The border nationalists: Alexander Glazounoff, Liadoff, Liapounoff, etc.—The renaissance of Russian church music: Kastalsky and Gretchaninoff—The new eclectics: Arensky, Taneieff, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Glière, Rachmaninoff and others—Scriabine and the radical foreign influence; Igor Stravinsky.
The influence of the 'neo-Russian' group did not continue in any direct line. There is to-day no one representing the tendency in all its purity. But there are a number of composers, originally pupils or satellites of the Balakireff circle, who have carried something of the nationalistic tendency into their style. Chief of these, perhaps, is Alexander Constantinovich Glazounoff, one of the most facile and brilliant of contemporary Russian writers for the orchestra. His early career was brilliant in the extreme. He was born in St. Petersburg on August 10, 1865, of an old and well-known family of publishers. In his childhood he received excellent musical education and showed precocious talents. At the age of fifteen he attracted the notice and received the advice of Balakireff, who urged further study, and two years later his first symphony was performed at a concert of the Free School. In the following year he entered the university, continuing the lessons he had begun under Rimsky-Korsakoff. The first symphony attracted the attention of Liszt, who conducted it in 1884 at Weimar, and to whom a second symphony, finished in 1886, was dedicated. Smaller works written at this time show vivid pictorial and national tendencies. In 1889 Glazounoff conducted a concert of Russian works, including his own, at the Paris exposition, and was honored by the performance of a new symphonic poem of his—Stenka Razin—in Berlin. The following years brought more narrative or pictorial works—the orchestral fantasias 'The Forest' and 'The Sea,' the symphonic sketch 'A Slavonic Festival,' an 'Oriental Rhapsody,' a symphonic tableau, 'The Kremlin,' and the ballet 'Raymonda.'
The last, which was finished in 1897, may be taken as marking the end of Glazounoff's period of youthful romanticism. His work thereafter was less bound to story or picture, more self-contained and notable for architectural development. There are seven symphonies already to be recorded, together with a violin concerto of the utmost brilliancy, though of classical design. Among the other works of the later period should be mentioned the Symphonic Prologue 'In Memory of Gogol,' a Finnish fantasia, performed at Helsingfors in 1910; the symphonic suite, 'The Middle Ages'; and another ballet, 'The Seasons.' There is also not a little chamber music distinguished in form and execution, and a quantity of songs of facile and graceful quality. Glazounoff is now director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Obviously his early ideals were much influenced by Rimsky-Korsakoff and by Balakireff, from whom he gained his first distinguished encouragement. He responded to the romantic appeal of mediæval and national fairy stories. He felt the grandeur of the sea and the poetry of heroic legends. Thus in Stenka Razin he tells of the Cossack brigand whose death was foretold by his captive Persian princess and who sacrificed her in expiation of his sins to the river Volga. But it is evident that this romantic influence was not lasting. What he chiefly learned from Rimsky-Korsakoff was not the picturing of nature or of legendary beings, but the manipulation of the orchestra with the utmost of brilliancy. In his later works this becomes only technical virtuosity, dazzling but somewhat empty. His travels in foreign lands impressed foreign ideals upon him. When we have given due credit to his thoroughness of workmanship, his sensitive regard for form and balance, the pregnant beauty of many of his themes, we still feel that he is only a sublimated salon composer.
Anatol Constantinovich Liadoff is another of Rimsky-Korsakoff's pupils who has shown little enthusiasm for a distinctly nationalistic music. He was born in St. Petersburg on April 29, 1855, of a musical family, both his father and his uncle being members of the artistic staff of the opera. He entered the violin class of the conservatory and was chosen for Rimsky-Korsakoff's class in composition. His graduation cantata was so fine that he was invited to become a teacher, and has remained with the institution ever since. In 1893 he was appointed with Liapounoff to undertake the collection of Russian folk-songs initiated by the Imperial Geographical Society. His genius has shown itself chiefly in the smaller forms, in which he has produced pieces for the piano distinguished for perfection of form. His songs, especially those for children, have had a wide popularity. There are a certain number of genre pieces for the piano (e. g., 'In the Steppes,' opus 23) and numerous pieces in the well known smaller forms, such as preludes, études, and dances. The symphonic scherzo, Baba Yaga, telling of the pranks of an old witch of children's folk-lore, is one of his ablest works. We should also mention the orchestral legend, entitled 'The Enchanted Lake,' opus 62; the 'Amazon's Dance,' opus 65; and the 'Last Scene from Schiller's "Bride of Messina,"' opus 28, for mixed chorus and orchestra.
Sergei Mikhailovich Liapounoff was born on November 18, 1859, at Yaroslav, and studied at the Imperial School of Music at Nijny-Novgorod and at the Moscow Conservatory. Later he came under the influence of Balakireff, who conducted the first performance of his 'Concert Overture.' For some years he was assistant conductor at the Imperial Chapel at St. Petersburg. He is best known by his piano pieces, chiefly the fine Concerto in E flat minor, and the tremendously difficult Études. His numerous lighter pieces for piano, among which are the Divertissements, opus 35, have become exceedingly popular. His songs show a strong national or oriental influence. His orchestral compositions include a symphony, opus 12, the 'Solemn Overture on a Russian Theme,' opus 7, and a symphonic poem, opus 37. Mention should also be made of his rhapsody on Ukranian airs for piano and orchestra, which is a further proof of his sensitive feeling for folk-song.
Vasili Sergeievich Kallinikoff, born in 1866 in the department of Orloff, was at the time of his death in 1900 one of the most promising of the then younger Russian composers. He studied for eight years in the school of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, and upon his graduation became assistant conductor of the Moscow Private Opera. The oncoming of consumption, however, forced him to take up his residence in the Caucasus. His most extraordinary work was the first symphony, in the key of G minor, which was finished in 1895 and went begging for performance until it was given several years later in Kieff. Since then it has figured as one of the most popular of Russian orchestral works. The second symphony, in A major, is less distinguished. His other orchestral works, showing great talent and considerable national feeling, include two 'symphonic scenes,' 'The Nymphs' and 'The Cedars,' and the incidental music to Alexander Tolstoy's play, 'Czar Boris,' written for its performance at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1899. There is also a cantata, Ivan Damaskin, and a ballad, Roussalka, for solo, chorus and orchestra. Kallinikoff also left some songs, chamber music and piano pieces. A marked originality is revealed in his best work, but it was still immature when his final illness put an end to creative activity.
A. Spendiaroff is loosely associated with the neo-nationalists and has acquired some little popularity with his orchestral works, 'The Three Palms' and the 'Caucasian Sketches.' He shows a marked talent of a pictorial order, and felicity in the invention of expressive melody. But his technique is that of an age past, his method rings always true to the conventional, and his musical content sounds all too reminiscent. Ossip Ivanovich Wihtol, born in 1863 at Volnar, near the Baltic Sea, has gained a distinctive position for himself as a worker with Lettish themes. He was educated at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and studied composition under Rimsky-Korsakoff. Until 1908 he was a teacher of theory in this institution. His best works are those which are connected with Lettish folk-music, notably the Symphonic Tableau, opus 4; the Orchestral Suite, opus 29; and the Fantasia for violin, opus 42. We should also mention the 'Dramatic Overture' and the Spriditis overture, the piano sonata, a string quartet, and a number of songs and choruses—some a cappella and some with orchestral accompaniment.
We have spoken several times of the absence of a true 'national school' of Russian composition in present times. But this statement must be amended. There is one school which represents in great purity the cult of the national and has achieved notable results in its work. This is the school of musicians who have undertaken to build up a pure ritual music for the Russian church. This group is purely national in character. It is the most intense contemporary expression of the 'Slavophile' ideal in recent times. The neo-Russian group of Balakireff was, it is true, only loosely connected with the Slavophile or nationalistic political movement of its time, but its relation to the 'Western' tendency of Tschaikowsky and Rubinstein is analogous with that of the novelist Dostoievsky to Turgenieff. The renaissance of Russian church music probably has a certain political significance, for church and state have been traditionally close to one another in the land of the czar. The Eastern church, like that of Rome, suffered from the musical sentimentalism of the nineteenth century and received a vast accretion of 'sacred' music which was flowery, thin, and utterly unsacred in spirit. And like the Roman church it made strenuous efforts to effect a reform, choosing as its basis the traditional ecclesiastical modes. These, in the Eastern church, are as rich and impressive as the Gregorian modes of Rome. The first definite step was the establishment, in 1889, of the Synodical School of Church Singing in Moscow, under the direction of C. V. Smolenski. It was only a preparatory step, for, under the advice of Tschaikowsky and Taneieff, it concentrated first upon the education of a number of singers thoroughly grounded in musical art and theory. In 1898 the school was enlarged and reformed, becoming a regular academy with a nine-year course and offering a thorough training in every branch of musical art, from sight reading up to composition. New methods of teaching, introduced in 1897, brought the choral work up to an unprecedented pitch of excellence, and a visit of the school choir to Vienna in 1899 left a profound impression upon the outside world. The school instituted, in addition to its regular theoretical studies, a course in the history of church music and its use in contrapuntal forms, and thus began the training of its own line of church composers, of whom the most able is to-day P. G. Chesnikoff. V. C. Orloff, who notably raised the standard of singing in the Metropolitan choir in St. Petersburg, is now director of the school, and with the help of the choral director, A. D. Kastalsky, has brought it to astonishing efficiency.
Kastalsky and Gretchaninoff have attained their eminence as composers chiefly through their work in the renaissance of church music. The former was born in 1856, received a regular preparatory school course, and studied music in the Moscow Conservatory. In 1887 he became teacher of piano at the Synodical school, and later of theory. He has composed much for the ritual, basing his work on the old church melodies and developing a style which is personal, yet in the highest degree religious and impressive. His position in Russian ecclesiastical music is now supreme. But in praising his work we should not forget to mention that of his predecessors, who did much to preserve a decent appropriateness for Russian church music in the dark days. Following the great Bortniansky came G. F. Lyvovsky (1830-1894), who was educated in the imperial choir and was later director of the Metropolitan choir in St. Petersburg. He was a man of much talent, and, feeling the approach of the new attitude toward sacred music, showed in his work the transition from the old to the new. Other notable church composers, both in the old and the new style, were A. A. Archangelsky (born 1846), Taneieff, Arensky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff.
But Gretchaninoff, though he has by no means given himself solely to the composition of sacred music, has brought the greatest genius to bear on it. He is no mere routineer and theorist. Some of his works for the ritual will stand as among the most perfect specimens of sacred music the world over. Combined with the greatest simplicity of method is an exhaustive technical knowledge and a poetical feeling for the noble and profound. It is he who has put into tones the supreme poetry of worship. The profound impressiveness of this new sacred music in performance is in part due to the traditional Eastern practice of singing the ritual unaccompanied. This a cappella tradition has disciplined a generation of choirs to an accuracy of intonation which is impossible where singers can depend upon the support of an organ. Further, there is the marvellous Russian bass voice, sometimes going as low as B-flat or A, which furnishes a 'pedal' support to the choir and makes an accompanying instrument quite superfluous. The newer church composers have not been slow in taking advantage of the striking musical opportunities offered by this peculiar Slavic voice. As a result of all these influences, the musical renaissance of the Eastern church has been far more successful than the parallel awakening in the Roman, and has produced a music and a tradition of church singing incomparable in the world to-day for nobility and purity.
Alexander Tikhonovich Gretchaninoff was born on October 13, 1864, in Moscow, studied piano in the Moscow conservatory and went in 1890 to St. Petersburg to enjoy the advantages of Rimsky-Korsakoff's teaching. He early gained a prize with a string quartet, and became known in foreign countries by his songs and chamber music. His style, outside of his church music, is not especially national. He is inclined to the lyrical, preferring Borodine to Moussorgsky, and throughout his secular work shows German influence. His symphony in G minor, op. 6, gained for him general recognition in Russia, and the symphony op. 27 justified the great hope felt for his talent. Gretchaninoff has been active in dramatic music. He has written incidental music to Ostrovsky's 'The Snow Maiden' and to two of the plays which go to form Alexander Tolstoy's trilogy on the times of Boris Godounoff. His two operas, Dobrinya Nikitich and 'Sister Beatrice,' are distinguished by great melodic impressiveness and in general by a lyrical style which derives from Rimsky-Korsakoff and Borodine. The latter opera, founded on Maeterlinck's play, met with disfavor at the hands of the Russian clergy, because of its representation of the Virgin on the stage, and was withdrawn after four performances.
A number of minor composers may also be grouped under the general head of nationalists. Most prominent of these is Nikolai Alexandrovich Sokoloff, who was born in St. Petersburg in 1859 and studied composition in the St. Petersburg Conservatory under Rimsky-Korsakoff. His chamber music comprises three quartets, a string quintet, and a serenade. For orchestra he has written incidental music to Shakespeare's 'A Winter's Tale' for performance at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg; a dramatic poem after Tolstoy's 'Don Juan'; a ballet, 'The Wild Swans'; and an elegy and serenade for strings. There are numerous small pieces for piano and violin, and choruses both for mixed voices and for men's voices alone. A. Amani (1875-1904) was also a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakoff and in his piano and chamber music took for his inspiration the poetry of the Orient and the melody of folk-song. F. Blumenfeld (born 1863) has distinguished himself as conductor at the Imperial Opera, St. Petersburg, and has written, besides the 'Allegro Concerto' for piano and orchestra and the symphony in C, many songs and smaller piano pieces which place him with the newer 'nationalists.' A. A. Iljinsky (born 1859) has composed an opera on Pushkin's 'Fountain of the Baktchisserai,' a symphonic scherzo, and an overture to Tolstoy's Tsar Feodor, besides much chamber and piano music. G. A. Kazachenko (born 1858) has written an opera, 'Prince Serebreny,' which was performed in St. Petersburg in 1892, and is now chorus-master at the Imperial Opera. A. Kopyloff (born 1854) has written much orchestral music, including a symphony in C major, a scherzo for orchestra, and a concert overture, also chamber music, including an effective quartet in G major, op. 15. N. V. Stcherbacheff (born 1853) is associated with the younger nationalists and has composed much for piano and voice, in addition to a serenade and two 'Idylls' for orchestra. Finally, B. Zolotareff has distinguished himself in chamber music and in song-writing, and has shown great ability in his Fête Villageoise, op. 24, his 'Hebrew Rhapsody,' op. 7, and his Symphony, op. 8.
We now come to a group of composers who have been little influenced by the Russian folk-song. They all trace their artistic paternity in one way or another to Tschaikowsky. They are men who have used their native talent in a scholarly and sincere way, and have attained to great popularity in their native land and even outside of it, but they seem likely not to retain this popularity long. (This judgment may, however, be premature in the case of Glière.) It is not, of course, their denial of nationalism which has placed them in the second class. But their loyalty to the past does not seem to be coupled with a sufficiently powerful creative faculty to make secure their hold upon the public.
Anton Stephanovich Arensky was one of the most popular composers in Russia. This reputation was gained in part by his piano pieces, which made rather too great an effort toward the superficially pleasing and have now almost passed out of sight. His ambitious operas, too, have failed to hold the stage, but his chamber music shows him at his best. He was the son of a physician and was born at Nijny-Novgorod on July 31, 1861. His early evinced musical talent was carefully nurtured in his home, and when he was still young he was sent to St. Petersburg to study under Zikke. Later he worked under Rimsky-Korsakoff at the Conservatory, and gained that institution's gold medal for composition. His first symphony and his piano concerto were both given public performance soon after his graduation in 1882, and Arensky was appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1888 he became conductor of the concerts of the Russian Choral Society in Moscow, and in 1895 moved to St. Petersburg to accept the position of director of the Imperial Chapel choir, to which he had been appointed on the recommendation of Balakireff. He died in 1906 and it was generally felt that the death had prevented the composition of what would have been his best works. Early in his career he gained the active sympathy and encouragement of Tschaikowsky, who influenced him strongly in a personal way. His talent was essentially conservative, and his scholarly cast of mind is shown in his published 'method,' which he illustrated with 1,000 musical examples, and in his book on musical forms.
His best works date from the Moscow period, since bad health decreased his creative vigor in his later years. Some of his smaller works may be placed beside the best of Tschaikowsky. Most popular outside of Russia have been the two string quartets, his trio in D minor, and his piano quintet in D major, op. 51. Of his two symphonies, the first, written in his boyhood, is quite the best. The piano fantasia on Russian themes, the violin concerto, and the cantata, 'The Fountain of Baktchissarai,' are among his best known works. His first opera, 'The Dream on the River Volga,' was written to a libretto which Tschaikowsky had abandoned and passed on to him 'with his blessing.' He aimed at dramatic force and truthfulness, but his talent was essentially lyrical, and he proved to be at his best in his clear and graceful ariosos. His later operas, 'Raphael' and 'Nal and Damayanti' (each in one act), show an advance in musical power, though the method still continues conservative. Arensky's ballet, 'A Night in Egypt,' was produced in 1899. His last work, composed on his deathbed, was the incidental music composed for the performance of 'The Tempest' at the Moscow Art Theatre. Some of these numbers are among the best things he ever wrote.
Sergei Ivanovich Taneieff is a conservative both in mind and in heart, and may be considered the only real pupil of Tschaikowsky. He was born of a rich and noble family in Vladimir on November 13, 1856, and at the age of ten entered the then newly opened Moscow Conservatory, where he studied the piano under Nicholas Rubinstein. Under Tschaikowsky he worked at theory and composition. In 1875 he graduated with highest honors and with a gold medal for his playing, which was characterized by purity and strength of touch, grace and ease of execution, maturity of intellect, self-control, and a calm objective style of interpretation. These qualities may well be considered typical of his compositions. After a long Russian tour with Auer, the violinist, Taneieff succeeded Tschaikowsky as professor of orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1885 he became director of the institution, but soon retired to devote himself wholly to composition. Though he is an admirable pianist, he seldom appears in public.
His compositions, though not numerous, are all marked by sincerity and thoroughness of workmanship. Some of them have been compared to those of Brahms. His work is essentially that of a scholar, and makes little appeal to the emotions. His mastery, of form is marked. The most ambitious of his works is the 'trilogy' (in reality a three-act opera) based on the Æschylus 'Oresteia.' This, though never popular in Russia because of its severity of style, compels admiration for its nobleness of concept and its scholarly execution. The overture and last entr'acte are still frequently performed in Russia. In general the style is Wagnerian, and the leit-motif is used freely, though not to excess. A cantata for solo, chorus, and orchestra—the Ivan Damaskin—is one of the finest works of its kind in Russian music. Taneieff has also written three symphonies and an overture on Russian themes. But his most distinctive work is perhaps to be found in his eight string quartets (of which the third is the most popular), in his two string quintets, and his quartet with piano. There are also a number of male choruses and smaller piano works.
A much more likable, though no less conservative, figure is Michael Mikhaelovich Ippolitoff-Ivanoff. He was born of a working class family near St. Petersburg on November 15, 1859, and managed to get to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied for six years under Rimsky-Korsakoff. In 1882 he went to Tiflis, where he remained a number of years as director of the local music school, as conductor of the concerts of the Imperial Musical Society, and for a time as director of the government theatre. In 1893 he came to Moscow to teach harmony, instrumentation and free composition at the Conservatory, to the directorship of which he succeeded in 1906. But perhaps his greatest influence on Russian musical life was exerted by him in his position as director of the Moscow Private Opera, which he assumed in 1899, and which he helped to build up to its high artistic standard. His reputation in foreign lands rests chiefly on his string quartet, opus 13, and his orchestral suite, 'Caucasian Sketches,' opus 10. (A second Caucasian suite appeared in 1906 and has had much success.) The list of his works also includes notably a Sinfonietta and a piano quartet; three cantatas; Iberia, for orchestra; and the 'Armenian Rhapsody,' op. 48. In many of these works, as in his songs, he is frequently displaying his penchant for Oriental, Hebrew, and Caucasian music, which he has studied with a poet's love and appreciation. In his two operas, 'Ruth' and 'Assya,' these qualities are also apparent. The notable qualities of his music are its freedom from artificiality, its warmth of expression, and its consistent thoroughness of workmanship. But it is perhaps as an organizer and director that he has performed his chief service to Russian music.
One of the most promising of the younger conservative Russians is Reinhold Glière, who is now director of the Conservatory at Kieff and conductor of the Kieff Symphony concerts. He has in these positions been a dominant factor in the provincial, as opposed to the metropolitan, musical life of Russia, and has by his energy and progressiveness raised Kieff to a position in some ways rivalling the capital. He was born at Kieff on January 11, 1875, and was educated at Moscow, where he studied with Taneieff and Ippolitoff-Ivanoff. Though he was thus under conservative influences, he showed in his earliest compositions a feeling for the national musical sources which forbade critics to classify him as a cosmopolitan.
His first string quartet, in A (op. 2), showed national material treated with something of western softness, and his many small pieces for string or wind instruments often make use of folk-like melodies. It is in his piano pieces that he shows himself weakest, and these have contributed to an under-appreciation of him in his own as well as in foreign lands. Some of his works (especially the later ones) are thoroughly national in character. Thus his recently finished opera 'Awakened' is built entirely on folk-material, and comes with revolutionary directness straight from the heart of the people. His symphonic poem, 'The Sirens,' showed French influence, but was hardly a successful synthesis. His first symphony, in E flat, op. 8, revealed great promise, and his string quartets have drawn the attention of music-lovers in foreign lands.