Russian music has a peculiar fascination for the ears of the western peoples. They may not always like its weird melodies, its peculiar rhythms, its strange and at times bizarre harmonies, but, nevertheless, it fascinates. What then is the cause of this fascination? It is because the soul of the Russian people has been exposed in her music. Many centuries of oppression and hardship have produced that profound melancholy which is the predominant note in Russian tonal utterance. Anyone who has heard the finale of Tschaikowsky's " Sixth Symphony" (Pathetic) will not soon forget the wild, hopeless yearning expressed therein. This is the key-note of all the music Russia has produced. Tolstoi, in speaking of the folk-song of his country says :
In it is yearning without end, without hope; also the fateful stamp of destiny, iron pre-ordination, one of the fundamental principles of our nationality, with which it is possible to explain much that in Russian life seems incomprehensible.
Russia still pertains more to the East than to the West. Perhaps this fact may add to the fascination she has for westerners. Her religion is that of the Eastern or Greek Church. Her manners and customs show the seductive influence of the Orient. In all art lines this same influence is deeply felt. The Kremlin in Moscow may well be taken as typical of Russian tastes along these lines. At the present day, the Kremlin is a vast triangular space containing churches, monasteries, arsenals and the palace. " The Kremlin," writes Mr. Arthur Symonds, is like the evocation of an Arabian sorcerer, called up out of the mists and snows of the North. The palace of the Kremlin is the most sumptuous, the most spacious of royal palaces ; and its treasury is one vast, visible symbol of all that is barbaric and conquering in the power of Russia. The art of the East is like Eastern music, obeying laws to which our eyes and ears have no response. But it has its origin in real nature closely observed and deliberately conventionalized."
Here, then, is a people differing from the rest of Europe in its religion, manners, customs and tastes. Naturally it produces an art differing from all others. In it must be expected all that is essentially Russian, profound melancholy, and in sharp contrast, boisterous humor; deep religious feeling; love of country; love of song and the dance as expressed in the pronounced rhythms ; love of the barbarous and gorgeous coloring of the Orient, as evinced in the subjects chosen and in the mode of portraying them.
In 1804, was born at Nowospask (government of Smolensk) Mikhail Ivanovitch Glinka, the father of the now firmly established Russian national school. By national school is meant, in this particular instance, the products of a comparatively small but steadily increasing number of individuals as distinguished from folk-music, or music of the people. Music of the national school is termed art music. Music of the people at large may be termed heart music.
Russian composers in producing their art music have utilized, from the first, the vast store of material contained in the folk-songs of their country. So, after all, the people are themselves the source of the products of their own school.
Every individual feels, at sundry times, the need of a mode of expression whereby he may make clear to others his thoughts and emotions. Most of us in America, where illiteracy is exceptional, express ourselves directly by means of language, either spoken or written. The Russian people, on the other hand, having had educational advantages withheld from them during the years in which other nations have been progressing, still resort to musical rather than to verbal expression, song being the primitive outburst of deep feeling. Thus it is that Russia is rich in folk-song. Music is, after all, of and from the heart. Words may lie, but music never. In looking for racial characteristics one must get close to the soil; for dwellers in cities are much the same, the world over. It is in the country districts that conservatism has its strongest hold. There new songs are continually being born. If they be close to the heart of the people they will be cherished by them. If not, they will exist as mushroom growths but for a night. The old rugged songs last. It is a case of the survival of the fittest. Witness the songs in America that in the course of time will fall into the category of folk-songs, such as " Home, Sweet Home," " Old Folks at Home," " Dixie," " Old Black Joe." They all come from and go out to the heart.
In Russia, music always has been closely connected with the lives of the people. From the time of birth through all the events of life, until death claims them, they move to a musical accompaniment. Each event has its appropriate songs. The return of spring is celebrated by a sort of choral dance, termed the khorovod ; marriage, being a most important time, brings forth many songs, such as " The Birchwood Splinter " (" Lootchina "), " Glorification," " The Match-maker " (" Svatoushka "), " I Feel Sleepy " (" Spitsia mne "). Favorite dance-songs are " The Entrance Hall " (" Sseny "), " The Meadows " (" Vo loosiakh ") and " Kamarinskava," of which a typical verse may be given.
What a queer fellow you are, Kamarinsky peasant, as you run stumbling along the street.
I am running to the rumshop, with a headache. Without drinking, a peasant cannot live.
A favorite boating-song is " Volga, which Glazounoff has so wonderfully worked into his symphonic poem " Stenka Rasine." Laboring-songs are " Heave Ho " ("Ay oukhnem ") and " Doubinovshka " (" Little Club "). All of these songs are of Great or North Russia.
Ralston, in his Songs of the Russian People says : " To husband and wife it (song) suggests many a form of loving words, and teaches them how, with croons about the evil Tartars of olden days, to lull their babies to sleep and to soothe restlessness of their elder children. Song lightens the toil of the working hours, whether carried on out of doors, amid exposure to sun and wind, and rain and frost, or within a stifling hut, by the feeble light of a pine wood splinter; it enlivens the repose of a holiday, giving animation to the choral dance by day and the social gathering at night. The younger generation grows up and song escorts the con-script son to the army, the wedded daughter to her new home, and mourns over the sorrow of the parents, of whom their children have taken what may be a last farewell. Then comes the final scene of all, and when the tired eyes are closed forever, and the weary hands are crossed in peace, song hovers around the silent form and addresses to its heedless ears passionate words of loving entreaty. Nor does its ministering stop even then, for, as each returning spring brings back the memory of the past, together with fresh hopes for the future, song arises again above the graves of the de-parted, as, after the fashion of their pagan ancestors, the villagers celebrate their yearly memorial of the dead."
All of these songs have essential and distinguishing musical characteristics. Most of the dance tunes are in the major mode, the slow tunes — and these are best liked — in the minor. The underlying idea or suggestion which is thrown out by them all is that of profound melancholy, and, in marked contrast, a rough humor suggestive of brawny muscles, strong sinews and a heavy slow-acting brain in-flamed by vodka. These startling phenomena seem but natural if the Russian peasant character be taken into consideration. Melancholy people everywhere have their moments of intense exhilaration in which, apparently, they attempt to crowd their unusual light-heartedness into one short hour of heedless joy. The day of joy is short but the long dark hours of the night of melancholy drag on interminably. In all the northern countries, the minor is the prevailing mode.
Wherever the struggle for existence is most vehement, either on account of geographical or political conditions, there the minor mode is found to prevail, for it most naturally voices the cry of distress. In southern Russia, as well as in the northern parts, the same political system is in force, and the outcome of it is the suffering and sorrow we find depicted in the folk-music. Russian folk-songs have two distinct characteristics which are the result of the communal system which prevails. They always are sung in harmony, and they usually are sung with one voice leading from another, each part having the same or a similar melody. The parts are improvised and form a unique structure in the same manner in which the Hungarian orchestras build their instrumental pieces. The feeling for harmony seems to be inborn with these people and is exercised unconsciously. Many of the songs are sung antiphonally, one voice taking up the principal melody and being answered in turn by the chorus. Such a song is " There bloomed flowers in the meadow," which proceeds thus :
Leader. There bloomed flowers in the meadow
Chorus. And they faded.
My sweetheart and he left me.
Leader. My sweetheart loved me,
Chorus. And he left me,
Och, my dear one left me not for long.
Other peculiar characteristics of Russian music are the strongly accented and sudden changes of rhythm; basso ostinato; peculiar grace notes and frequent use of melismas; intervals pertaining to the pure minor scale ; augmented and chromatic intervals ; archaic harmonies ; periods of uneven numbers of measures; many repetitions of the same phrase; all of which savor of the East.
The employment of strongly accented rhythms is similar to that in rugged dance tunes everywhere. The sudden changes from one pulsation to another, are due to the inherent desire to fix a suitable melody to the words. The story is unrhythmical, hence the peculiar changes.
Basso ostinato (obstinate or persistent bass) is the continued use of the same melody or phrase repeated as bass throughout the entire composition.
At the time the folk-songs were in process of formation each singer felt free to add such ornaments or broideries (grace notes) as his caprice dictated. This same privilege was freely accorded to the chanter in the medioeval church. In fact, even today, Italian opera singers still claim this right in the interpretation of their arias. The melismas are in very much the same line ; namely, many tones being sung to one syllable. The pure minor is the scale used exactly as the signature dictates, the seventh step of the scale not being raised to make a leading tone. The use of archaic harmonies undoubtedly is due to the influence of the early hymns of the Greek Church, which were built on the old church modes. In the greater part of the music of the western world the periods are made up of an even number of measures ; two, four, eight, but in much of the typical Russian music the periods are of three, five, and seven measures.
As to the date of many Russian folk-songs, there are no means of knowing. They certainly go back many hundred years. When Mme. Eugenie Lineff and her Russian choir first appeared in America (1893) the latest songs sung by her choir in her concerts of Russian music were of the Seventeenth Century. Most of them were much older, one song, " The Sowing of the Millet " (" A mi prosso Ssegali "), being believed to be at least a thousand years old. It dates from the heathen times of Russia. This is shown by the invocation to Lado, the deity of Spring, which it contains, while the burden of the song relates to the ancient custom of obtaining the bride by purchase.
Melgounoff, a Russian musician, did much to preserve and reproduce the folk-songs of his country exactly as they were sung by the people. He writes in this connection:
"Almost each singer joins the choir with a modified melody, not two singing alike, but always improvising some new variation of the same melody; hence that wonderful harmonic fulness which is characteristic of Russian peasant singing."
In the Ukraina, in southern Russia, the people have come more in touch with the outside world. As a result, their songs have undergone changes and have taken on more of the character of those of western Europe. The harmonies are more modern; the melody being accompanied by chords for " filling in " purposes. And the principal melody is more apparent to western ears.
In North or Great Russia the people have been more isolated and have " held together " better. The habit of co-operation is stronger in the north, and as singing always has accompanied these people at their work, the " a capella " had become the almost exclusive manner of singing. The bandura, a sort of guitar, is most used in the south for accompanying the voices. Other instruments peculiar to these people are the goudok, balalaika and gusli. All of these instruments are of the lute type, having plucked or struck strings, the goudok having twenty-three strings, the balalaika four, the gusli existing in different forms. Now, how-ever, most of these instruments are obsolete.
Previous to the time of Glinka, Russia had looked to France and Italy for her music; so that the production in 1836 of this composer's first opera, "A Life for the Czar," really marked the beginning of a national Russian school. And how marvelous has been its growth from that first sprouting of the seed ! In the short space of seventy years has been produced an art which bids fair to outrun all its competitors. In seventy years has been achieved that for which other nations have required centuries.
The development of an art usually is a slow process. Germany, Italy and France, the three great art producing countries of Europe, have labored for many years to perfect a technic sufficient for all demands in the expressing of musical ideas. The Russian composers, coming as recently as they have, have been from the first in possession of this great technic, developed and perfected by the efforts of the older schools. This has been an inestimable advantage and has favored the growth of this Russian prodigy. Another potent factor in this rapid growth lay in the fact that practically all of the active men in it, have been of high social standing and wide general culture.
From such conditions one would naturally look for an exceptional art. The combination was a rare one; unlimited material of all varieties right at hand as found in the folk-music; a deep-rooted love of country prompting the use of this material; natural talent, paired with the means and inclinations to use it; an atmosphere of general culture and refinement, all these united to produce this extraordinary school. It must be remembered, however, that the school began in the midst of the age of romanticism, and there must be expected, therefore, no Russian classics.
The meaning of the terms classic and romantic is usually not very clear. By classic music, is meant, in a general way, that of the Eighteenth Century. We speak of Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart as the classic composers. Their music was modeled after that of the ancients and was of an elevated, impersonal tone. Romantic music, starting with the later works of Beethoven, and from the time of Weber (1786-1826), expressed a more personal feeling and had the idea of painting a musical picture. The painting thereof was not done in the realistic manner of Strauss and the ultra-moderns but was presented more as a tonal medium by means of which a mental picture should be conjured up by the listener himself. In the present-day effort to paint the exact picture rather than the idea of it, it seems that a step back-ward has been taken. Pictorial suggestion which is possible to musical art has been replaced by pictorial realism which it is a debatable question if musical art can accomplish.
It has been said that the composers of the Russian school became realists because of the lack of aestheticism in Russian culture. The same statement might be made as applying to all modern schools and peoples. In this age of money, aestheticism is put in the background.
Glinka, in his opera "A Life for the Czar," utilized Russian and Polish airs in something of the same manner in which Richard Wagner later applied his leit-motifs. When a Polish character appeared on the stage he would be accompanied by distinctively Polish rhythms and airs such as the polonaise or mazurka, while Russian personages would have characteristic Russian themes. Or perhaps the composer wished to present the idea of a Kermess or peasant dance, in which case he might take as a theme such a song as " Kamarinskaya," or he might invent a theme of like character. Again, he might wish to suggest deep gloom, intense longing. What could better serve his purpose than the air " V'temnitze " (" In prison ") or some similar folk-song?
Comparatively few members of the Russian school were professional musicians, few of them having music as an avocation, especially in early life. Some of them were in the army, some in the navy, some chemists. They were men of science laboring to form a school of music; consequently, it might be expected their works would be built along scientific lines, and such is found to be the case. Russian harmonies, while usually novel and daring, often seem to be more the result of calculation than of spontaneity. In melody writing and in the use of rhythms, these composers seem to have fastened intentionally to the peculiar characteristics of their folk-music. The Oriental strain creeps in, showing plainly in the coloring and in the subjects chosen for composition.
In tracing the history of the music of all countries, it usually is found that at a certain stage the subject can no longer be treated directly but only through the efforts of the individual. This is not, however, so true of Russia as of most countries because of the banding together of a group of composers into what has been termed " The Cabinet." Principally through the efforts of Balakreff a sort of society was formed, consisting of himself and of Cui, Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Kosakoff. This society they called the " Innovators." Its object was the betterment of their art. The leading articles of their code, which related especially to the opera were : 1. Dramatic music should always have an intrinsic value as absolute music, without regard to the libretto. 2. Vocal music must always be in perfect accord with the meaning of the text. 3. The arrangement of the scene should depend entirely upon the situation in which the characters are placed, as well as on the general movement of the plot.
While these tenets may be said to be similar to those of Wagner, yet the matter was approached from a different direction. With Wagner the orchestra dominated every-thing; but with these men the singer had the first consideration, not, however, after the Italian manner of treatment. There was to be nothing introduced to interrupt the natural sequence of events, no chorus worked in simply to rest the soloists or to display skill in ensemble writing.
And yet, despite all the bold efforts put forward to promulgate these ideas, the Russian school is known to the outside world at the present day, not through its operas, which only in isolated cases have left the confines of the country, but rather through its products in the purely instrumental forms. The symphony, the symphonic suite, the overture and the ballet have been most successfully handled and the works in these forms have been widely performed. The fact that Russian instrumental works, rather than operatic have become known doubtless is due, rather to the greater ease of their production as compared with the operas, than to their possessing any higher intrinsic value.
César Cui, in his book La Musique en Russie (Paris, 1880), divided the Russian composers into three groups : first, the old lyric school, Glinka, Dargomizsky and Seroff; second, the New-Russians, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakireff, Cui, and Dargomizsky in his later style; and lastly, Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky, in a class by them-selves as being less distinctively national. Of the later composers, Glazounoff, Arensky, Liadoff, Taneiff, Scriabine, Rachmaninoff and others, some of them cleave to the " Cabinet " and some follow in the footsteps of Tschaikowsky.
Art music in Russia dates from the time of Glinka, (1804-1857) the first of the old lyric school. True, there had been opera in St. Petersburg from 1735, the time of the Empress Catherine I.; but nothing in a truly national vein appeared until Glinka's "A Life for the Czar." This opera won an immediate success, gaining for its composer the office of Imperial chapel-master and conductor of the Opera at St. Petersburg. Glinka's second and best opera, " Russian and Ludmilla," is decidedly Oriental in tone and has been highly praised both by Berlioz and Liszt.
The other members of the old lyric school, Dargomizsky (1813-1867) and Seroff (1820-1871) continued on the lines laid down by Glinka, Dargomizsky later showing the marked influence of Richard Wagner. Their works are not generally known outside of Russia. Rimsky-Korsakoff (1844) looms largest among the New-Russians and is now universally conceded to be at the head of his school. Liszt, in a letter to the publisher Bessel wrote : " To speak frankly, Russian national music could not be more felt or better understood than by Rimsky-Korsakoff."
Balakireff did much to nationalize Russian music. It was his idea that the folk-song should be the basis of all national music. After making a thorough study of the subject, he published an excellent collection of these songs. Besides composing, he helped to further the cause of music in his country by founding the Free Music School and the Russian Symphony Concerts.
Mussorgsky, one of the most talented members of his coterie, through the lack of early musical training wrote in a more daring but less finished style than his contemporaries. He excelled as a melody writer. All of his compositions show a wild, passionate strength with an undercurrent of sadness and melancholy. He comes near to expressing the true Russian character, and it seems a pity that he was not differently constituted in some ways, his strange nature brooking no restraint.
Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky, who formerly were looked upon as being representative Russians, now are no longer accepted as such. The New-Russians themselves repudiated both of them from the first. Rubinstein (1830-1895) is more closely related to the German than to the Russian school. Much of his music lacks vitality and has gradually fallen into disuse, his strongest point being his melody writing. " Rubinstein alone," says James Huneker, " seems to have slipped between the stools of race and religion. Born a Jew, raised a Christian, and of Polish origin, he played the piano like a god, and his compositions are never quite German, never quite Russian. He has been called the greatest pianist among the composers, and the greatest composer among the pianists, yet has hardly received his just dues."
In Tschaikowsky (or, as the musicians spell it, Chaikovsky) Russia gave the world one of the greatest of modern composers. Much has been written of him, pro and con, but it generally is conceded that he followed a new musical path. His themes are original and his harmonies even more so. His orchestration is rich and sure. In a letter to his friend, Mrs. Von Meck, he writes : " I say as regards the specifically Russian elements in my compositions that I often and intentionally begin a work in which one or two folk-tunes will be developed. Often this happens of itself, without intention, as in the finale of our (meaning the fourth) Symphony. My melodies and harmonies of folk-song character come from the fact that I grew up in the country, and my earliest childhood was impressed by the indescribable beauty of the characteristic features of Russian folk-music, also from this, that I love passionately the Russian character in all its expression. I am a Russian in the fullest meaning of the word."
Mr. John F. Runciman, in his book Old Scores and New Readings, says : " He " (Tschaikowsky) " has the Slav fire, rash impetuosity, passion and intense melancholy, and much also of that Slav naïveté, which in the case of Dvorak degenerates into a sheer brainlessness; he has an Oriental love of a wealth of extravagant embroidery, of pomp and show and masses of gorgeous color ; but the other, what I might call the western civilized element in his character showed itself in his lifelong striving to get into touch with contemporary thought, to acquire a full amount of modern culture, and to curb his riotous, lawless impulse towards mere sound and fury."
To sum up the peculiar characteristics and general tendencies of the Russian composers of the present time; the orchestra is the instrument for which these tonal virtuosi best can write. With it they can express the Russian national character more truly, more vividly and more picturesquely than can be done by any other means. The feeling for orchestration seems as inherent in them, as is the harmonic feeling in the Russian peasant character. The instruments of the orchestra are as the tubes of color which the artist has in his paint-box. The composer's pen is his brush, his brain serves as the palette on which to blend his colors. Many persons have visions of beautiful pictures, tonal and otherwise, but know not how to use the brush or the palette or the colors. But these Russians apparently have such knowledge inborn. Instrumentation is easy to them. They think in terms of the orchestra. And of the pictures they conjure up, many deal with fantastic and Oriental subjects but all of them appeal to the senses. Such warm, sensuous coloring, such gorgeous voluptuousness ; it all reminds one of the Mussulman's Paradise, with its ease and its luxury, its dancing-girls, and its harem. Then there are the pictures of purely Russian character in which is disclosed the national temperament with its intense patriotism, its allegiance to Holy Russia, its heroism and its dramatic play.
From the sum total of the works of its representative composers the status of Russian music is to be judged. Whether this music has in it the qualities which go to make it of lasting interest, time alone will show, but certain it is that at the present day it holds the stage. There is a personal note in it that appeals to every listener even though his own character be far removed from the Russian.
