Rosa Newmarch

“ If he rarely shocks our hearts, as Moussorgsky does, into a poignant realisation of darkness and despair, neither has he any of the hysterical tendency which sometimes detracts from the impressiveness of Tchaikovsky’s cris de cœur.
When a temperament, musically endowed, sees its subject with the direct and observant vision of the painter, instead of dreaming it through a mist of subjective exaltation, we get a type of mind that naturally tends to a programme, more or less clearly defined. Rimsky-Korsakov belongs to this class. Labelled or not, we feel in all his music the desire to depict. ”

“ Gifted foreigners, such as Cavos, had tried to catch some faint echo of the folk-song and reproduce it disguised in Italian accents; talented, but poorly equipped, Russian musicians had exploited the music of the people with a certain measure of success, but without sufficient conviction or genius to form the solid basis of a national school. Yet all these strivings and aspirations, these mistaken enthusiasms and immature presentiments, were not wasted. Possibly the sacrifice of many talents is needed before the manifestation of one genius can be fulfilled. ”

“ Something of this kind occurred in the ultra-national school of music in Russia, and was realised by some of its most fervent supporters as time went on. It is not difficult to trace signs of fatigue and perfunctoriness in the later works of its representatives. At times the burden of nationality seems to hang heavy on their shoulders; the perpetual burning of incense to one ideal dulled the alertness of their artistic sensibilities. Less grew out of that splendid outburst of patriotic feeling in the ’sixties than those who hailed its first manifestations had reason to anticipate. ”

“ 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 certain that while Glinka was influenced by Beethoven, Serov by Wagner and Meyerbeer, Cui by Chopin and Schumann, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov by Liszt and Berlioz, Tchaikovsky never ceased to blend with the characteristic melody of his country an echo of the sensuous beauty of the South. This reflection of what was gracious and ideally beautiful in Italian music is undoubtedly one of the secrets of Tchaikovsky’s great popularity with the public. It is a concession to human weakness of which we gladly avail ourselves ”

“ We find this healthier spirit in the masses, where it takes the form of a desire for practical knowledge, a shrewdness in making a bargain and a co-operative spirit that properly guided would accomplish wonders. It shows itself, too, in a great capacity for work which belongs to the vigorous youth of the nation and in a cheerful resignation to inevitable hardships. Borodin was attracted by temperament to this saner aspect of national character.
The most distinctive feature of Russian art and literature is the power to reflect clearly, as in a glass, various phases of popular life. ”

“ Genius, and even superior talent, almost invariably possess this intuition. No one should have known better than Tchaikovsky that in spite of well-intentioned efforts to push a composer a little to the right or the left, the question of form remains—and will always remain—self-selective. Rimsky-Korsakov, after, as before, his initiation into classicism, chose the one path open to the honest artist—musician, painter, or poet—the way of individuality. ”

“ Tchaikovsky had great difficulty in escaping from his intensely emotional personality, and in viewing life through any eyes but his own. He reminds us of one of those actors who, with all their power of touching our hearts, never thoroughly conceal themselves under the part they are acting. Opera, above all, cannot be “a one-man piece.” For its successful realisation it demands breadth of conception, variety of sentiment and sympathy, powers of subtle adaptability to all kinds of situations and emotions other than our own. ”

“ The music of Eugene Oniegin is the child of Tchaikovsky’s fancy, born of his passing love for the image of Tatiana, and partaking of her nature—never rising to great heights of passion, nor touching depths of tragic despair, tinged throughout by those moods of romantic melancholy and exquisitely tender sentiment which the composer and his heroine share in common. ”

“ This portion of the opera—for which he was his own librettist—was added in order that some conventional love interest might be given to the work. The glamour of romance is a borrowed quality in Moussorgsky’s art; and, in spite of the charm of the scenic surroundings, and some moments of sincere passion, the weakness of the music proclaims the fact. He who penetrates so deeply into the psychology of his own people, finds no better characterisation of the Polish temperament than the use of the polacca or mazurka rhythms. ”

“ Every man, save the hide-bound official, or the frivolous imitator of Byron and Lermontov, was asking himself in the title of the most popular novel of the day: “What shall we do?” And the answer given to them was as follows: “Throw aside artistic and social conventions. Bring down Art from the Olympian heights and make her the handmaid of humanity. Seek not beauty but truth. Go to the people. Hold out the hand of fellowship to the liberated masses and learn from them the true purpose of life.” ”

“ Whereas in lyric poetry self-revelation is a virtue; in the drama self-restraint and breadth of view are absolute conditions of greatness and success. We find the man reflected in Shakespeare’s sonnets, but humanity in his plays. Tchaikovsky’s nature was undoubtedly too emotional and self-centred for dramatic uses. To say this, is not to deny his genius; it is merely an attempt to show its qualities and its limitations. Tchaikovsky had genius, as Shelley, as Byron, as Heine, as Lermontov had genius; not as Shakespeare, as Goethe, as Wagner had it. ”

“ The spirit of pessimism which darkens Russian literature inevitably crept into the national opera; because music and literature are more closely associated in Russia than in any other country. Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar is a tragedy of loyal self-sacrifice; Tchaikovsky took his brooding melancholy into his operatic works, which are nearly all built on some sad or tragic libretto; Cui deals in romantic melodrama; Moussorgsky depicts the darkest phases in Russian history. ”

“ It is true that new sentiments were beginning to rouse the social conscience, but the public was still a long way from desiring idealistic truth, let alone realism, in its music and literature. In spite of the one electrical thrill which Glinka administered to the public in A Life for the Tsar, opera was destined to be regarded for many years to come as a pleasing and not too exacting form of recreation. The libretto of Cavos’s Ivan Sousanin shows what society demanded from opera even as late as 1815; for here this tragedy of unquestioning loyalty to an ideal is made to end quite happily. ”

“ Stassov, in his fine monograph upon the composer, lays stress on this view of Glinka’s career. The history of art, he argues, contains only too many instances of perverted talent; even strongly gifted natures have succumbed to the ill-judged advice of friends, or to the mistaken promptings of their own nature, so that they have wasted valuable years in the manufacture of works which reached to a certain standard of academic excellence, and even beauty, before they realised their true individual vocation and their supreme powers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Russia, where some kind of political leitmotif is bound to accompany a great personality through life, however much he may wish to disassociate himself from it, attempts have been made to identify Shaliapin with the extreme radical party. It is sufficient, and much nearer the truth, to say that he is a patriot, with all that the word implies of love for one’s country as it is, and hope for what its destinies may yet be. Shaliapin could not be otherwise than patriotic, seeing that he is Russian through and through. ”

“ Hanna with her girl friends now come upon the scene and the opera ends with a chorus of congratulations to the bride and bridegroom.
Perhaps the most graceful of all Rimsky-Korsakov’s early operas is The Snow Maiden, in the music of which he has reflected the indelible impressions of a childhood spent amid sylvan surroundings. There is something of the same vernal impulsion in pages of The Snow Maiden of which we are conscious in Wagner’s Forest Murmurs. What a profound loss to the poetry of a nation is the disappearance of its forests! ”

“ As a work of art, Eugene Oniegin defies criticism, as do some charming but illusive personalities. It would be a waste of time to pick out its weaknesses,{346} which are many, and its absurdities, which are not a few. It answers to no particular standard of dramatic truth or serious purpose. It is too human, too lovable, to fulfil any lofty intention. One might liken it to the embodiment of some captivating, wayward, female spirit which subjugates all emotional natures, against their reason, if not against their will. ”

“ Here we have the elements of an exceedingly dramatic libretto which offers fine opportunities to a psychological musician of Dargomijsky’s type. The scene in which the Prince, with caressing grace and tenderness,{127} tries to prepare Natasha for the news of his coming marriage; her desolation when she hears that they must part; her bitter disenchantment on learning the truth, and her cry of anguish as she tries to make him realise the full tragedy of her situation—all these emotions, coming in swift succession, are followed by the music with astonishing force and flexibility. ”

“ The success of the opera was brilliant, and the Empress presented the composer with a fine sable coat as a mark of her gratification. In 1755, Araja, having amassed considerable wealth, returned to Italy and spent the remaining years of his life at Bologna.
Music under the Empress Elizabeth became a fashionable craze. Every great landowner started his private band or choir. About this time, the influence of the Empress’s favourite, Razoumovsky, made itself felt in favour of Russian melodies. ”