a marshalling of “every modern +luxury,” as Glinka styled the instrumental array. In this respect +we find economy where extravagance usually prevails. Even in the +scene of the hallucination, the composer depends mainly upon his +“strings” for the description of Boris’s anguish. With him the +repeated reference to an emotion does not involve an ever-increasing +volume of tone for the description of the growing complexity in +the psychological situation. Thus Boris’s final fit of terror is +accompanied by music infinitely simpler than that heard when first +allusion is made to the murdered heir. + +The vocal line of the opera partakes for the most part of the nature +of melodic recitative, but its purely lyrical moments are by no means +sparse. As they occur in places where reference to folk-lore and song +is made, they constitute no exception to the general appropriateness. +There are times when Moussorgsky feels called upon to bring the +sound into very close accord with the general sense; it is then that +the composer resorts, as in the story of the parakeet, told by the +excited young Tsarevich Feodor, to a method used in some of his +songs. This consists of a faithful yet musical reflection of the rise +and fall of the speaking voice. Set up as an ideal by Dargomijsky, it +was attained by his disciple. + +Moussorgsky was not deliberately unconventional as an operatic +composer. National music-drama, if it is to exert the powerful +influence without which it is not national, must be natural. +Moussorgsky adopted the means best suited for the maintenance of +that naturalness which alone could achieve what he has achieved. +The music follows the drift of the text, serving it faithfully and +never seeking to assert its claim to beauty as music. The sound, +as M. Marnold so happily expresses it, is never allowed to become +egotistical.[11] But, in accordance with the canons of the “New +Russian School” it never ceases to be music. + + + “KHOVANSHCHINA” + + XIII. + +It was a Russian who said that religion was given by Providence as +a stick which, in default of intellectual qualities, might be used +as a moral support, and that with this stick Russians had chosen +to belabour each other. The human interference which brought about +the misuse of the stick was that of Nikon the Patriarch, who in +1655 undertook a revision of the Bible. Some of the corrections +gave offence to the people, who preferred to adhere to traditional +methods of worship. In consequence of this the nation was split +into two main religious bodies: the Old Believers and the Orthodox, +or followers of the authoritative dispensation. The dissenting body +subsequently became subdivided into a great number of “jarring sects.” + +It is with this schism that Moussorgsky’s second historical opera +concerns itself. The figure-heads of the opposing factions, for the +purposes of the opera, are Prince Ivan Khovansky, an adherent of +the old régime, and Prince Galitsin, whose sympathies and interests +are served by the introduction of Western enlightenment. It is +understood that Dositheus, who in the opera is the spiritual leader +of the Old Believers, is a portrait of another Prince. Stassof, who +was responsible for the suggestion that this “antagonism between +old and young Russia” would be good material for an opera, may well +have feared, as in a letter to Moussorgsky he confesses he did, that +instead of being a “People’s Music-Drama” it would be a Princes’. + +The love-interest in “Khovanshchina” was not, as it had been in +“Boris Godounof,” an afterthought. There are three prominent feminine +characters: the Old Believer, Martha, described by Stassof as in some +ways resembling Potiphar’s wife; Susan, a rigid fanatic, priding +herself overmuch on her virtue; and Emma, a young Lutheran by whom +Khovansky’s son Andrew has been attracted. In the original plan there +were to have been included the figure of the Empress-Regent Sophia, +of whom Galitsin is supposed to have been the lover, together with +her young charge, afterwards to become Peter the Great. Owing to +Moussorgsky’s decline in health, and the consequent fear that his +opera might never be finished, he was obliged to reduce its scheme, +and the royal personages disappeared. + +The historical events underlying the dramatic material of +“Khovanshchina” are as follows: Feodor Alexeyevich, eldest grandson +of the first Romanof, had died without issue and was succeeded by +Peter, the third brother, Ivan, being of weak intellect. As Peter was +only ten years old Sophia, their half-sister, was appointed Regent. +Anticipating the unwelcome reforms for which Peter afterwards became +famous, Sophia did her best to place Ivan on the throne, and to this +end instigated a revolt of the Streltsy--a regiment of Guards most +of whom were Old Believers. Their leader, Prince Khovansky, and his +son Andrew were the moving spirits in the rebellion, and Peter, who +subsequently succeeded in quelling it, gave to the series of risings +the appellation of “Khovanshchina.” The culminating event was the +collective suicide of a large body of Old Believers who refused to +submit to the heretical innovations of one whom they believed to be +anti-Christ. + + + XIV. + +Moussorgsky’s libretto is a fairly faithful rendering of the +historical records, but its hurried abridgement naturally caused a +sacrifice of many interesting details. The opera, in its published +form, begins with a scene in the Red Square at Moscow. It is early +morning. A public letter-writer enters the Square and sets up his +booth, and a number of Streltsy who have been bivouacking in the +Square after a riot on the previous evening betake themselves to +their duties. Presently the boyard Shaklovity enters, and calls upon +the scrivener to write down an impeachment of the Khovanskys, father +and son. Immediately on his departure the pompous Prince Khovansky +arrives with his following of Streltsy and Old Believers. Making +the most of his position as head of the Streltsy, he encourages the +people to rise against the authority of Peter. The crowd, impressed +by his arrogance, sing a hymn in his honour. As the procession is +moving off a young woman rushes upon the scene, closely followed by +Khovansky’s son. It is Emma the Lutheran, who is being importuned, +to her evident distress, by Prince Andrew. The altercation is +interrupted by the arrival of Martha, whom Andrew has discarded. +Andrew, furious at her intervention, attempts to stab her, but the +Old Believer, gaining possession of his knife, delivers a mystical +oration in which she foretells the young Prince’s approaching doom. +The elder Khovansky now returns and, perceiving that the object of +his son’s attentions is a young woman whom he himself admires, gives +orders for her arrest. Andrew vows that she shall not be taken alive. +She is saved by the timely entrance of the venerable Dositheus. He +upbraids Andrew, orders Martha to protect Emma under her own roof, +and kneels in prayer. The crowd proceeds to the Kremlin for worship, +and the curtain falls on the solitary figure of Dositheus. + +The second act takes place in the palace of the Galitsins. The rising +curtain discloses the Prince disdainfully perusing a love-letter +from the Empress-Regent. To him enters Martha, whom he has summoned, +believing in her powers of clairvoyance, to read his future. She +calls for a basin of water, cloaks herself in a long black garment, +and proceeds to divine his early ruin. Beside himself with rage, +Galitsin calls for his servants and orders them to waylay the woman +on her way home, and to drown her in the marshes. + +Galitsin, pondering over Martha’s terrifying prediction, is now +visited by his enemy Khovansky. Between them there are personal +and political recriminations, which terminate on the entrance of +Dositheus, who pacifies them. The calm is but temporary. Martha +returns to announce that an attempt has been made on her life, and +is followed by Shaklovity, who presents himself as the envoy of the +Regent and warns Khovansky that the Tsar has discovered his plot. + +The Streltsian quarter of Moscow is the scene of the third act. +Martha, withdrawing herself from a procession of Old Believers, seats +herself on a mound near the Khovansky palace, and sings reminiscently +of the days when young Andrew’s heart was hers. She refers once more +to the mysterious fate awaiting him. + +Susan now discloses herself. She is scandalized by the passionate +references to Andrew she has overheard, and reviles Martha for her +shamelessness. Dositheus enters and brings peace once more on the +scene. He rebukes the old fanatic for her harshness, and comforts +Martha. Night falls, and Shaklovity arrives and puts up a prayer for +his harassed country. + +There follows a sudden rush of Streltsy, followed by their plainly +discontented wives. During the turmoil the letter-writer enters +breathless, bringing news of the defeat of a Streltsian force at the +hands of Peter’s men. A call is made for their leader, and Prince +Khovansky counsels them from the steps of his palace to submit for +the nonce to Peter’s rule. + +The fourth act has two scenes. The first shows the interior of +Khovansky’s country mansion. The old Prince is seeking distraction +in the songs of his attendant maidens. A messenger from Galitsin, +conveying news of a plot against Khovansky’s life, is scornfully +dismissed, and the master of the house calls for his Persian dancers. +At the conclusion of the entertainment Shaklovity brings a command +that Khovansky shall appear at the Regent’s council. Imagining +this to be a sign of returning favour, the Prince makes ready for +the journey, but as he approaches the door he is stabbed. His +terrified servants flee from the sight of their prostrate master, and +Shaklovity, surveying the corpse, breaks out into derisive laughter. + +Scene II represents a public square in Moscow. Through the crowd is +seen the figure of Galitsin, who is being hurried under close escort +into exile. Dositheus joins the throng, and hears from Martha that +Peter has ordered the wholesale execution of the Old Believers. Their +leader resolves that death shall be self-inflicted. Andrew Khovansky, +ignorant of his father’s assassination and of the general turn of +events, now appears on the scene, and entreats Martha to deliver up +the young Lutheran. He is told that Emma is honourably united to the +man she loves, and in his consternation Andrew threatens Martha with +death at the hands of his Streltsy. She bids him proceed with his +threat. His repeated horn-blasts are answered in unexpected fashion +by a body of his men, who, guarded by Peter’s soldiers, are bringing +axes and faggots to the place chosen for their execution. It does not +take place. Peter’s merciful decree of pardon is delivered to them by +a herald. + +The Old Believers’ hermitage in a wood near Moscow is the scene of +the fifth and final act. There, under the leadership of Dositheus, +preparations are being made for a self-administered martyrdom. +Andrew, still hoping to find Emma, is prevailed upon by Martha +to mount the pyre, to which she then applies the brand. The Old +Believers sing their hymn until the flames overpower them. The +trumpets of Peter’s soldiery are heard, and the curtain falls to the +music which symbolizes the rising of the new Russia from the ashes of +the old. + + + XV. + +As drama, “Khovanshchina” is better planned than “Boris Godounof,” +despite the summary curtailment to which Moussorgsky was obliged +to subject the work. On the dramatic side it possesses perhaps in +a greater degree the quality of nationalism; the consequences of +the Nikonian revision have a greater significance for the larger +public than the misdemeanours of Boris and Otrepief. In the matter of +construction, the difference between the two works is principally in +respect of detail. Moussorgsky has abandoned, in “Khovanshchina,” his +rigid adherence to the method of “throughout-composition”; there are +repetitions which reveal an intention of seeking a compromise between +an allegiance to the principles of his School and the desire to use +a beautiful melody more than once. “Khovanshchina” is, in a word, +slightly more “operatic” than “Boris Godounof.” + +The principal characters are again represented by themes, and here +one observes that in their repetition there is just a shade more +deliberateness. The motive most frequently used is that of the +massive figure of Khovansky, than which it would have been impossible +to conceive anything more appropriate. + +A remarkable feature of the score is the wealth of music of an +ecclesiastical kind. Already in “Boris” Moussorgsky had shown +a complete mastery of the ancient modal method of writing. In +“Khovanshchina” he achieves some of his most successful pages when +composing chants for the Old Believer chorus. + +A cardinal point of difference between the music of “Boris Godounof” +and that of the later work is that, whereas in the former the lyrical +pages are, as it were, mostly ornamental, in “Khovanshchina” they are +part and parcel of the vocal line. The inclusion in “Boris” of the +Clapping Game, the Nurse’s Song of the Gnat, and the Inn-keeper’s +Song, is perfectly legitimate, as they are relevant to the dramatic +action. But they are decorative; they are part of the folk-colour. +In “Khovanshchina” there are a few identifiable specimens of +folk-song, such as Martha’s song in Act III, the hymn to Khovansky in +the country-house scene, and a fragment sung by the sleepy strelets +immediately following the curtain’s first rise; but their folk-origin +is not betrayed, as are those of the earlier work, by their text. +They are used where original music would have served as well, and the +allegory of the folk-text fits into the dramatic situation. + + + XVI. + +There are several numbers of great beauty in “Khovanshchina” which +might easily be given a separate performance. First among these +should be mentioned the Persian Dances. Among some of the composer’s +friends they were looked upon as an unwarrantable interpolation. The +assumption that old Prince Khovansky had among his household some +Persian captives was too slender an excuse for this music. Hearing +it, one is quite prepared to give Moussorgsky the benefit of the +doubt. The dances are introduced by a few anticipatory phrases; by +this means the composer avoids the break which would have given them +more the appearance of a ballet included as a sop to the orthodox +opera-goer. The Song of the Haiduk (Hungarian mercenary), sung by +Khovansky’s serving-maids immediately before the Persian Dances, +is also exceedingly charming; it is obviously traditional. The +choral song in honour of Khovansky, in the first act, is highly +appropriate music, and could hardly have been improved upon as a +means of suggesting the attitude of his followers towards the Prince. +In singling out one from the many fine specimens of music of a +devotional kind, it is upon the chorus of Old Believers in the last +act, written in the Phrygian mode, that the choice must fall. The +wonderful Song of Divination ought not to need mention as one of the +numbers detachable from the score, since that is often given on the +concert-platform. + +“Khovanshchina” seems to merit a place apart in the field of Russian +Opera. It is a fusion of the Glinkist and Dargomijskian traditions +in that it deals with national subjects, incorporates the folk-idea, +both literary and musical, and is designed and constructed on lines +which are favourable to the development of a rational type of opera; +in such an opera the severity of declamation is relieved on suitable +occasions by melody, and a compromise is thus reached, admitting +of the treatment of any literary subject at all suitable for the +purposes of opera. + +“Khovanshchina” is a work in which such a compromise becomes +imperative. But for its acceptance the store of Russian national +music-drama would have been robbed of an example that makes a direct +appeal to the religious as well as to the patriotic sensibilities of +the Russian nation. + + + FOOTNOTES: + + [8] “Moussorgsky,” Félix Alcan, Paris, 1911. + + [9] A Russian musical essayist, wrongly supposing this to have + referred to the whole operatic fragment, has cited these + words as evidence of the composer’s power of detachment. + + [10] “Les Faux Démétrius,” Paris, 1853. + + [11] “Musique d’autrefois et d’aujourd’hui,” Dorbon-Ainé, Paris. + + + + + + PART III + + CHORAL AND INSTRUMENTAL WORKS + + + I. + +A survey of Moussorgsky’s dramatic work reveals so many evidences +of genius in writing for chorus that one might have expected to +find among his compositions a greater number of independent choral +examples. Of the four surviving specimens, only one was designed as +a separate work--“The Destruction of Sennacherib,” after Byron’s +short poem, for the usual vocal quartet. This was written in the +winter of 1866-67, and first performed at a Free School Concert under +Balakiref’s direction. One cannot say more than that its music, while +making no strong effort at description, is entirely suitable to the +text. Of the others, the chorus for mixed voices and orchestra (the +sole remaining number of the setting of Sophocles’ “Œdipus”), and +a women’s chorus from the unfinished “Salammbô,” are not of great +importance. “Joshua,” also originally from that source is, on the +other hand, a work of particular interest. It is founded on themes +that the composer heard sung by some Jews, for some time neighbours +of his, during the Feast of Tabernacles. In this Moussorgsky +has imitated a style altogether new to him, showing a wonderful +sensibility to new impressions. The melodic line is remarkably +characteristic; its only blemish is an instrumental reproduction of +an ornamental flourish, introducing an effect of clearness foreign +to the traditional Hebraic vocal style. A comparison of some of the +melodic figures with those employed in the sketch of the two Jews in +“The Picture-Show,” suggests that Moussorgsky based his character +drawing therein upon the material from which the “Joshua” music had +been derived. + + + “THE PICTURE-SHOW” + + II. + +With one exception Moussorgsky’s compositions for the piano can have +little interest other than that arising for the historian. With +this very notable exception none of them would for a moment arrest +the attention of a musician if published under an unknown name.[12] +The extraordinary novelty and originality of the famous series of +sketches called “The Picture-Show” is attributable to its having been +created under the influence of a deep inspiration. + +Unfortunately it is impossible at this date to obtain any notion as +to the degree of success attained by the composer in reproducing in +music what he saw in Hartmann’s sketches. While it has been possible, +with a little contriving, to see the original pictures of Goya, and +to hear their musical reflection according to Granados, or to witness +the ridiculous miming of “General Lavine,” and to listen to Debussy’s +account of his mannerisms on one and the same day, the chance of +comparing Moussorgsky’s pieces with the water-colours and sketches +that inspired them is apparently lost for ever. But the listener +whose imagination enables him to connect the music with Hartmann’s +titles is not likely to care whether or no a sight of the originals +would diminish his pleasure. + +Hartmann, an architect, was a great friend both of Stassof and +Moussorgsky. The son of a doctor, he was born in 1834, and despite +his short life managed to visit practically all the art centres +of Europe in search of ideas. On his death in the summer of 1873, +Stassof wrote an extremely eulogistic notice, following this up with +a sketch of his acquaintanceship and transactions with the lamented +artist. In the spring of 1874, an exhibition of water-colours and +designs was arranged, and it was Moussorgsky’s visit to the gallery +that led him to attempt what must have been then regarded as a +particularly daring experiment. + +Writing to Stassof in June, 1874, Moussorgsky states that “Hartmann” +is progressing at the same furious rate as did “Boris” a year or so +before. The first four numbers of the suite had then already taken +shape. + +The following is a slightly abbreviated translation of Moussorgsky’s +description of the pictures, printed in the original edition of his +suite. Only a few of them are mentioned in Stassof’s notice of the +exhibition: + + 1. “Gnomus.” Picture representing a little goblin, hobbling + clumsily along on his misshapen legs. + + 2. “Il Vecchio Castello.” A medieval castle, before which sings a + troubadour. + + 3. “Tuileries.” Children wrangling over their games in the + Tuileries Gardens. + + 4. “Bydlo.” A Polish cart on huge wheels, drawn by oxen. + + 5. “Ballet of Chickens in their Shells.” A sketch for the staging + of the ballet “Trilby.” + + 6. “Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle.” Two Polish Jews, the one + prosperous, the other needy. + + 7. “Limoges.” Bickering market-women. + + 8. “The Catacombs.” Hartmann is seen visiting the Paris Catacombs + by lantern-light. + + 9. “The Hut on Fowls’ Legs.” A design for a clock in the shape of + Baba-Yaga’s hut. Moussorgsky added the trail of the witch, + journeying to and fro in her traditional mortar. + + 10. “The Bogatyr’s Gate at Kief.” Hartmann’s plan for the proposed + Gate in the ancient massive Russian style, with a cupola in the + form of a Slavonic helmet. + +There is a Prelude under the title “Promenade,” the theme of which is +used to suggest from time to time the gait of the visitor, and also +the impression made upon him by the pictures. + +The most graphic numbers in the series are undoubtedly “Gnomus,” in +which the grotesque little goblin’s awkward movements are wonderfully +suggested, “Bydlo,” a scene in the street of Sandomir (recalling that +it was Hartmann who advised including the Polish Act in “Boris,” of +which the castle at Sandomir is the scene), the “Trilby” movement, +daintiness itself, the Polish Jews, whose contrasted condition is +marvellously depicted, the Baba-Yaga scene, and the splendidly heroic +final number--a little masterpiece that is in itself an excellent +memorial of the co-designer of the Russian Millennary monument at +Nijni Novgorod. + +The Spanish picture, the Tuileries scene, and “Limoges,” are somewhat +too formal for their purpose, and come strangely from the composer of +“The Nursery.” “The Catacombs” is a curiously fantastic number, part +of which is based on the “Promenade” theme. + +Now that these pieces have become popular, one regrets all the more +that the pictures of Hartmann were not reproduced in the original +edition--their inclusion could not greatly have lessened the value of +Moussorgsky’s work, and would have provided, in conjunction with the +music, a fitting souvenir of an exceptionally versatile artist. + + + “NIGHT ON THE BARE MOUNTAIN” + + III. + +The surviving orchestral version of Moussorgsky’s famous “Night on +the Bare Mountain” is the work of Rimsky-Korsakof, and thus cannot +be considered, apart from its thematic and programmatic interest, as +representative. + +Its history is a little complicated. Composed in the rough in 1867, +as a fantasia for piano and orchestra, supposedly under the influence +of Liszt’s “Dance Macabre” and Berlioz’ “Witches’ Sabbath,” and +given the title of “St. John’s Eve,” it was thrown aside until some +three years later, when on Gedeonof’s “Mlada” project being put +before Moussorgsky and his friends Cui, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakof, +it was considerably altered and was given a vocal part. It had now +become the music for the revels of Chernobog (the Black god) on Mount +Triglaf. On the abandonment of Gedeonof’s scheme it was once more +laid aside, to serve again for “Sorochinsk Fair” as the “fantastic +dream”--an Intermezzo in which the witches are seen disporting +themselves on the Bare Mountain. The ringing of the bell which +disperses the nocturnal spirits at dawn was inserted at this time. +Finally it was revised and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakof, who, +after considerable trouble in arranging the material satisfactorily, +eventually conducted it at the first of Belayef’s Russian Symphony +Concerts, about five years after the composer’s death. Its immediate +popularity is easy to understand, since the fantastic programme is +carried out with a wealth of rhythmic and harmonic suggestion that +compels a mental reconstruction of the supernatural occurrences +described. The verbal description of the scene, attached to the +score, is as follows: “Subterranean sounds of unearthly voices. +Appearance of the spirits of darkness followed by that of the God +Chernobog. Chernobog’s glorification and the Black Mass. The Revels. +At the height of the orgies is heard from afar the bell of a little +church, which causes the spirits to disperse. Dawn.” + +The fantasia possesses a special significance for the student of +Russian musical history. It recalls that Glinka had mooted, somewhere +about the time of Moussorgsky’s birth, the notion of composing a +number of orchestral works in which he proposed removing the accepted +formal restrictions in order to offer to the public a kind of music +that could be appreciated by its (musically) uneducated section. The +fantasias in question were to preserve such a level of seriousness +as would render them acceptable to the critical, but by means of +a “programme” were to make a popular appeal. “A Night in Madrid” +may thus be looked upon as a forerunner of “A Night on the Bare +Mountain,” and the latter as the first of a series of symphonic +pictures of which Rimsky-Korsakof’s “Sheherazade” and “Antar,” +Borodin’s “In the Steppes of Central Asia,” Balakiref’s “Tamara,” +and Glazounof’s “Stenka Razin” are the most meritorious examples. “A +Night on the Bare Mountain” must therefore be attributed as much to +Glinkist as to foreign influence. + + + FOOTNOTES: + + [12] A further exception may perhaps be made in favour of the + “Intermezzo,” composed in 1861, and afterwards arranged + for orchestra. It was partly inspired by a rustic scene, + but was written in a classical style not at all suggesting + a “programme.” + + + + + PART IV + + SONGS + + + I. + +Before proceeding to make detailed reference to Moussorgsky’s +songs, it should be mentioned that the composer did not look upon a +song as a vocal solo with instrumental accompaniment. He was just +as unwilling to do so as he would have been to regard an opera as +a “concert in costume.” For him, the song was a vehicle for the +description of something not to be described by any other means. +His songs are best considered as musical scenes with a vocal part, +the voice naturally becoming prominent where description gives +place to narration or dialogue. In order to facilitate reference +to the style of Moussorgsky’s forty-odd examples, their stylistic +attributes may be roughly specified under the following heads: (1) +National or Popular: Where the text possesses a national character +or appeals to nationalistic sensibilities, or where the music is in +the style of folk-song. (2) Poetical or Idealistic: Where the text is +based upon a poetical idea and the music is “absolute” rather than +suggestive, reflecting the general sentiment of the whole rather +than the particular meaning of a phrase. (3) Realistic: Where the +text possesses the attributes of a _genre_ production and the music +occupies itself for the most part with description. (4) Declamatory: +Where the text is in the nature of a narration and the vocal music +is mostly recitatival. (In this class of song Moussorgsky has not +hesitated to alter the bar-design or measure wherever the syllabic +structure of the text has demanded such variation.) Even this +generous allowance of categories takes no account of the satirical +pieces in which there is the purpose of ridiculing certain persons, +types, or ideas, and which in two cases have been conveniently and +appropriately described as “musical pamphlets.” + + + II. + +In the first, or national, category comes one of Moussorgsky’s +best-known vocal works, the “Gopak.” The stirring words of the +martyr-poet Taras Shevchenko are set melodically, with a fitness that +could not have been surpassed had this sublime Ruthenian patriot +himself, and not a Muscovite, been responsible for the music. The +invocation to the Dnieper, also the work of this poet (he is buried +on its banks), while national in character, is musically of quite +a different order from the first. Beginning with a recitatival +introduction in freely varied rhythms (7/4, 6/4, 3/4), a folk-song +character prevails throughout the sombre Allegro. The final section, +a return to the introductory theme, is a magnificently eloquent +appeal to the Ruthenian river, the two bars in which the name is +pronounced being lengthened to 7/4 to admit of due emphasis. + +“To the Mushrooms” is another song which may well be cited in this +category, for the folk-song element is here also very conspicuous. +It is national in text as well as music--mushroom-picking being in +Russia made the occasion of a special ceremonial. The refrain has a +strong melodic resemblance to the song of the Innkeeper in “Boris +Godounof.” The “coda,” which is at greater length than Moussorgsky +usually allows himself, is a masterly piece of harmonic variation. + +The “Peasant’s Cradle Song” is in an entirely different mood. The +mother sings in turn of the oppression that will be her child’s lot, +and of the Divine solicitude that may lighten the burden. The music +suits itself wonderfully to the change of sense; only the rocking is +constant. + +The most characteristic examples among Moussorgsky’s realistic songs +are “The Orphan” and “Savishna.” Both of them are sheer strokes of +genius, not merely as to their general conception but in respect of +their composer’s happy disregard of tradition at a moment when the +consideration of form would have prevented a fitting illustration of +their textual idea. The first represents a street beggar imploring +charity of a passer by. “Oh, kind gentleman, take pity on a poor, +miserable, homeless orphan....” The child describes the conditions +of his existence; he has no strength left. “... To die of hunger +is terrible ... my blood is frozen ... have pity on a miserable +orphan....” The music has simply spoken and moaned with the child; +the misery described for us by its harmony might have softened the +heart of the passer by; yet it fails.... The child is left standing, +as an incomplete cadence tells us. Charity, like its resolution, is +missing. + +The orphan’s appeal, while hardly more than a monologue, has a +suggestion of melody. In “Savishna” Moussorgsky approaches more +closely the declamatory style. It is a monotonous supplication, the +melodic element being restricted to three notes in a rhythm of five. + +The composer, occupied in writing the “Labourer’s Cradle Song” +during the period spent on his brother’s estate at Minkino, in 1865, +happened to overhear the addresses of a half-witted suitor paid +to the village beauty. It is the love-declaration of Vanya, the +“yourodivy” or spiritual fool--the prototype of the pathetic creature +who utters the closing words of the Kromy scene in “Boris”--that +Moussorgsky has noted down in “Savishna.” Its harmony strikes but two +notes. The fool asks for love and for pity. The empty fourths and +fifths in the closing three bars proclaim the hopelessness of his +suit. + +For the gibes of “The Urchin” Moussorgsky has used the same rhythmic +arrangement, but in this case he varies his rhythm, using as occasion +demands 6/4, 5/4, 3/2 and 3/1 to emphasize the variety of epithets +flung by the ragamuffin at the old woman he is mocking. The 5/4 +rhythm is retained for her remonstrance, but the strength of her arm +is made manifest in a couple of strenuous bars--for the chastisement. + + + “SONGS AND DANCES OF DEATH” + + III. + +We have passed from the category of realism into that of declamation +without referring to the _genre_ type. To this heading belongs +undoubtedly the song-cycle entitled “Songs and Dances of Death.” +The “Trepak” (“Still is the Forest”) contains the elements of +nationalism, realism, and melody. To the dance rhythm, to which Death +conducts the starved peasant into eternity, is given a considerable +prominence as a suggestion of Death’s mood. Its measure is only +blotted out by the howling of the tempest. Becoming audible once more +at the promise of eternal peace, it mingles with the cradle-song that +lulls the peasant into a last sleep. Death surveys the corpse with a +smile at the recollection of his artifice. + +There is little vocal melody in Moussorgsky’s portrayal of the +heart-rending scene that follows. A mother’s tired voice has crooned +through a sorrowful all-night vigil over her sick child. There is +no conventional cradle-song. The movement is suggested by the rise +and fall of a figure which appears to represent the weary woman’s +anxiety. The swaying becomes feebler. The mother turns her head. +Someone is stealthily approaching the hut. There is a knock. Through +the doorway the trembling mother sees, silhouetted by the light of +dawn, the terrible intruder whose presence betokens that she can +hardly dare hope. The gentleness of Death’s accents fails to hide his +intention. He will rock the child and afford the mother a well-earned +respite. His voice will soothe the sufferer. In vain she refuses, +protests, implores. Death gains possession of the little sufferer. +“See! I have sung him to sleep....” + +The third picture is that of a frail young woman to whom Death +appears in the guise of a gallant. Its refrain is a serenade. The +sinister cavalier prosecutes a brief and horrible courtship. For +him there can be but one reply. A pedal note proclaims that his +flattering utterances are but a veil that will not long obscure the +end. It comes in the rhythm of the serenade ... with it for a moment +is heard the counsel of submission. A horrible silence follows. +Death casts away his disguise. “Thou’rt Mine!” The means by which +Moussorgsky attains to positive descriptiveness at no sacrifice of +the lyrical quality are so absolutely simple that, were this song +divorced from its text, one might seek in vain for anything in the +nature of poetic suggestion. Yet as a complement of the words of +Kutuzof, the music becomes a masterpiece that is second to none of +its kind. + +The method of the last number is somewhat different. The poet has +given a more generous description of the _mise en scène_. Death +has found a worthy vicar and is not yet here. The scene is a +corpse-strewn battlefield. The conflict is recalled by its human +remnants. Presently the rising moon reveals the hideous figure of +a skeleton whose bones reflect its light. He is mounted. It is +Field-Marshal Death. His subtle strategy has brought him an easy +and an overwhelming victory. He sings the restrained song of a +warrior who has never doubted his strength. To the dead he dispenses +sophistries. “In life you were always in conflict. Death will unite +you....” To a military music he bids his victims rise and pass before +him in review. Surveying the ghostly army, he promises that he will +awaken them daily to entertain them at a midnight revel. + + + “WITHOUT SUNLIGHT” + + IV. + +“Apart from Pushkin and Lermontof,” wrote Moussorgsky to Stassof, “I +have not discovered elsewhere what I find in Kutuzof.” In the “Songs +and Dances of Death” there is sufficient evidence that the composer +had found someone capable of inspiring the very best he could create. +In the second cycle, which may be classified as Idealistic, there is +so clear a representation of the composer’s own personality that one +could almost credit him with the text. + +“Without Sunlight” is a collection of six poems by the poet of the +“Dances of Death”; their musical setting shows that Moussorgsky was +capable, on occasion, of being subjective, that the capacity for +introspection and self-revelation was not altogether foreign to his +nature. In all his other creations he is seen looking around him +and depicting objects worthy of admiration or pity, or deserving +ridicule. In “Without Sunlight” he has given us music that represents +himself as surely as the text represents the psychology of the type +to which he conforms. + +In all six numbers the vocal part approaches nearer to definite +melody than to melo-declamation. But in connection with the last one +only can the term lyrical be mentioned. + +The first, “Within Four Walls,” is a glimpse through the door of a +hospital. The soliloquy of a patient is overheard. His mental eye +fixes momentarily upon some past happiness. Its gaze shifts to the +present, and the sick one realizes that this is solitude and night. +There is little movement in Moussorgsky’s harmonies; it is as though +all sound were, like the room, in shadow. + +“In the crowd thou didst not know me,” is the complaint of the +second song, which is the record of a passion starved by neglect. +The recollection brings a sharp reminder of the first pangs of +disappointment. Here, as in “The Orphan,” the return to the +prevailing tonality is neglected. + +“The Festal Days are Over” is also in reminiscent vein. The sufferer +is wakeful, and in the dead of night turns over the pages of a +distant past, rendered more vivid by solitude. The accompaniment is +of a much more pictorial kind than that of the foregoing numbers. +The passage in which the poet speaks of “vernal passions of the past +returning as phantoms in dreams” is accompanied by a figure which has +since served Debussy in depicting his nocturnal “_Nuages_.”[13] + +“Tedium” is unrelievedly pessimistic. Cynical self-damnation is its +note. It catalogues all life’s joys and decrees that they are to +befall one insensible: “Tedium until the very tomb, and God be with +you there.” At the opening of the song the harmony seems to fail in +reflecting the full weariness of spirit described by the text, but +once the exordium is done with there is no further doubt as to its +fitness. Poignant bitterness permeates the music until the final +words, which evoke a major chord. + +There is a harmonic wealth in the “Elegie” that is not forthcoming +from any of the previous numbers. It is also of much more generous +dimensions, and is at times quite rhapsodical. The text once more +concerns past emotions to which the music seeks to attune itself. At +one moment there is positive description. At “the sound of the bells +of death,” the accompaniment is suspended and the knell introduced. + +“On the Stream,” the last of the series, does not merely suggest the +abstract sentiment, but is definitely pictorial, so far, that is, +as concerns the water alone. This is depicted in a constant triplet +figure. The text tells us that death will soon put an end to these +solitary communings, and the voice of the sufferer answering the call +with a cheerfulness that strikes a new note is heard in an ascending +phrase borne on the bosom of the still rustling stream into the +unknown.[14] + +A closer relation with the import of these vocal poems would have +been established by the use of such a title as “Songs Before Death.” + + + “THE NURSERY” + + V. + +“The Russian child,” says M. d’Alheim, “whether belonging to the +peasant or the middle class, only differs from the child of another +nationality in the matter of racial traits.”[15] This difference, +however, as revealed in the child-scenes of Moussorgsky, assumes a +not inconsiderable importance. The Russian child resembles other +children in that he is father to the man; but both child and man +live in a world singularly different, in one particular, from their +Western prototypes. They spend their lives in a world from which the +supernatural element has not been banished. It is introduced by the +nurse through the medium of the folk-stories in which the Russian, +whether child or man, delights. By their own confession Pushkin, +Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakof have made us aware that their +oft-displayed affection for legendary lore was instilled into them by +the trusted peasant-woman under whose care their childhood was passed. + +To this influence the world owes several of the national poet’s +immortal works, and the operas and symphonic pieces founded upon them +by such as Glinka, Dargomijsky, Rimsky-Korsakof, and Moussorgsky. The +child’s request, in the first number of “The Nursery,” for a tale +concerning certain legendary personages whose behaviour is, to say +the least of it, a little uncommon, needs no further explanation. +A Russian, hearing the words, would in imagination be immediately +transported, as though by the good offices of some benevolent +_genie_, to his native heath. This little vocal scene has a special +claim to be quoted as a specimen of art-nationalism, showing as it +does the extent to which a popular affection for folk-lore will +contribute to a form of art which may be wooed but cannot be won by +the less imaginative peoples. + +The misdemeanours of Mishenka, left for a moment to himself, are not +perhaps distinctively national. A nursery “strewn with a fearful mess +of cotton, wrecked stitching, and all the contents of the nursery +work-basket, to which a bottle of ink has contributed even greater +devastation,”[16] is a scene which must surely be common to the +nurseries of the civilized world. In contradistinction the third and +sixth numbers reflect the very special interest that the zoological +creation has for the Russian child. The one describes Mishenka in +conflict with a too venturesome cockchafer, and the youngster’s +mystification in the presence of Death; the other relates how the +caged robin escaped, through the timely interference of Mishenka, +from the teeth and claws of Matros the cat. + +The fourth, fifth, and seventh concern respectively a doll, the +child’s evening prayer, and a gallop round the nursery astride a +stick. The doll is exhorted to remember the dreams of its slumber +in order that they may beguile the waking hour; the prayer is +rendered characteristic by an episode--the child’s lapse of memory on +approaching the passage in which Divine grace is solicited on its own +behalf; the furious gallop during which the nursery is “transformed +into a veritable battlefield”[17]--the furniture sustaining heavy +casualties--is a marvellous example of “the notation of pantomime.” + +In “The Nursery” the declamatory method prevails. In the vocal +part there is even less suggestion of melody than in “The Orphan” +or “Savishna.” Moussorgsky never turns aside from his intention +of giving us the child’s speech. The nearest approach to melody +is in “The Child’s Prayer,” in which there are to be found some +repeated phrases. But these are nothing more than a suggestion of the +mechanical way in which the prayer is uttered. The words come not +from his mind but his lips. + +With the accompaniment it is otherwise. In such numbers as “The +Cockchafer,” “The Doll” (a cradle-song), and “The Hobby-Horse,” there +is a clearly defined rhythmic pattern and a sufficiently formal +structure to allow of music that could be divorced from its text. It +must surely have been these numbers that caused Liszt to consider +an arrangement for piano alone. One cannot imagine that any sort of +coherency could have been infused into “Nurse, Tell Me a Tale,” with +its twenty-seven changes of time-signature! + +“The Nursery” is a work of art in which the principles formulated by +Dargomijsky have been carried to their logical conclusion. It is the +equivalent in its special sphere of “The Matchmaker.” The setting +of that comedy was held by the composer to represent his “very +self.” But as the text of “The Nursery” is Moussorgsky’s own, we +may consider it for that reason alone as still more representative. +Besides revealing the genius it shows us the man. + +As a series of child-pictures it stands alone. It is doubtful whether +in the whole world of art its equal as an exposition of the child +could be found. “Moussorgsky,” says M. Combarieu, “is no onlooker; in +depicting the children he himself returns to childhood; one might say +that he plays with them and sulks with them....”[18] + + + SATIRICAL SONGS + + VI. + +The category of “Satirical,” like the classification of “Pamphlet,” +is one which takes no heed of the musical qualities of the example +thus placed. “The Seminarist” is satirical, but in contradistinction +to “The Peepshow” must be called non-political. Musically speaking +it is declamatory, but has a certain rhythmic pattern. So long as +the divinity student attends to his Latin lesson he sings in an +appropriate monotone; when his mind wanders towards the thought of +his instructor’s daughter the vocal contour is softened. As this +happens quite often, “The Seminarist” possesses a musical interest +that would have been absent had the student been of saintly character. + +“The Classicist” is both satire and musical politics. Its victim, +Famintsin, a contemporary critic, was a lover of Handel and a stern +opponent of all “modernist tricks.” “The Classicist,” in ridiculing +these prejudices, takes on the appearance of a _pastiche_. In +one line we are listening to innocuous Handelian music; in the +next to the detested “modernist tricks.” After the quotation from +Rimsky-Korsakof’s “Sadko,” which does not strike us as appalling +cacophony, “The Classicist” becomes itself again, establishing an +atmosphere of repose suitable to a _milieu_ in which music reflecting +the contemporary spirit is taboo. + +“The Musicians’ Peepshow” belongs obviously to the same category. +Its satire is more biting, its political sphere somewhat wider, +and quotations abound. But neither “The Classicist,” nor “The +Peep-show,” nor the Mephistophelean “Flea-song” is in the least +representative of Moussorgsky’s art, however much they may tell us +about that of other folk. Still, they are documents that help to +increase our knowledge of the man, and they have the one great merit +of being exceedingly entertaining. + +The present description of the text, method, and general treatment +of the songs dealt with cannot possibly convey any definite idea of +their musical quality. From the preceding notes it will have been +gathered that the range of material employed by Moussorgsky was +exceedingly wide, and the method of treatment extraordinarily varied. +It will have been realized, moreover, that the composer set before +himself an ideal which made immense demands upon both the imagination +and the inventive faculty. + +For many famous composers a song need claim nothing more than to be +a poem set to music. The accompaniment is a complement of the vocal +line and has little bearing on the text. In Moussorgsky’s songs we +have a new type--they constitute a form of art in which all three +constituents, the text, the vocal line, and the piano part, have +a truly vital function, contributing directly and equally to the +artistic whole. + + + FOOTNOTES: + + [13] A similar coincidence of musical invention, relating to + the same composers, may be observed by comparing passages + in “La Chevelure” (Trois Chansons de Bilitis) and the + “Galitsin” Act of “Khovanshchina.” + + [14] The text of this song was also set to music by Balakiref. + + [15] _Op. cit._ + + [16] M. Montagu-Nathan, _op. cit._ + + [17] From a notice by M. Debussy. + + [18] _Revue Musicale_, January, 1911. + + + + + LIST OF PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED WORKS + + + MUSIC-DRAMA. + + Boris Godounof. + Khovanshchina. + The Matchmaker (First Act). + The Fair at Sorochinsk (fragments). + + + ORCHESTRA. + + A Night on the Bare Mountain. + + + CHORAL. + + The Destruction of Sennacherib. + Joshua. + Œdipus. + Women’s Chorus from abandoned opera Salammbô. + + + PIANO. + + The Picture-Show (Tableaux d’une Exposition). + A number of small pieces. + + + SONGS. + + The Orphan. + Yeremoushka’s Cradle Song. + Labourer’s Lullaby. + Night. + The Classicist. + The Peepshow. + The Dnieper. + The Seminarist. + Savishna. + Gopak. + + + SONG CYCLES. + + Without Sunlight (six numbers). + The Nursery (seven numbers). + Songs and Dances of Death (four numbers). + + + + + INDEX + + + Alexander II., 45 + + Alheim, d’, 26, 91 + + _Antar_, 82 + + Azanchevsky, 16 + + + Balakiref, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 28, 37, 44, 47, 76, 82, 91 + + Beethoven, 15 + + Belayef, 81 + + Berlioz, 21, 81 + + Betz, 32 + + Bogomolof, 44 + + _Boris Godounof_, 16, 19, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42, + 46, 49, 53, 54-66, 67, 72, 73, 78, 79, 85, 86 + + Borodin, 17, 18, 20, 23, 26, 34, 37, 44, 47, 81, 82 + + Byron, 28, 76 + + + Calvocoressi, 51 + + _Central Asia, In the Steppes of_, 82 + + _Chansons de Bilitis_, 90 + + Chernishevsky, 24 + + _Children’s Scherzo_, 22 + + _Classicist, The_, 37, 45, 95, 96 + + Combarieu, 94 + + Cui, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27, 34, 37, 38, 47, 53, 81 + + + Dargomijsky, 16, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 38, 43, 47, 49, + 50, 52, 53, 54, 62, 75, 92, 94 + + _Death_, 31 + + Debussy, 77, 90, 93 + + Demidof, 16 + + _Dnieper_, 84 + + _Don Juan_, 49 + + Dostoievsky, 61 + + + Edwards, Sutherland, 50 + + _Ensigns’ Polka_, 15, 23 + + + Famintsin, 37, 38, 95 + + Ferrero, 32 + + Field, 14 + + Filippof, 44 + + Flaubert, 25, 46, 48 + + _Flea-song_, 6, 96 + + Free School of Music, 41, 44, 76 + + + Gedeonof, 33, 54, 81 + + General Lavine, 77 + + Glinka, 19, 20, 26, 31, 32, 46, 47, 55, 56, 60, 62, 63, 65, 75, 82 + + Gogol, 26, 27, 28, 29, 40, 50, 51, 53 + + _Golden Bird_, 26 + + Golenishchef-Kutuzof, 42, 43, 88, 89 + + _Gopak_, 6, 54 + + _Gopak_ (Song), 29, 84 + + Granados, 77 + + Gunsburg, 44 + + + _Han d’Islande_, 16 + + Handel, 95 + + Hartmann, 33, 39, 77, 78, 79, 80 + + Heine, 49 + + Herke, 14, 15 + + Holbein, 43 + + Hugo, V., 16 + + + _Impromptu passionné_, 22 + + Ivanovsky, 23 + + Ivan the Terrible, 56 + + + _Joshua_, 76 + + + _Kallistrate_, 25 + + Karamzin, 31 + + Karatigin, 48, 54 + + _Khovanshchina_, 16, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42, 46, 66-75, 90 + + Kondratief, 35 + + Kroupsky, 16 + + + Leonof, 41, 42, 43 + + Lermontof, 22, 89 + + _Life for the Tsar, A_, 19, 46, 55, 60, 62 + + Liszt, 14, 21, 80 + + Lyadof, 21, 34, 54 + + + _Maid of Pskof_, 33 + + Manjean, 32 + + Marnold, 66 + + _Matchmaker, The_, 26, 27, 29, 30, 49-53, 94 + + Mendelssohn, 23 + + Mérimée, 57 + + Minkus, 34 + + _Mlada_, 34, 54, 81 + + Moussorgsky, Filaret, 13, 24, 45 + + Mozart, 19 + + _Mushrooms_, 84 + + + Napravnik, 32 + + _Night_, 25 + + _Night in Madrid_, 82 + + _Night in May, A_, 53 + + _Night on the Bare Mountain_, 28, 34, 54, 80-82 + + Nikolsky, 31, 33 + + _Nursery, The_, 38, 42, 43 + + + Obolensky, 16 + + _Œdipus_, 21, 76 + + Opochinin, 31, 33 + + Orfano, 16 + + Orlof, 16 + + _Orphan, The_, 29, 85, 90, 93 + + Oulibishef, 19 + + + Patti, 38 + + _Peasant’s Cradle Song_, 85 + + _Peepshow_, 6, 38, 95, 96 + + Peter the Great, 68 + + Petrof, 35 + + _Picture-Show, The_, 39, 77-80 + + Polejaef, 49 + + Popof, 17 + + Pourgold, Alexandra, 29 + + Pourgold, Nadejda, 29 + + _Prince Igor_, 17 + + Pushkin, 13, 31, 49, 58, 61, 89, 92 + + + Rimsky-Korsakoff, 11, 18, 20, 22, 28, 29, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, + 42, 44, 47, 53, 80, 81, 82, 92, 95 + + _Rogneda_, 38 + + Rubinstein, A, 21 + + _Russalka_, 18 + + Russian Musical Society, 21, 37 + + _Russlan and Ludmilla_, 42 + + + _Sadko_, 37, 95 + + _Salammbô_, 25, 46, 48, 49, 54, 76 + + _Savishna_, 85, 86, 93 + + Schumann, 21, 23 + + _Seminarist, The_, 29, 95 + + _Sennacherib, Destruction of_, 28, 44, 76 + + Serof, 37 + + _Sheherazade_, 82 + + Shestakof, 31 + + Shevchenko, 29, 84 + + _Songs and Dances of Death_, 43, 86-88, 89 + + Sophocles, 21, 76 + + _Sorochinsk Fair_, 40, 44, 53, 54, 81 + + Stassof, V. V., 12, 21, 22, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, + 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 53, 67, 78 + + _Stenka Razin_, 82 + + _Stone Guest_, 25, 26, 27, 30, 47, 49 + + + _Tableaux d’une Exposition._ See _Picture-Show_ + + _Tamara_, 82 + + Tolstoi, 37, 38 + + _Traviata_, 18 + + _Trovatore_, 18 + + _Tsar’s Bride, The_, 26 + + + _Urchin_, 86 + + + Vanliarsky, 18 + + Velyaminof, 29 + + Volkonsky, 36 + + + Wagner, 46 + + _Without Sunlight_, 42, 89-91 + + + Yastrebtsef, 11 + + _Yeremoushka’s Cradle Song_, 29 + + + Zaremba, 38 + + + BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND + + + + +Transcriber’s Note: + +Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like +this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the +end of each chapter. Musical chords and meters are presented +with numbers separated by a slash, e.g. 6/4. + +In the index, extraneous commas were deleted from the ends of page +numbers, and page number 38 was corrected under the entry for +Dargomijsky; “an” was changed to “a” before the word “dastardly.” + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77855 *** |