Romantic Nationalism in Russian Music; Pathfinders; Cavoss and Verstovsky—Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka; Alexander Sergeyevitch Dargomijsky—Neo-Romanticism in Russian Music; Anton Rubinstein—Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky.
Russian music as a whole is a true mirror of Slavic racial character, life, passion, gloom, struggle, despair, and agony. One can almost see in its turbulent-lugubrious or buoyant-hilarious chords the rich colors of the Byzantine style, the half Oriental atmosphere that surrounds everything with a romantic halo—gloomy prisons, wild mountains, wide steppes, luxurious palaces and churches, idyllic villages and the lonely penal colonies of Siberia. It really visualizes the life of the empire of the Czar with a marvellous power. With its short history and the unique position that it occupies among the world's classics, it depicts the true type of a Slav, the melancholy, simple and hospitable moujik, with more fullness of color and virility than, for instance, the German or Italian compositions depict the representative types of those nations. In order to understand the reason of this peculiar difference between Russian and West European music it is necessary to understand the social and psychological elements upon which it is built.
While the West European composers founded their creations upon the traditions of the masters, Russian music grew out of the very heart, the joys and the sorrows of the common people. All the Russian composers of the early nationalistic era were men of active life, who became musicians only on the urgency of their inspiration. Glinka, for instance, was a functionary in the Ministry of Finance, Dargomijsky was a clerk in the Treasury Department, Moussorgsky was an army officer, Rimsky-Korsakoff an officer of the navy, Borodine was a celebrated inventor and scholar. Academic musicians are wont to find the stamp of amateurishness on most of the Russian classic music. To this Stassoff, the celebrated Russian critic, replied: 'If that is the case, our composers are only to be congratulated, for they have not considered the form, the objective issues, but the spirit, the subjective value of their inspirations. We may be uneven and amateurish as nature and human life are, but, thank Heaven, we are not artificial and sophisticated!'
Be it a song, instrumental composition, or opera, everything in Russian music breathes the ethnographic and social-psychologic peculiarities of the race, which is semi-Oriental in its foundations. Nationalism in music has been the watchword of most of the Russian composers since the very start. But, besides, there has been a strong tendency to subjective individualism, that often expresses itself in a wealth of sad nuances. This has been to a great extent the reason that foreigners consider melancholy the predominant racial quality, a view not just to Russian music as a whole, which is far too vigorous and healthy a growth to remain continuously under the sway of one emotional influence. To a foreign, especially an Anglo-Saxon ear Russian music may sound sometimes too realistic, sometimes too monotonous and sad without any obvious reason. It has been declared by foreign academicians lacking in cohesion, technique, and convincing unity. However, this is not a defect of Russian art, but a characteristic trait of its racial soul. Every Russian artist, be he a composer, writer, or painter, in avoiding artificiality puts into his creation all the idiomatic peculiarities of his race without polishing out of it the vigor of 'naturalness.' Russian music, more than any other Russian art, expresses in all its archaic lines, soft shades, and polyphonic harmonies the peculiar temperament of the nation, which is just as restless and unbalanced as its life.
The fundamental purpose of the pathfinders of Russian music was to create beauties that emanated, not from a certain class or school, but directly from the soul of the masses. Their ideal was to create life from life. In order to accomplish their tasks they went back to melodic traditions of early mediæval music, to the folk-songs, the mythological chants and the folk dances. Since the Russian people are extremely musical, folk-song is a great factor in the nation's life and evolution. Music accompanies moujiks from the cradle to the grave and plays a leading rôle in their social ceremonies. Though profound melancholy seems to be the dominant note, yet along with the gloom are also reckless hilarity and boisterous humor, which often whirl one off one's feet, as, notably, in Glinka's Kamarinskaya. The phenomenon is startling, for music of the deepest melancholy swings unexpectedly to buoyant humor and exultant joy. This is explained by the fact that the average Russian is extremely emotional and consequently dramatic in his artistic expression. Very characteristic is a passage of Leo Tolstoy on Russian folk-song in which he writes:
'It is both sad and joyous, on a quiet summer evening, to hear the sweeping song of the peasants. In it is yearning without end, without hope, also power invisible, the fateful stamp of destiny, and the faith in preordination, one of the fundamental principles of our race, which explains much that in Russian life seems incomprehensible.'
The early Russian composers thus became creators in touch with the common people, the very opposite of the composers of German and Latin races, who created only for the salons of aristocracy. The latter were and remained strangers to the people among whom they lived. Everything they composed was strictly academic and expressed all the sentimentality and stateliness of the nobility. Although geniuses of great technique, in racial color, emotional quickness and spontaneity they remain behind the Russians.
In spite of the fact that all the early Russian composers were descendants of aristocracy, they remained in their feelings and in their themes, like Gogol, Dostoievsky, and Turgenieff in fiction, true portrayers of the common people's life. There has never been an aristocratic opera, a nobility music and salon influence noticeable in Russian musical development. This may be due to the fact that the Russian aristocracy is not a privileged superior class of the autocratic régime, as is that of Germany, Austria, Italy, and England, but merely an intellectual, more advanced element of the country. Thanks to Czar Feodor, the father of Peter the Great, who destroyed all the pedigrees, patents and papers of the nobility, saying that he did not want to see their snobbery and intrigue in his empire, there are no family documents in Russia which go back beyond the reign of Czar Feodor. There is no doubt that this autocratic proceeding has been beneficial to Russian art, particularly to music, in having made it democratic in its very foundations.
Though music has been cultivated in Russia since the time of Peter the Great, the origin of the true nationalistic school belongs to the Napoleonic era, the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I. Cosmopolitan that he was, Peter the Great disliked everything national, and invited Italian musicians to form a school of systematic musical education in his empire. But Catherine II became deeply interested in encouraging native music and herself took an active part in the work. Between her political schemings and romantic affairs, she took time to write librettos, to invite musicians to her palace and to instruct them how to use the themes of the folk plays, fairy tales, and choral dances for a new Russian stage music. It is said that sixty new operas were written during her reign and produced on the stage of the newly-founded municipal opera house. One of them, 'Annette,' is quoted as the first wholly Russian opera, in librettist, theme, and composer.
A very conspicuous figure of the pre-nationalistic period of Russian musical history is C. Cavos (1776-1840), an Italian by birth, but a Slav in his work. He wrote songs, instrumental music and operas, more or less in Italian style but employing both Russian text and theme. His opera, 'Ivan Sussanin,' was considered a sensational novelty and the composer was hailed as a great genius of the country. But his works died as soon as they had loomed up under the protection of the court and nothing of his compositions has survived.
Close upon Cavos followed Verstovsky, whose operas 'Tomb of Askold' and 'Pan Tvardovsky' were produced in Moscow when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. The first was built upon an old Slavic saga in which Askold, the hero, and his brother, Dir, play the same rôles as do Hengist and Horsa in Saxon chronicles. The other was founded upon an old Polish story of adventure somewhat resembling the Faust legend. Besides the operas Verstovsky composed a large number of songs, ballads, and dances. By birth a Pole and by education an Italian, his compositions resemble in many ways those of Rubinstein.
Russian musical conditions in the first half of the past century were very much like those in America at present. Besides Cavos and Verstovsky there had been and were a number of more or less conspicuous imitators of the Italian school. Their works were as little Russian in character as Puccini's 'Girl of the Golden West' is American. But the advent of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert in Germany made a deep impression upon the music-loving Russians. The men upon whom the romantic German music made the strongest impression were Glinka and Dargomijsky, both inclined toward romantic ideals and themes. Their first striking move was to rebel against the Italian influences. 'Russia, like Germany, shall have its own music independent of all academic schools and foreign flavors, and it shall be a music of the masses. Music is more vigorous and more individual when it is national. We like individuality in life and literature, as in all arts and politics. Why should the world not cling more to the racial than to the cosmopolitan ideal? The tendency of Italian music is cosmopolitan. I believe that the tempo of music must correspond to the tempo of life. Our duty is to speak for all the nation.' Thus Glinka wrote at the critical moment.
Naturally Glinka's first attempts were ridiculed by contemporary salon critics and concert habitués, who looked at him as a 'moujik-maniac' and naïve dilettante. His attempt at something truly national in character was considered plebeian and undignified for a nobleman. But, encouraged by Shukovsky, the famous poet of that time and the tutor of the heir-apparent, later Czar Alexander II, Glinka published in 1833 the first volume of his songs and ballads, based purely on themes of folk-songs. As he was merely a functionary of the Ministry of Finance, without any systematic musical training and had no professional prestige, his work was ignored by the press, while society merely made fun of him and his songs. It was evident that he could not get any hearing in this way.
Shukovsky, whose apartment at the palace was a rendezvous of artists and reformers of that time, suggested to Glinka that he compose an opera out of the rich material in his unpublished ballads, songs, and instrumental sketches, and he on his part would take care that it should be produced on the imperial stage. Shukovsky even outlined a libretto on an historical subject similar to that used by Cavos and suggested to name it 'A Death for the Czar.' Baron Rosen, the poetic private secretary of the Czarevitch, wrote the libretto under the supervision of Shukovsky and Glinka named it 'A Life for the Czar.' This was the first distinctly national Russian opera that stands apart from the Italian and German style. Instead of effective airs and elaborate orchestration Glinka emphasized the use of choruses and spectacular scenic methods, which are more natural to Russian life than the former. When the opera was produced in 1837 for the first time in St. Petersburg the people went wild about it and the young composer was hailed as a great æsthetic reformer. The czar appointed him to act as a conductor of the court choir, the famous pridvornaya kapella. The phenomenal success embittered the professional musicians of Russia and they began to fight the composer with redoubled vigor.
Fortunately the czar, and especially Shukovsky, were on the side of Glinka, so that all the intrigues of his enemies failed. Meanwhile he had composed several songs and a large number of ballads and orchestral pieces, of which Kamarinskaya and the 'Spanish Overture' are the most known. Glinka's songs and instrumental pieces are full of melody and color, and they are still sung and played in Russia, but the best he has created are his two operas. In 1842 he finished his second opera, 'Russlan and Liudmilla,' which, though more poetic and melodious than 'A Life for the Czar', failed to arouse the enthusiasm which had greeted his first opera. The reason for that may have been that it was distinctly democratic and not historical, and historical pieces were a fad of that time.
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka was born in 1804, in the province of Smolensk, and his father, a wealthy nobleman, sent him at the age of thirteen to be educated in an aristocratic college in St. Petersburg. The young man was intended for the civil service of the government, but he loved music so passionately that he neglected his other studies and took lessons in piano and the theory of composition from various teachers of the capital until he was about to be expelled from the school. Graduated in 1824, he tried to get a position in the treasury department, but, failing in this, continued to study music till he secured it. Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert made a lasting impression upon his mind and he never ceased to worship them, though he never imitated them. Byron, Goethe, and Pushkin were the poets that inspired him most of all, and he used to say if he could be in his native music what those men had been in their native poetry he would die a happy man.
With all his lack of technical skill, Glinka remains the founder of the nationalistic school of music of his native land. In spite of his many shortcomings he is natural and superior to the opera composers of his time in Italy and Germany. As all Russians have inborn love of song and as that is expressed in manifold ways in their actual life more than in the life of any other nation, Glinka's main idea was to found the Russian opera on combined passages of realistic musical life, giving them a dramatic character. To emphasize this he made use of picturesque stage glitter and spectacular scenic effects. This betrays itself forcibly in the vivid colors that outline the semi-Oriental architecture of a cathedral, palace, public building or cottage, or in the picturesque costumes for marriage, for burial and for the various other social and official ceremonies characteristic of Russia.
In his private life Glinka was just as unfortunate as Tschaikowsky. The girl he had begun to love passionately married a man of more promising social career. He married a woman whom he did not love and they were divorced after some scandal and difficulty. Then the woman whom he had first loved and who was married to a prominent army officer changed her mind and eloped with Glinka. In order to avoid a public scandal the czar forced the composer to relinquish the woman of his choice. Glinka obeyed and fell into a mood of melancholy which undermined his health little by little until he died in Berlin in 1857. But, strange to say, the private life of Glinka did not affect his compositions, for there is nothing extremely melancholy or sentimentally sad in his music. An air of sentimental romanticism emanates from his numerous ballads, songs, and instrumental works. Like the rest of his contemporaries he is lyric, full of color and sentiment in his minor works. One and all are distinctly national.
Together with Glinka, Dargomijsky undertook to carry the idea of nationalism in music into practice, in spite of all the objections of contemporaries. They met frequently and became close friends. Their aspirations were the same, though Glinka was socially prominent by reason of his official position, and Dargomijsky was a mere clerk in the treasury department and composed chiefly for his own pleasure. It was much more difficult for him than for Glinka to obtain social recognition, though the majority of his works are far more national and artistic than Glinka's. His songs stand close to the heart of the moujik. 'Glinka is an artist of the nobility, I am of the peasants,' was the way Dargomijsky defined the difference between Glinka and himself.
Born on February 2, 1813, in the province of Tula, Alexander Sergeyevitch Dargomijsky was the son of a postal official, who lost his position and property in Moscow when Napoleon occupied that city. The boy grew up in great poverty and the only education he received was that given by his parents. At the age of twenty he made a trip to St. Petersburg and managed to get the position of clerk in the treasury department. Here he continued his studies in music, which had been near his heart since early childhood. After a few years of strenuous work he realized that it was more important for him to collect and study folk-music than to acquire the technique and theory of the art of music, and with this in view he undertook excursions to the villages during the summer vacation, collecting folk-songs, attending festivals and social ceremonies of the peasants. In this way he stored up a huge material and knowledge for his individual work. His first attempt was a series of songs and ballads. In 1842 Dargomijsky resigned his official position to devote his time exclusively to music. His first opera, 'Esmeralda,' had a great success in Moscow and gave him some prestige and courage to undertake the composition of his second opera, 'The Triumph of Bacchus,' which, however, was a failure.
Dargomijsky's masterpiece is and remains his opera Russalka ('The Nymph'), which is composed to a libretto based upon a poem of Pushkin. It takes a listener to the picturesque and romantic banks of the Dnieper River, where the heroine, Natasha, the daughter of a miller, is deserted by a princely lover. In despair she flings herself into the river and is at once surrounded by a throng of the russalkas—the nymphs, with whom Russian imagination has populated every brook, lake, and river. She herself becomes a nymph and eventually succeeds in enticing her false lover to her arms beneath the water.
Dargomijsky's last opera, 'The Marble Guest,' for the libretto of which he used the poetic drama of Pushkin, based on the legend of Don Juan, was produced only after his death in 1872. It differs from his previous operas by the predominance of recitative, concerted pieces being almost banished. Like Glinka, he was not over-prolific in his compositions. Besides the four operas he wrote only five or six orchestral pieces, some thirty songs and ballads and a few dances. Tschaikowsky complained bitterly that he was too lazy, although he admitted that Dargomijsky was greatly hampered by lack of systematic musical education.
Like Glinka, Dargomijsky was unhappy in his private life. The woman whom he loved so deeply was the wife of another man, and the one who loved him found no response on his part. He was relieved of his worries for daily bread after his Russalka made a success on the stage. His apartment was the real rendezvous of the group of young Russian nationalistic composers who surpassed him by far in their works, such as Borodine, Moussorgsky, Balakireff, César Cui, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and Seroff. Dargomijsky died in 1869.
At the same time that the Balakireff group of Russian nationalists began its work in St. Petersburg a romantic temple was founded by Rubinstein. Among the masters of Russian music he occupies an interesting place, being, as it were, a link between the lyric Oriental and the nationalistic Slav. In many ways he was a phenomenal figure. Though he laid the corner-stone of the modern Russian musical pedagogic system and was a dominant authority of his time, he never caught the true national spirit of Russia and by no means all his talented pupils became his followers. He died a man disappointed in his ideals and ambitions. 'All I care about after my death is that men shall remember me by this conservatory; let them say, this was Anton Rubinstein's work,' he said, pointing to the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg,[8] of which he had been not only the founder but the director for many years.
During all his influential life Rubinstein was bitterly opposed to the Russian nationalistic school of music, at the head of which stood Balakireff, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff. He referred to them as to dabblers and eccentric amateurs. Even toward his pupil, Tschaikowsky, he assumed a condescending attitude. His veneration of the classics was almost fanatical. In the genius of his contemporaries he had no faith. He truly believed that music ended with Chopin. Even Wagner and Liszt were small figures in his eyes. To the realistic style initiated by Berlioz and the music dramas of Wagner he was indifferent. His aspirations were for the highest type of pure music, but he lacked the ability to transform his own ideals into something real. Lyric romanticism was all he cared for. The slightest innovation in form, all attempts at realism in music, upset his æsthetic measuring scale. But, despite his deficiencies and faults, he deserves more credit from posterity than it seems willing to accede to him. Saint-Saëns has said: I have heard Rubinstein's music reproached for its structure, its large plan, its vast stretches, its carelessness in detail. The public taste to-day calls for complications without end, arabesques, and incessant modulations; but this is a fashion and nothing more. It seems to me that his fruitfulness, grand character and personality suffice to class Rubinstein among the greatest musicians of all times.'
The outspoken romanticism of Rubinstein's works is in a sense akin to the spirit of Byron's poems. There is a passionate sweetness in his melodies that one finds rarely in composers of his type. But in giving overmuch attention to objective form, he often missed subjective warmth, especially in his operas and his larger instrumental works. He achieved the greatest success in his songs of Oriental character, from which there breathes the spirit of a heavy tropic night. But in these his best moments he remains exotic and inexplicable to our Occidental ears.