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Title: Moussorgsky
Author: M. Montagu-Nathan
Release date: February 3, 2026 [eBook #77855]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Constable and Company Limited, 1916
Credits: Carol Brown, Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOUSSORGSKY ***
[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.”
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