In 1842 Serov became personally acquainted with Glinka, and although he was not at that period a fervent admirer of this master, yet personal contact with him gave the younger man his first impulse towards more serious work. He began to study A Life for the Tsar with newly opened eyes, and became enthusiastic over this opera, and over some of Glinka’s songs. But when in the autumn of the same year Russlan and Liudmilla was performed for the first time, his enthusiasm seems to have received a check. He announced to Stassov his intention of studying this opera more seriously, but his views of it, judging from what he has written on the subject, remain after all very superficial. All that was new and lofty in its intention seems to have passed clean over his head. His criticism is interesting as showing how indifferent he was at that time to the great musical movement which Wagner was leading in Western Europe, and to the equally remarkable activity which Balakirev was directing in Russia. He was, indeed, still in a phase of Meyerbeer worship.
In 1843 Serov began to think of composing an opera. He chose the subject of “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” but hardly had he made his first essays, when his musical schemes were cut short by his transference from St. Petersburg to the dull provincial town of Simferopol. Here he made the acquaintance of the revolutionary Bakounin, who had not yet been exiled to Siberia. The personality of Bakounin made a deep impression upon Serov, as it did later upon Wagner. Under his influence Serov began to take an interest in modern German philosophy and particularly in the doctrines of Hegel. As his intellect expanded, the quality of his musical ideas improved. They showed greater independence, but it was an acquired originality rather than innate creative impulse. He acquired the theory of music with great difficulty, and being exceedingly anxious to master counterpoint, Stassov introduced him by letter to the celebrated theorist Hunke, then residing in St. Petersburg. Serov corresponded with Hunke, who gave him some advice, but the drawbacks of a system of a college by post were only too obvious to the eager but not very brilliant pupil, separated by two thousand versts from his teacher. At this time he was anxious to throw up his appointment and devote himself entirely to music, but his father sternly discountenanced what he called “these frivolous dreams.”
It was through journalism that Serov first acquired a much desired footing in the musical world. At the close of the ’forties musical criticism in Russia had touched its lowest depths. The two leading men of the day, Oulibishev and Lenz, possessed undoubted ability, but had drifted into specialism, the one as the panegyrist of Mozart, the other of Beethoven. Moreover both of them published their works in German. All the other critics of the leading journals were hardly worthy of consideration. These were the men whom Moussorgsky caricatured in his satirical songs “The Peepshow” and “The Classicist.” It is not surprising, therefore, that Serov’s first articles, which appeared in the “Contemporary” in 1851, should have created a sensation in the musical world. We have seen that his literary equipment was by no means complete, that his convictions were still fluctuant and unreliable; but he was now awake to the movements of the time, and joined to a cultivated intelligence a “wit that fells you like a mace.” His early articles dealt with Mozart, Beethoven, Donizetti, Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Spontini, and in discussing the last-named, he explained and defended the historical ideal of the music-drama. Considering that at that time Serov was practically ignorant of Wagner’s work, the conclusions which he draws do credit to his foresight and reflection.
As I am considering Serov rather as a composer than as a critic, I need not dwell at length upon this side of his work. Yet it is almost impossible to avoid reference to that long and bitter conflict which he waged with one whom, in matters of Russian art and literature, I must regard as my master. The writings of Serov, valuable as they were half a century ago, because they set men thinking, have now all the weakness of purely subjective criticism. He was inconstant in his moods, violent in his prejudices, and too often hasty in his judgments, and throughout the three weighty volumes which represent his collected works, there is no vestige of orderly method, nor of a reasoned philosophy of criticism. The novelty of his style, the prestige of his personality, and perhaps we must add the deep ignorance of the public he addressed, lent a kind of sacerdotal authority to his utterances. But, like other sacerdotal divulgations, they did not always tend to enlightenment and liberty of conscience. With one hand Serov pointed to the great musical awakening in Western Europe; with the other he sought persistently to blind Russians to the important movement that was taking place around them. In 1858 Serov returned from a visit to Germany literally hypnotised by Wagner. To quote his own words: “I am now Wagner mad. I play him, study him, read of him, talk of him, write about him, and preach his doctrines. I would suffer at the stake to be his apostle.” In this exalted frame of mind he returned to a musical world of which Rubinstein and Balakirev were the poles, which revolved on the axis of nationality. In this working, practical world, busy with the realisation of its own ideals and the solution of its own problems, there was, as yet, no place for Wagnerism. And well it has proved for the development of music in Europe that the Russians chose, at that time, to keep to the high road of musical progress with Liszt and Balakirev, rather than make a rush for the cul-de-sac of Wagnerism. Serov had exasperated the old order of critics by his justifiable attacks on their sloth and ignorance; had shown an ungenerous depreciation of Balakirev and his school, and adopted a very luke-warm attitude towards Rubinstein and the newly-established Musical Society. Consequently, he found himself now in an isolated position. Irritated by a sense of being “sent to Coventry,” he attacked with extravagant temper the friend of years in whom, as the champion of nationality, he imagined a new enemy. The long polemic waged between Serov and Stassov is sometimes amusing, and always instructive; but on the whole I should not recommend it as light literature. Serov lays on with bludgeon and iron-headed mace; Stassov retaliates with a two-edged sword. The combatants are not unfairly matched, but Stassov’s broader culture keeps him better armed at all points, and he represents, to my mind, the nobler cause.
When Serov the critic felt his hold on the musical world growing slacker, Serov the composer determined to make one desperate effort to recover his waning influence. He was now over forty years of age, and the great dream of his life—the creation of an opera—was still unrealised. Having acquired the libretto of Judith, he threw himself into the work of composition with an energy born of desperation. There is something fine in the spectacle of this man, who had no longer the confidence and elasticity of youth, carrying his smarting wounds out of the literary arena, and replying to the taunts of his enemies, “show us something better than we have done,” with the significant words “wait and see.” Serov, with his extravagances and cocksureness of opinion, has never been a sympathetic character to me; but I admire him at this juncture. At first, the mere technical difficulties of composition threatened to overwhelm him. The things which should have been learnt at twenty were hard to acquire in middle-life. But with almost superhuman energy and perseverance he conquered his difficulties one by one, and in the spring of 1862 the opera was completed.
Serov had many influential friends in aristocratic circles, notably the Grand Duchess Helena Pavlovna, who remained his generous patroness to the last. On this occasion, thanks to the good offices of Count Adelberg, he had not, like so many of his compatriots, to wait an indefinite period before seeing his opera mounted. In March 1863 Wagner visited St. Petersburg, and Serov submitted to him the score of Judith. Wagner was particularly pleased with the orchestration, in which he cannot have failed to see the reflection of his own influence.
The idea of utilising Judith as the subject for an opera was suggested to Serov by K. I. Zvantsiev, the translator of some of the Wagnerian operas, after the two friends had witnessed a performance of the tragedy “Giuditta,” with Ristori in the leading part. At first Serov intended to compose to an Italian libretto, but afterwards Zvantsiev translated into the vernacular, and partially remodelled, Giustiniani’s original text. After a time Zvantsiev, being doubtful of Serov’s capacity to carry through the work, left the libretto unfinished, and it was eventually completed by a young amateur, D. Lobanov.
The opera was first performed in St. Petersburg on May 16th, 1862 (O.S.). The part of Judith was sung by Valentina Bianchi, that of Holofernes by Sariotti. The general style of Judith recalls that of “Tannhäuser,” and of “Lohengrin,” with here and there some reminiscences of Meyerbeer. The opera is picturesque and effective, although the musical colouring is somewhat coarse and flashy. Serov excels in showy scenic effects, but we miss the careful attention to detail, and the delicate musical treatment characteristic of Glinka’s work, qualities which are carried almost to a defect in some of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas. But the faults which are visible to the critic seemed virtues to the Russian public, and Judith enjoyed a popular success rivalling even that of A Life for the Tsar. The staging, too, was on a scale of magnificence hitherto unknown in the production of national opera. The subject of Judith and Holofernes is well suited to Serov’s opulent and sensational manner. It is said that the scene in the Assyrian camp, where Holofernes is depicted surrounded by all the pomp and luxury of an oriental court, was the composer’s great attraction to the subject; the music to this scene was written by him before all the rest of the opera, and it is considered one of the most successful numbers in the work. The chorus and dances of the Odalisques are full of the languor of Eastern sentiment. The March of Holofernes, the idea of which is probably borrowed from Glinka’s March of Chernomor in Russlan and Liudmilla, is also exceedingly effective; for whatever we may think of the quality of that inspiration, which for over twenty years refused to yield material for the making of any important musical work, there is no doubt that Serov had now acquired from the study of Wagner a remarkable power of effective orchestration. Altogether, when we consider the circumstances under which it was created, we can only be surprised to find how little Judith smells of the lamp. We can hardly doubt that the work possesses intrinsic charms and qualities, apart from mere external glitter, when we see how it fascinated not only the general public, but many of the young musical generation, of whom Tchaikovsky was one. Although in later years no one saw more clearly the defects and makeshifts of Serov’s style, he always spoke of Judith as “one of his first loves in music.” “A novice of forty-three,” he wrote, “presented the public of St. Petersburg with an opera which in every respect must be described as beautiful, and shows no indications whatever of being the composer’s first work. The opera has many good points. It is written with unusual warmth and sometimes rises to great emotional heights. Serov, who had hitherto been unknown, and led a very humble life, became suddenly the hero of the hour, the idol of a certain set, in fact a celebrity. This unexpected success turned his head and he began to regard himself as a genius. The childishness with which he sings his own praises in his letters is quite remarkable. And Serov had actually proved himself a gifted composer but not a genius of the first order.” It would be easy to find harsher critics of Serov’s operas than Tchaikovsky, but his opinion reflects on the whole that of the majority of those who had felt the fascination of Judith and been disillusioned by the later works.
If Judith had remained the solitary and belated offspring of Serov’s slow maturity it is doubtful whether his reputation would have suffered. But there is no age at which a naturally vain man cannot be intoxicated by the fumes of incense offered in indiscriminate quantities. The extraordinary popular success of Judith showed Serov the short cut to fame. The autumn of the same year which witnessed its production saw him hard at work upon a second opera. The subject of Rogneda is borrowed from an old Russian legend dealing with the time of Vladimir, “the Glorious Sun,” at the moment of conflict between Christianity and Slavonic paganism. Rogneda was not written to a ready-made libretto, but, in Serov’s own words, to a text adapted piecemeal “as necessary to the musical situations.” It was completed and staged in the autumn of 1865. We shall look in vain in Rogneda for the higher purpose, the effort at psychological delineation, the comparative solidity of workmanship which we find in Judith. Nevertheless the work amply fulfilled its avowed intention to take the public taste by storm. Once more I will quote Tchaikovsky, who in his writings has given a good deal of space to the consideration of Serov’s position in the musical world of Russia. He says: “The continued success of Rogneda, and the firm place it holds in the Russian repertory, is due not so much to its intrinsic beauty as to the subtle calculation of effects which guided its composer.... The public of all nations are not particularly exacting in the matter of æsthetics; they delight in sensational effects and violent contrasts, and are quite indifferent to deep and original works of art unless the mise-en-scène is highly coloured, showy, and brilliant. Serov knew how to catch the crowd; and if his opera suffers from poverty of melodic inspiration, want of organic sequence, weak recitative and declamation, and from harmony and instrumentation which are crude and merely decorative in effect—yet what sensational effects the composer succeeds in piling up! Mummers who are turned into geese and bears; real horses and dogs, the touching episode of Ruald’s death, the Prince’s dream made actually visible to our eyes; the Chinese gongs made all too audible to our ears, all this—the outcome of a recognised poverty of inspiration—literally crackles with startling effects. Serov, as I have said, had only a mediocre gift, united to great experience, remarkable intellect, and extensive erudition; therefore it is not surprising to find in Rogneda numbers—rare oases in a desert—in which the music is excellent. As to these numbers which are special favourites with the public, as is so frequently the case, their real value proves to be in inverse ratio to the success they have won.”
Some idea of the popularity of Rogneda may be gathered from the fact that the tickets were subscribed for twenty representations in advance. This success was followed by a pause in Serov’s literary and musical activity. He could now speak with his enemies in the gate, and point triumphantly to the children of his imagination. Success, too, seems to have softened his hostility to the national school, for in 1866 he delivered some lectures before the Musical Society upon Glinka and Dargomijsky, which are remarkable not only for clearness of exposition, but for fairness of judgment.
In 1867 Serov began to consider the production of a third opera, and selected one of Ostrovsky’s plays on which he founded a libretto entitled The Power of Evil. Two quotations from letters written about this time reveal his intention with regard to the new opera. “Ten years ago,” he says, “I wrote much about Wagner. Now it is time to act. To embody the Wagnerian theories in a music-drama written in Russian, on a Russian subject.” And again: “In this work, besides observing as far as possible the principles of dramatic truth, I aim at keeping more closely than has yet been done to the forms of Russian popular music, as preserved unchanged in our folk-songs. It is clear that this demands a style which has nothing in common with the ordinary operatic forms, nor even with my two former operas.” Here we have Serov’s programme very clearly put before us: the sowing of Wagnerian theories in Russian soil. But in order that the acclimatisation may be complete, he adopts the forms of the folk-songs. He is seeking, in fact, to fuse Glinka and Wagner, and produce a Russian music-drama. Serov was a connoisseur of the Russian folk-songs, but he had not that natural gift for assimilating the national spirit and breathing it back into the dry bones of musical form as Glinka did. In creating this Russo-Wagnerian work, Serov created something purely artificial: a hybrid, which could bring forth nothing in its turn. It is characteristic, too, of Serov’s short-sighted egotism that we find him constantly referring to this experiment of basing an opera upon the forms of the national music as a purely original idea; ignoring the fact that Glinka, Dargomijsky and Moussorgsky had all produced similar works, and that the latter had undoubtedly written “music-dramas,” which, though not strictly upon Wagnerian lines, were better suited to the genius of the nation.
Ostrovsky’s play,[20] upon which The Power of Evil is founded, is a strong and gloomy drama of domestic life. A merchant’s son abducts a girl from her parents, and has to atone by marrying her. He soon wearies of enforced matrimony and begins to amuse himself away from home. One day while drinking at an inn he sees a beautiful girl and falls desperately in love with her. The neglected wife discovers her husband’s infidelity, and murders him in a jealous frenzy. The story sounds as sordid as any of those one-act operas so popular with the modern Italian composers of sensational music-drama. But in the preparation of the libretto Serov had the co-operation of the famous dramatist Ostrovsky, who wrote the first three acts of the book himself. Over the fourth act a split occurred between author and composer; the former wished to introduce a supernatural element, recalling the village festival in “Der Freischütz” into the carnival scene; but Serov shrank from treating a fantastic episode. The book was therefore completed by an obscure writer, Kalashinkev. Thus the lofty literary treatment by which Ostrovsky sought to raise the libretto above the level of a mere “shocker” suffered in the course of its transformation. The action of the play takes place at carnival time, which gives occasion for some lively scenes from national life. The work never attained the same degree of popularity as Judith or Rogneda. Serov died rather suddenly of heart disease in January 1871, and the orchestration of The Power of Evil was completed by one of his most talented pupils, Soloviev.
We have read Tchaikovsky’s views upon Serov. Vladimir Stassov, after the lapse of thirty years, wrote in one of his last musical articles as follows: “A fanatical admirer of Meyerbeer, he succeeded nevertheless in catching up all the superficial characteristics of Wagner, from whom he derived his taste for marches, processions, festivals, every sort of ‘pomp and circumstance,’ every kind of external decoration. But the inner world, the spiritual world, he ignored and never entered; it interested him not at all. The individualities of his dramatis personæ were completely overlooked. They are mere marionettes.” His influence on the Russian opera left no lasting traces. His strongest quality was a certain robust dramatic sense which corrected his special tendency to secure effects in the cheapest way, and kept him just on the right side of that line which divides realism from offensive coarseness and bathos.
Two more quotations show an interesting light on Serov. The first is a confession of his musical tastes, written not long before his death: “After Beethoven and Weber, I like Mendelssohn fairly well; I love Meyerbeer; I adore Chopin; I detest Schumann and all his disciples. I am fond of Liszt, with numerous exceptions, and I worship Wagner, especially in his latest works, which I regard as the ne plus ultra of the symphonic form to which Beethoven led the way.”
The second quotation is Wagner’s tribute to the personality of his disciple, and it seems only fair to print it here, since it contradicts almost all the views of Serov as a man which we find in the writings of his contemporaries in Russia. “For me Serov is not dead,” says Wagner; “for me he still lives actually and palpably. Such as he was to me, such he remains and ever will: the noblest and highest-minded of men. His gentleness of soul, his purity of feeling, his serenity, his mind, which reflected all these qualities, made the friendship which he cherished for me one of the gladdest gifts of my life.”
ANTON GRIGORIEVICH RUBINSTEIN was born November 16/28, 1829, in the village of Vykhvatinets, in the government of Podolia. He was of Jewish descent, his father being, however, a member of the Orthodox Church, while his mother—a Löwenstein—came from Prussian Silesia. Shortly after Anton’s birth his parents removed to Moscow, in the neighbourhood of which his father set up a factory for lead pencils and pins. Anton, and his almost equally gifted brother Nicholas, began to learn the piano with their mother, and afterwards the elder boy received instruction from A. Villoins, a well-known teacher in Moscow. At ten years of age Anton made his first public appearance at a summer concert given in the Petrovsky Park, and the following year (1840) he accompanied Villoins to Paris with the intention of entering the Conservatoire. This project was not realised and the boy started upon an extensive tour as a prodigy pianist. In 1843 he was summoned to play to the Court in St. Petersburg, and afterwards gave a series of concerts in that city. The following year he began to study music seriously in Berlin, where his mother took him first to Mendelssohn and, acting on his advice, subsequently placed him under Dehn. The Revolution of 1848 interrupted the ordinary course of life in Berlin. Dehn, as one of the National Guard, had to desert his pupils, shoulder a musket and go on duty as a sentry before some of the public buildings, performing this task with a self-satisfied air, “as though he had just succeeded in solving some contrapuntal problem, such as a canon by retrogression.” Rubinstein hastened back to Russia, having all his music confiscated at the frontier, because it was taken for some diplomatic cipher.
Soon after his return, the Grand Duchess Helena Pavlovna appointed Rubinstein her Court pianist and accompanist, a position which he playfully described as that of “musical stoker” to the Court. In April 1852 his first essay in opera, Dmitri Donskoi (Dmitri of the Don), the libretto by Count Sollogoub, was given in St. Petersburg, but its reception was disappointing. It was followed, in May 1853, by Thomouska-Dourachok (Tom the Fool), which was withdrawn after the third performance at the request of the composer, who seems to have been hurt at the lack of enthusiasm shown for his work. Two articles from his pen which appeared in the German papers, and are quoted by Youry Arnold in his “Reminiscences,” show the bitterness of his feelings at this time. “No one in his senses,” he wrote, “would attempt to compose a Persian, a Malay, or a Japanese opera; therefore to write an English, French or Russian opera merely argues a want of sanity. Every attempt to create a national musical activity is bound to lead to one result—disaster.”
Between the composition of the Dmitri Donskoi and Tom the Fool, Rubinstein’s amazingly active pen had turned out two one-act operas to Russian words: Hadji-Abrek and Sibirskie Okhotniki (The Siberian Hunters). But now he laid aside composition for a time and undertook a long concert tour, starting in 1856 and returning to Russia in 1858. During this tour[21] he visited Nice, where the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchess Helena spent the winter of 1856-1857, and it seems probable that this was the occasion on which the idea of the Imperial Russian Musical Society[22] was first mooted, although the final plans may have been postponed until Rubinstein’s return to Petersburg in 1858. Little time was lost in any case, for the society was started in 1859, and the Moscow branch, under the direction of his brother Nicholas, was founded in 1860.
Piqued by the failure of his Russian operas, Rubinstein now resolved to compose to German texts and to try his luck abroad. Profiting by his reputation as the greatest of living pianists, he succeeded in getting his Kinder der Heide accepted in Vienna (1861); while Dresden mounted his Feramors (based upon Moore’s “Lalla Rookh”) in 1863. Between two concert tours—one in 1867, and the other, with Wienawski in America, in 1872—Rubinstein completed a Biblical opera The Tower of Babel, the libretto by Rosenburg. This type of opera he exploited still further in The Maccabees (Berlin, 1875) and Paradise Lost, a concert performance of which took place in Petersburg in 1876. Between the completion of these sacred operas, he returned to a secular and national subject, drawn from Lermontov’s poem “The Demon,” which proved to be the most popular of his works for the stage. The Demon was produced in St. Petersburg on January 13th (O.S.), and a more detailed account of it will follow. Nero was brought out in Hamburg in 1875, and in Berlin in 1879. After this Rubinstein again reverted to a Russian libretto, this time based upon Lermontov’s metrical tale The Merchant Kalashnikov, but the opera was unfortunate, being performed only twice, in 1880 and 1889, and withdrawn from the repertory on each occasion in consequence of the action of the censor. The Shulamite, another Biblical opera, dates from 1880 (Hamburg, 1883), and a comic opera, Der Papagei, was produced in that city in 1884. Goriousha, a Russian opera on the subject of one of Averkiev’s novels, was performed at the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, in the autumn of 1889, when Rubinstein celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his artistic career.
The famous series of “Historical Concerts,” begun in Berlin in October, 1885, was concluded in London in May, 1886, after which Rubinstein returned to St. Petersburg and resumed his duties as Director of the Conservatoire, a position which he had relinquished since 1867. During the next few years he composed the Biblical operas Moses (Paris, 1892) and Christus, a concert performance of which was given under his own direction at Stuttgart, in 1893; the first stage performance following in 1895, at Bremen.
In the winter of 1894 Rubinstein became seriously ill in Dresden, and, feeling that his days were numbered, he returned in haste to his villa at Peterhof. He lingered several months and died of heart disease in November 1895. “His obsequies were solemnly carried out,” says Rimsky-Korsakov.[23] “His coffin was placed in the Ismailovsky Cathedral, and musicians watched by it day and night. Liadov and I were on duty from 2 to 3 a.m. I remember in the dim shadows of the church seeing the black, mourning figure of Maleziomova[24] who came to kneel by the dust of the adored Rubinstein. There was something fantastic about the scene.”
With Rubinstein’s fame as a pianist, the glamour of which still surrounds his name, with his vast output of instrumental music, good, bad and indifferent, I have no immediate concern. Nor can I linger to pay more than a passing tribute to his generous qualities as a man. His position as a dramatic composer and his influence on the development of Russian opera are all I am expected to indicate here. This need not occupy many pages, since his influence is in inverse ratio to the voluminous outpourings of his pen. Rubinstein’s ideal oscillates midway between national and cosmopolitan tendencies. The less people have penetrated into the essential qualities of Russian music, the more they are disposed to regard him as typically Russian; whereas those who are most sensitive to the vibrations of Russian sentiment will find little in his music to awaken their national sympathies. The glibness with which he spun off music now to Russian, now to German texts, and addressed himself in turn to either public, proves that he felt superficially at ease with both idioms. It suggests also a kind of ready opportunism which is far from admirable. His attack on the national ideal in music, when he failed to impress the public with his Dmitri Donskoi, and his rapid change of front when Dargomijsky and the younger school had compelled the public to show some interest in Russian opera, will not easily be forgiven by his compatriots. We have seen how he fluctuated between German and Russian opera, and there is no doubt that this diffusion of his ideals and activities, coupled with a singular lack of self-criticism, is sufficient to account for the fact that of his operas—about nineteen in all[25]—scarcely one has survived him. Let a Russian pass judgment upon Rubinstein’s claims to be regarded as a national composer. Cheshikin, who divides his operas into two groups, according as they are written to German or Russian librettos, sums up the general characteristics of the latter as follows:
“Rubinstein’s style bears a cosmopolitan stamp. He confused nationality in music with a kind of dry ethnography, and thought the question hardly worth a composer’s study. A passage which occurs in his ‘Music and its Representatives’ (Moscow, 1891) shows his views on this subject. ‘It seems to me,’ he writes, ‘that the national spirit of a composer’s native land must always impregnate his works, even when he lives in a strange land and speaks its language. Look for instance at Handel, Gluck and Mozart. But there is a kind of premeditated nationalism now in vogue. It is very interesting, but to my mind it cannot pretend to awaken universal sympathies, and can merely arouse an ethnographical interest. This is proved by the fact that a melody that will bring tears to the eyes of a Finlander will leave a Spaniard cold; and that a dance rhythm that would set a Hungarian dancing would not move an Italian.’ Rubinstein [comments Cheshikin], is presuming that the whole essence of nationality in music lies not in the structure of melody, or in harmony, but in a dance rhythm. It is not surprising that holding these superficial views his operas based on Russian life are not distinguished for their musical colour, and that he is only unconsciously and instinctively successful when he uses the oriental colouring which is in keeping with his descent. He cultivated the commonly accepted forms of melodic opera which were the fashion in the first half of the nineteenth century. His musical horizon was bounded by Meyerbeer. He held Wagner in something like horror, and kept contemptuous silence about all the Russian composers who followed Glinka. This may be partly explicable on the ground of his principles, which did not admit the claims of declamatory opera; but it was partly a policy of tit for tat, because Serov and ‘the mighty band’ had trounced Rubinstein unsparingly during the ’sixties for his Teutonic tendencies in his double capacity as head of the I. R. M. S. and Director of the Conservatoire. Narrow and conventional forms, especially as regards his arias; melody as the sole ideal in opera; an indeterminate cosmopolitan style, and now and again a successful reflection of the oriental spirit—these are the distinguishing characteristics of all Rubinstein’s Russian operas from Dmitri Donskoi to Goriousha.”[26]
It is impossible to speak in detail of all Rubinstein’s operas. The published scores are available for those who have time and inclination for so unprofitable a study. Such works as Hadji-Abrek, based on Lermontov’s metrical tale of bloodshed and horror; or Tom the Fool, which carries us a little further in the direction of nationalism, but remains a mere travesty of Glinka’s style; or The Tower of Babel; or Nero, are hardly likely to rise again to the ranks of living operatic works. His first national opera Dmitri Donskoi, in five acts, is linked, by the choice of a heroic and historical subject, with such patriotic works as Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar, Borodin’s Prince Igor and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Maid of Pskov (“Ivan the Terrible”); but it never succeeded in gripping the Russian public. The libretto is based on an event often repeated by the contemporary monkish chroniclers who tell how Dmitri, son of Ivan II., won a glorious victory over the Mongolian Khan Mamaï at Kulikovo, in 1380, and freed Russia for the time being from the Tatar yoke. Youry Arnold, comparing Rubinstein’s Dmitri Donskoi with Dargomijsky’s early work Esmeralda,[27] finds that, judged by the formal standards of the period, it was in advance of Dargomijsky’s opera as regards technique, but, he says, “the realistic emotional expression and unforced lyric inspiration of Esmeralda undoubtedly makes a stronger appeal to our sympathies and we recognise more innate talent in its author.”
After the failure of Dmitri Donskoi, Rubinstein neglected the vernacular for some years and composed only to German texts. But early in the ’seventies the production of a whole series of Russian operas, Dargomijsky’s The Stone Guest, Serov’s The Powers of Evil, Cui’s William Ratcliff, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Maid of Pskov, and Moussorgsky’s Boris Godounov, resuscitated the public interest in the national ideal and Rubinstein was obviously anxious not to be excluded from the movement. His comparative failure with purely Russian subjects, and the knowledge that he felt more at ease among Eastern surroundings, may have influenced his choice of a subject in this emergency; but undoubtedly Lermontov’s poetry had a strong fascination for him, for The Demon was the third opera based upon the works of the Russian Byron. Lermontov’s romanticism, and the exquisite lyrical quality of his verse, which almost suggests its own musical setting, may well have appealed to Rubinstein’s temperament. The poet Maikov took some part in arranging the text for the opera, but the libretto was actually carried out by Professor Vistakov, who had specialised in the study of Lermontov. When The Demon was finished, Rubinstein played it through to “the mighty band” who assembled at Stassov’s house to hear this addition to national opera. It would be expecting too much from human nature to look for a wholly favourable verdict from such a court of enquiry, but “the five” picked out for approval precisely the two numbers that have best withstood the test of time, namely, the Dances and the March of the Caravan which forms the Introduction to the third scene of Act III. As a national composer Rubinstein reached his highest level in The Demon. The work was presented to the English public, in Italian, at Covent Garden, on June 21, 1881, but as it is unknown to the younger generation some account of its plot and general characteristics will not be out of place here.[28]
The Demon, that “sad and exiled spirit,” who is none other than the poet Lermontov himself, thinly veiled in a supernatural disguise, is first introduced to us hovering over the peak of Kazbec, in the Caucasus, gazing in melancholy disenchantment upon the glorious aspects of the world below him—a world which he regards with scornful indifference. The Demon’s malady is boredom. He is a mortal with certain “demoniacal” attributes. Like Lermontov, he is filled with vague regrets for wasted youth and yearns to find in a woman’s love the refuge from his despair and weariness. From the moment he sees the lovely Circassian, Tamara, dancing with her maidens on the eve of her wedding, the Demon becomes enamoured of her, and the first stirrings of love recall the long-forgotten thought of redemption. Tamara is betrothed to Prince Sinodal, who is slain by Tatar brigands on his way to claim his bride in the castle of her father, Prince Gudal. The malign influence of the Demon brings about this catastrophe. In order to escape from her unholy passion for her mysterious lover, Tamara implores her father to let her enter a convent, where she is supposed to be mourning her lost suitor. But even within these sacred precincts the Demon follows her, although not without some twinges of human remorse. For a moment he hesitates, and is on the point of conquering his sinister desire; then the good impulse passes, and with it the one chance of redemption through unselfish love. He meets Tamara’s good angel on the threshold of the convent, and, later on, sees the apparition of the murdered Prince. The Angel does not seem to be a powerful guardian spirit, but rather the weak, tormented soul of Tamara herself. The Demon enters her cell, and there follows the long love duet and his brief hour of triumph. Suddenly the Angel and celestial voices are heard calling to the unhappy girl: “Tamara, the spirit of doubt is passing.” The nun tears herself from the arms of her lover and falls dead at the Angel’s feet. The Demon, baffled and furious, is left gazing upon the corpse of Tamara. In the end the gates of Paradise are opened to her, as to Margaret in “Faust,” because by its purity and self-sacrifice her passion works out its own atonement. But the Demon remains isolated and despairing, “without hope and without love.”
The poem, with its inward drama of predestined passion, unsatisfied yearning and possible redemption through love, almost fulfils the Wagnerian demand for a subject in which emotion outweighs action; a subject so purely lyrical that the drama may be said to be born of music. Cheshikin draws a close emotional parallel between The Demon and “Tristan and Isolde”; but perhaps its spirit might be more justly compared with the romanticism of “The Flying Dutchman.” Musically it owes nothing to Wagner. Its treatment is that of pre-Wagnerian German opera strongly tinged with orientalism. Rubinstein effectively contrasts the tender monotonous chromaticism of eastern music, borrowed from Georgian and Armenian sources, with the more vigorous melodies based on Western and diatonic scales, and, in this respect, his powers of invention were remarkable. Among the most successful examples of the oriental style are the Georgian Song “We go to bright Aragva,” sung by Tamara’s girl friends in the second scene of Act I.; the Eastern melody sung in Gudal’s castle in Act II.; the passing of the Caravan, and the Dance for women in the same act. The Demon’s arias are quite cosmopolitan in character, and the opening chorus of Evil Spirits and forces of Nature, though effective, are not strikingly original. There is real passion in the great love duet in the last act, with its energetic accompaniment that seems to echo the sound of the wild turbulent river that rushes through the ravine below the convent walls.
The Demon met with many objections from the Director of the Opera and the Censor. The former mistrusted novelties, especially those with the brand of nationality upon them, and was alarmed by the cost of the necessary fantastic setting. The latter would not sanction the lamps and ikons in Tamara’s cell, and insisted on the Angel being billed as “a Good Genius.” The singers proved rebellious, and finally it was decided to produce the work for the first time on January 13th, 1875 (O.S.), on Melnikov’s benefit night, he himself singing the title rôle. The other artists, who made up a fine caste, were: Tamara, Mme. Raab; the Angel, Mme. Kroutikov; Prince Sinodal, Komessarievich; Prince Gudal, the veteran Petrov, and the Nurse, Mme. Shreder. The immediate success of The Demon did much to establish Rubinstein’s reputation as a popular composer, and the opera is still regarded as his best dramatic work, although many critics give the palm to The Merchant Kalashnikov, which followed it about five years later.
As I have already said, the fate of this work, based on a purely Russian subject, seems to have been strangely unjust. Twice received with considerable enthusiasm in St. Petersburg, it was quashed by the Censor on both occasions after the first night. The libretto, by Koulikov, is founded on Lermontov’s “Lay of the Tsar Ivan Vassilievich (The Terrible), of the young Oprichnik[29], and the bold merchant Kalashnikov.” The opera is in three acts. In the first scene, which takes place in the Tsar’s apartments, the Oprichniki are about to celebrate their religious service. Maliouta enters with the Tsar’s jester Nikitka, and tells them that the Zemstvo has sent a deputation to the Tsar complaining of their conduct, and that Nikitka has introduced the delegates at Court. The Oprichniki fall upon the jester and insist on his buying their forgiveness by telling them a tale. Nikitka’s recital is one of Rubinstein’s best attempts to reproduce the national colour. Afterwards the Tsar appears, the Oprichniki don their black cloaks and there follows an effective number written in strict church style. The service ended, the Tsar receives the members of the Zemstvo. To this succeeds an animated scene in which Ivan feasts with his guards. Observing that one of them, Kiribeievich, is silent and gloomy, he asks the reason, and the young Oprichnik confesses that he is in love, and sings his song “When I go into the garden,” a Russian melody treated by Rubinstein in a purely cosmopolitan style. The finale of the first act consists of dances by the Skomorokhi and a chorus for the Oprichniki, the music being rather pretentious and theatrical in style. The opening scene of Act II. takes place in the streets of Moscow, and begins with a chorus of the people, who disperse on hearing that the Oprichniki are in the vicinity. Alena, the wife of the merchant Kalashnikov, now comes out of her house on her way to vespers, accompanied by a servant. She sings a quiet recitative in which she tells the maid to go home and await the return of the master of the house, and reveals herself as a happy mother and devoted wife. She goes her way to the church alone, pausing however to sing a pretty, common-place Italianised aria, “I seek the Holy Temple.” Kiribeievich appears on the scene, makes passionate love to her and carries her off. An old gossip who has watched this incident now emerges from her hiding place and sings a song which introduces a touch of humour. Enter Kalashnikov, who learns from her of his wife’s departure with the young Oprichnik; but she gives a false impression of the incident. His recitative is expressive and touching. The scene ends with the return of the populace who sing a chorus. In the second scene Kalashnikov plays an important part and his doubts and fears after the return of Alena are depicted with power. This is generally admitted to be one of Rubinstein’s few successful psychological moments, the realistic expression of emotion being one of his weak points. Kalashnikov’s scene, in which he confers with his brothers, completes Act II. The curtain rises in Act III. upon a Square in Moscow where the people are assembling to meet the Tsar. Their chorus of welcome, “Praise to God in Heaven,” is not to be compared for impressiveness with similar massive choruses in the operas of Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. There are some episodes of popular life, such as the scene between a Tatar and the jester Nikitka, that are not lacking in humour; and the latter has another tale about King David which is in the style of the so-called “spiritual songs” of the sixteenth century. The accusations brought by Kiribeievich are spirited. In a dramatic scene the Tsar listens to Alena’s prayer for mercy, and pardons the bold Kalashnikov who has dared to defy his Pretorian guards, the Oprichniki. The opera winds up with a final chorus of the people who escort the Merchant from prison.
The Merchant Kalashnikov, although somewhat of a hybrid as regards style, with its Russian airs handled à la Tedesca, and its occasional lapses into vulgarity, has at the same time more vitality and human interest than most of Rubinstein’s operas, so that it is to be regretted that it has remained so long unknown alike to the public of Russia and of Western Europe.
Rubinstein’s Biblical operas have now practically fallen into oblivion. Seeing their length, the cost involved in mounting them, and their lack of strong, clear-cut characterisation, this is not surprising. The Acts of Artaxerxes and the Chaste Joseph, presented to the Court of Alexis Mikhaïlovich, could hardly have been more wearisome than The Tower of Babel and The Shulamite. These stage oratorios are like a series of vast, pale, pseudo-classical frescoes, and scarcely more moving than the official odes and eclogues of eighteenth-century Russian literature. Each work, it is true, contains some saving moments, such as the Song of Victory, with chorus, “Beat the drums,” sung by Leah, the heroic mother of the Maccabees, in the opera bearing that title, in which the Hebrew colouring is admirably carried out; the chorus “Baal has worked wonders,” from The Tower of Babel; and a few pages from the closing scene of Paradise Lost; but these rare flashes of inspiration do not suffice to atone for the long, flaccid Handelian recitatives, the tame Mendelssohnian orchestration, the frequent lapses into a pomposity which only the most naïve can mistake for sublimity of utterance, and the fluent dulness of the operas as a whole.
Far more agreeable, because less pretentious, is the early secular opera, a German adaptation of Thomas Moore’s “Lalla Rookh,” entitled Feramors. The ballets from this opera, the Dance of Bayadères, with chorus, in Act I., and The Lamplight Dance of the Bride of Kashmere (Act II.) are still heard in the concert room; and more rarely, Feramor’s aria, “Das Mondlicht träumt auf Persiens See.” From the dramatic side the subject is weak, but, as Hanslick observes in his “Contemporary Opera”—in which he draws the inevitable parallel between Félicien David and the Russian composer—it was the oriental element in the poem that proved the attraction to Rubinstein. Yet how different is the conventional treatment of Eastern melody in Feramors from Borodin’s natural and characteristic use of it in Prince Igor! But although it is impossible to ignore Rubinstein’s operas written to foreign texts for a foreign public, they have no legitimate place in the evolution of Russian national opera. It is with a sense of relief that we turn from him with his reactionary views and bigoted adherence to pre-Wagnerian conventions, to that group of enthusiastic and inspired workers who were less concerned with riveting the fetters of old traditions upon Russian music than with the glorious task of endowing their country with a series of national operas alive and throbbing with the very spirit of the people. We leave Rubinstein gazing westwards upon the setting sun of German classicism, and turn our eyes eastwards where the dawn is rising upon the patient expectations of a nation which has long been feeling its way towards a full and conscious self-realisation in music.
SOMETIMES in art, as in literature, there comes upon the scene an exceptional, initiative personality, whose influence seems out of all proportion to the success of his work. Such was Keats, who engendered a whole school of English romanticism; and such, too, was Liszt, whose compositions, long neglected, afterwards came to be recognised as containing the germs of a new symphonic form. Such also was Mily Alexevich Balakirev, to whom Russian national music owes its second renaissance. Born at Nijny-Novgorod, December 31st, 1836 (O.S.), Balakirev was about eighteen when he came to St. Petersburg in 1855, with an introduction to Glinka in his pocket. He had previously spent a short time at the University of Kazan, but had actually been brought up in the household of Oulibishev, author of the famous treatise on Mozart. It is remarkable, and testifies to his sturdy independence of character—that the young man had not been influenced by his benefactor’s limited and ultra-conservative views. Oulibishev, as we know, thought there could be no advance upon the achievements of his adored Mozart. Balakirev as a youth studied and loved Beethoven’s symphonies and quartets, Weber’s “Der Freischütz,” Mendelssohn’s Overtures and Chopin’s works as a whole. He was by no means the incapable amateur that his academic detractors afterwards strove to prove him. His musical culture was solid. He had profited by Oulibishev’s excellent library, and by the private orchestra which he maintained and permitted his young protégé to conduct. Although partially self-taught, Balakirev had already mastered the general principles of musical form, composition and orchestration. He was not versed in counterpoint and fugue; and certainly his art was not rooted in Bach; but that could hardly be made a matter of reproach, seeing that in Balakirev’s youth the great poet-musician of Leipzig was neglected even in his own land, and it is doubtful whether the budding schools of Petersburg and Moscow, or even the long established conservatoires of Germany, would then have added much to his education in that respect. In his provincial home in the far east of Europe Balakirev stood aloof from the Wagnerian controversies. But his mind, sensitive as a seismograph, had already registered some vibrations of this distant movement which announced a musical revolution. From the beginning he was preoccupied with the question of transfusing fresh blood into the impoverished veins of old and decadent forms. Happily the idea of solving the problem by the aid of the Wagnerian theories never occurred to him. He had already grasped the fact that for the Russians there existed an inexhaustible source of fresh inspiration in their abundant and varied folk-music.
The great enthusiasm of his youth had been Glinka’s music, and while living at Nijny-Novgorod he had studied his operas to good purpose. Filled with zeal for the new cause, Balakirev appeared in the capital like a St. John the Baptist from the wilderness to preach the new gospel of nationality in art to the adorers of Bellini and Meyerbeer. Glinka was on the point of leaving Russia for what proved to be his last earthly voyage. But during the weeks which preceded his departure he saw enough of Balakirev to be impressed by his enthusiasm and intelligence, and to point to him as the continuator of his work.
The environment of the capital proved beneficial to the young provincial. For the first time he was able to mix with other musicians and to hear much that was new to him, both at the opera and in the concert room. But his convictions remained unshaken amid all these novel experiences. From first to last he owed most to himself, and if he soon became head and centre of a new musical school, it was because, as Stassov has pointed out, “he had every gift for such a position: astonishing initiative, love and knowledge of his art, and to crown all, untiring energy.”
Balakirev left no legacy of opera, but his influence on Russian music as a whole was so predominant that it crops up in every direction, and henceforth his name must constantly appear in these pages. Indeed the history of Russian opera now becomes for a time the history of a small brotherhood of enthusiasts, united by a common idea and fighting shoulder to shoulder for a cause which ought to have been popular, but which was long opposed by the press and the academic powers in the artistic world of Russia, and treated with contempt by the “genteel” amateur to whom a subscription to Italian opera stood as the external sign of social and intellectual superiority. It was known as “Balakirev’s set,” or by the ironical sobriquet of “the mighty band.”
At the close of the ’fifties César Cui and Modeste Moussorgsky had joined Balakirev’s crusade on behalf of the national ideal. A year or two later Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov were admitted to the circle; and subsequently a gifted young amateur, Nicholas Lodyjensky, attached himself for a time to the nationalists. To these names must be added that of the writer, Vladimir Stassov, whose active brain and pen were always at the service of the new school. Although Glinka had no further personal intercourse with Balakirev and his friends, Dargomijsky, as we have already seen, gladly opened his house as a meeting place for this group of young enthusiasts, who eagerly discussed questions of art with the older and more experienced musician, and watched with keen interest the growth of his last opera, The Stone Guest.
Rimsky-Korsakov, in his “Chronicle of my Musical Life,” gives some interesting glimpses of the pleasant relations existing between the members of the nationalist circle during the early years of its existence. Rimsky-Korsakov, who was studying at the Naval School, St. Petersburg, made the acquaintance of Balakirev in 1861. “My first meeting with Balakirev made an immense impression upon me,” he writes. “He was an admirable pianist, playing everything from memory. The audacity of his opinions and their novelty, above all, his gifts as a composer, stirred me to a kind of veneration. The first time I saw him I showed him my Scherzo in C minor, which he approved, after passing a few remarks upon it, and some materials for a symphony. He ordained that I should go on with the symphony.[30] Of course I was delighted. At his house I met Cui and Moussorgsky. Balakirev was then orchestrating the overture to Cui’s early opera The Prisoner in the Caucasus. With what enthusiasm I took a share in these actual discussions about instrumentation, the distribution of parts, etc! Through November and December I went to Balakirev’s every Saturday evening and frequently found Cui and Moussorgsky there. I also made the acquaintance of Stassov. I remember an evening on which Stassov read aloud extracts from “The Odyssey,” more especially for my enlightenment. On another occasion Moussorgsky read “Prince Kholmsky,” the painter Myassedov read Gogol’s “Viya,” and Balakirev and Moussorgsky played Schumann’s symphonies arranged for four hands, and Beethoven’s quartets.”
On these occasions the young brotherhood, all of whom were under thirty, with the exception of Stassov, aired their opinions and criticised the giants of the past with a frankness and freedom that was probably very naïve, and certainly scandalised their academic elders. They adored Glinka; regarded Haydn and Mozart as old-fashioned; admired Beethoven’s latest quartets; thought Bach—of whom they could have known little beyond the Well-Tempered Clavier—a mathematician rather than a musician; they were enthusiastic over Berlioz, while, as yet, Liszt had not begun to influence them very greatly. “I drank in all these ideas,” says Rimsky-Korsakov, “although I really had no grounds for accepting them, for I had only heard fragments of many of the foreign works under discussion, and afterwards I retailed them to my comrades (at the Naval School) who were interested in music, as being my own convictions.” From the standpoint of a highly educated musician, a Professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, Rimsky-Korsakov adopts a frankly mocking tone in his retrospective account of these youthful discussions; but it must be admitted that it was far better for the future development of Russian music that these young composers should have thought their own thoughts about their art, instead of taking their opinions ready-made from German text-books and the æsthetic dogmas laid down in the class rooms of the conservatoires.
For Rimsky-Korsakov these happy days were short-lived, for in 1862 he was gazetted to the cruiser “Almaz” and the next three years were spent on foreign service which took him as far afield as New York and Rio Janeiro.
Balakirev was distressed at this interruption to Rimsky’s musical career. If the disciple idealised the master in those days, the latter in his turn treated the young sailor with fraternal affection, declaring that he had been providentially sent to take the place of a favourite pupil who had just gone abroad. A. Goussakovsky was a brilliant youth who had recently finished his course at the university and was specialising in chemistry. He appears to have been a strange, wild, morbid nature. His compositions for piano were full of promise, but he was unstable of purpose, flitted from one work to another and finished none. He did not trouble to write down his ideas, and many of his compositions existed only in Balakirev’s memory. He flashes across this page of Russian musical history and is lost to view, like a small but bright falling star. Rimsky-Korsakov was endowed with far greater tenacity of purpose, and in spite of all difficulties he continued to work at his symphony on board ship and to post it piece by piece to Balakirev from the most out-of-the-way ports in order to have his advice and assistance.
Rimsky-Korsakov came back to St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1865 to find that some important changes had taken place in Balakirev’s circle during his absence. In the first place, to the brotherhood was added a new member of whom great things were expected. This was Alexander Borodin, then assistant lecturer in chemistry at the Academy of Medicine. Secondly, Balakirev, in conjunction with Lomakin, one of Russia’s most famous choir trainers, had founded the Free[31] School of Music, a most interesting experiment. It has been said that this institution was established in rivalry with the Conservatoire. The concerts given in connection with it, and conducted by its two initiators, were certainly much less conservative than those of the official organisation of the I. R. M. S. At the same time it must be borne in mind that during the ’sixties there was a great movement “towards the people,” and that an enthusiastic temperament such as Balakirev’s could hardly have escaped the passionate altruistic impulse which was stirring society. Individual effort, long restricted by official despotism, was becoming active in every direction. Between 1860-1870 a number of philanthropic schools were established in Russia, and the Free School, with its avowed aim of defending individual tendencies and upholding the cause of national music, was really only one manifestation of a widespread sentiment.
Other important events which Rimsky-Korsakov missed during his three years’ cruise were the first production of Serov’s opera Judith, and Wagner’s visit to the Russian capital when he conducted the orchestra of the Philharmonic Society.
At this time, with the sole exception of Balakirev, every member of the nationalist circle was earning his living by other means than music. Cui was an officer of Engineers, and added to his modest income by coaching. Moussorgsky was a lieutenant in the Preobrajensky Guards. Rimsky-Korsakov was in the Imperial navy, and Borodin was a professor of chemistry.
Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin soon became intimate, notwithstanding the ten years difference in their ages. The former gives an interesting picture of the composer of Prince Igor, whose life was divided between chemistry and music, to both of which he was sincerely attached. “I often found him at work in his laboratory,” writes Rimsky-Korsakov, “which communicated directly with his dwelling. When he was seated before his retorts, which were filled with colourless gases of some kind, forcing them by means of tubes from one vessel to another, I used to tell him he was spending his time in pouring water into a sieve. As soon as he was free he would take me to his livingrooms and there we occupied ourselves with music and conversation, in the midst of which Borodin would rush off to the laboratory to make sure that nothing was burning or boiling over, making the corridor ring as he went with some extraordinary passage of ninths or seconds. Then back again for more music and talk.” Borodin’s life, between his scientific work, his constant attendance at all kinds of boards and committee meetings,[32] and his musical interests, was strenuous beyond description. Rimsky-Korsakov, who grudged his great gifts to anything but music, says: “My heart is torn when I look at his life, exhausted by his continual self-sacrifice.” He was endowed with great physical endurance and was utterly careless of his health. Sometimes he would dine twice in one day, if he chanced to call upon friends at mealtimes. On other occasions he would only remember at 9 p.m. that he had forgotten to take any food at all during the day. The hospitable board of the Borodins was generally besieged and stormed by cats, who sat on the table and helped themselves as they pleased, while their complacent owners related to their human guests the chief events in the biography of their feline convives. Borodin’s wife was a woman of culture, and an accomplished pianist, who had profound faith in her husband’s genius. Their married life was spoiled only by her failing health, for she suffered terribly from asthma and was obliged to spend most of the winter months in the drier air of Moscow, which meant long periods of involuntary separation from her husband.
Another meeting place of Balakirev’s circle was at the house of Lioudmilla Ivanovna Shestakov, Glinka’s married sister. Here, besides the composers, came several excellent singers, mostly amateurs, including the sisters Karmalina and Mme. S. I. Zotov, for whom Rimsky-Korsakov wrote several of his early songs. Among those who sympathised with the aims of the nationalists were the Pourgold family, consisting of a mother and three daughters, two of whom were highly accomplished musicians. Alexandra Nicholaevna had a fine mezzo-soprano voice with high notes. She sang the songs of Cui, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov with wonderful sympathy and insight, and “created” most of the female parts in the operas of “the mighty band” in the days when they had to be satisfied with drawing-room performances of their works. But her strong point was the interpretation of Moussorgsky’s songs, which was a revelation of the composer’s depth of feeling and close observation of real life and natural declamation. I had the privilege of visiting this gifted woman in later years when she was Mme. Molas,[33] and I can never forget the impression made upon me by her rendering of Moussorgsky’s songs, “The Orphan,” “Mushrooming,” “Yeremoushka’s Cradle Song,” and more especially of the realistic pictures of child-life entitled “The Nursery.” Her sister Nadejda Nicholaevna, who became Mme. Rimsky-Korsakov, was a pupil of Herke and Zaremba, Tchaikovsky’s first master for theory. An excellent pianist and sight-reader, a musician to her finger-tips, she was always available as an accompanist when any new work by a member of the brotherhood needed a trial performance. She was also a skilful arranger of orchestral and operatic works for pianoforte.[34] The Pourgolds were devoted friends of Dargomijsky, and during the autumn of 1868 the entire circle met almost daily at his house, to which he was more or less confined by his rapidly failing health.
I have spoken of so many friends of “the mighty band” that it might be supposed that their movement was a popular one. This was not the case. With the exception of Stassov and Cui, who in their different styles did useful literary work for their circle, all the critics of the day, and the academical powers en bloc, were opposed to these musical Ishmaelites. Serov and Laroche carried weight, and were opponents worth fighting. Theophil Tolstoy (“Rostislav”) and Professor Famitzin, although they wrote for important papers, represented musical criticism in Russia at its lowest ebb, and would be wholly forgotten but for the spurious immortality conferred upon them in Moussorgsky’s musical satire “The Peepshow.” Nor was Anton Rubinstein’s attitude to the new school either just or generous. Tchaikovsky, who, during the first years of their struggle for existence, was occupying the position of professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatoire, started with more friendly feelings towards the brotherhood. His symphonic poem “Romeo and Juliet” (1870) was written under the influence of Balakirev, and his symphonic poem “The Tempest” (1873) was suggested by Vladimir Stassov. But as time went on, Tchaikovsky stood more and more aloof from the circle, and in his correspondence and criticisms he shows himself contemptuous and inimical to their ideals and achievements, especially to Moussorgsky, the force of whose innate genius he never understood. Throughout the ’sixties, the solidarity between the members of Balakirev’s set was so complete that they could afford to live and work happily although surrounded by a hostile atmosphere. Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Chronicle” of these early days often reminds us of the history of our own pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and we are moved to admire the devotion with which the members worked for one another and for the advancement of their common cause. A more ideal movement it would be difficult to find in the whole history of art, and all the works produced at this time were the outcome of single-minded and clear convictions, uninfluenced by the hope of pecuniary gain, and with little prospect of popular appreciation.