WE have seen that Glinka and Dargomijsky represented two distinct tendencies in Russian operatic music. The one was lyrical and idealistic; the other declamatory and realistic. It would seem that Glinka’s qualities were those more commonly typical of the Russian musical temperament, since, in the second generation of composers, his disciples outnumbered those of Dargomijsky, who had actually but one close adherent: Modeste Moussorgsky. Cui, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov were all—as we shall see when we come to a more detailed analysis of their works—attracted in varying degrees to melodic and lyric opera. Although in the first flush of enthusiasm for Dargomijsky’s music-drama The Stone Guest—which Lenz once described as “a recitative in three acts”—the younger nationalists were disposed to adopt it as “the Gospel of the New School,” Moussorgsky alone made a decisive attempt to bring into practice the theories embodied in this work. Taking Dargomijsky’s now famous dictum: I want the note to be the direct representation of the word—I want truth and realism, as his starting-point, Moussorgsky proceeded to carry it to a logical conclusion. Rimsky-Korsakov speaks of his having passed through an early phase of idealism when he composed his Fantasia for piano “St. John’s Eve” (afterwards remodelled for orchestra and now known as “Night on the Bare Mountain”), “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” and the song “Night,” to a poem by Poushkin. But although at first he may not have been so consciously occupied in the creation of what Rimsky-Korsakov calls “grey music,” it is evident that no sooner had he found his feet, technically speaking, than he gripped fast hold of one dominant idea—the closer relationship of music with actual life. Henceforward musical psychology became the absorbing problem of his art, to which he devoted himself with all the ardour of a self-confident and headstrong nature. In a letter to Vladimir Stassov, dated October 1872, he reveals his artistic intentions in the following words: “Assiduously to seek the more delicate and subtle features of human nature—of the human crowd—to follow them into unknown regions, and make them our own: this seems to me the true vocation of the artist. Through the storm, past shoal and sunken rock, make for new shores without fear, against all hindrance!... In the mass of humanity, as in the individual, there are always some subtle impalpable features which have been passed by, unobserved, untouched by anyone. To mark these and study them, by reading, by actual observation, by intuition—in other words, to feed upon humanity as a healthy diet which has been neglected—there lies the whole problem of art.” However greatly we may disagree with Moussorgsky’s Æsthetic point of view, we must confess that he carried out his theories with logical sequence, and with the unflinching courage of a clear conviction. His operas and his songs are human documents which bear witness to the spirit of their time as clearly as any of the great works of fiction which were then agitating the public conscience. In this connection I may repeat what I have said elsewhere: that “had the realistic schools of painting and fiction never come into being through the efforts of Perov, Repin, Dostoievsky and Chernichevsky, we might still reconstruct from Moussorgsky’s works the whole psychology of Russian life.”[39]
MOUSSORGSKY From a portrait by Repin painted shortly before his death
MOUSSORGSKY
From a portrait by Repin painted shortly before his death
In order to understand his work and his attitude towards art, it is necessary to realise something of the period in which Moussorgsky lived. He was a true son of his time, that stirring time of the ’sixties which followed the emancipation of the serfs, and saw all Russian society agitated by the new, powerful stimulants of individual freedom and fraternal sympathy. Of the little group of musicians then striving to give utterance to their freshly awakened patriotism, none was so passionately stirred by the literary and political movements of the time as this born folk-composer. 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.” The ultra romanticism of Joukovsky and Karamzin, the affectation of Byronism, and the all too aristocratic demeanour of the admirers of Poushkin, invited this reaction. Men turned with disgust to sincere and simple things. The poets led the way; Koltsov and Nikitin with their songs of peasant life; Nekrassov with his revolt against creeds and social conventions. The prose writers and painters followed, and the new spirit invaded music when it found a congenial soil in Moussorgsky’s sincere and unsophisticated nature. Of the young nationalist school, he was the one eminently fitted by temperament and early education to give expression in music to this democratic and utilitarian tendency; this contempt for the dandyism and dilettantism of the past generation; and, above all, to this deep compassion for “the humiliated and offended.”
Modeste Moussorgsky was born March 16/28, 1839, at Karevo, in the government of Pskov. He was of good family, but comparatively poor. His childhood was spent amid rural surroundings, and not only the music of the people, but their characteristics, good and bad, were impressed upon his mind from his earliest years. He was equally conversant with the folk literature, and often lay awake at night, his youthful imagination over-excited by his nurse’s tales of witches, water-sprites and wood-demons. This was the seedtime of that wonderful harvest of national music which he gave to his race as soon as he had shaken off the superficial influences of the fashionable society into which he drifted for a time. His father, who died in 1853, was not opposed to Modeste’s musical education, which was carried on at first by his mother, an excellent pianist. The young man entered the Preobrajensky Guards, one of the smartest regiments in the service, before he was eighteen. Borodin met him for the first time at this period of his existence and described him in a letter to Stassov as a typical military dandy, playing selections from Verdi’s operas to an audience of appreciative ladies. He met him again two or three years later, when all traces of foppishness had disappeared, and Moussorgsky astonished him by announcing his intention of devoting his whole life to music; an announcement which Borodin did not take seriously at the time. During the interval Moussorgsky had been frequenting Dargomijsky’s musical evenings, where he met Balakirev, under whose inspiring influence he had undergone something like a process of conversion, casting the slough of dandyism, and becoming the most assiduous of workers.
While intercourse with Dargomijsky contributed to the forced maturing of Moussorgsky’s ideas about music, the circumstances of his life still hindered his technical development. But he was progressing. His early letters to Cui and Stassov show how deeply and independently he had already thought out certain problems of his art. Meanwhile Balakirev carried on his musical education in a far more effective fashion than has ever been admitted by those who claim that Moussorgsky was wholly self-taught, or, in other words, completely ignorant of his craft. The “Symphonic Intermezzo,” composed in 1861, shows how insistent and thorough was Balakirev’s determination that his pupils should grasp the principles of tradition before setting up as innovators. Here we have a sound piece of workmanship, showing clear traces of Bach’s influence; the middle movement, founded on a national air, being very original in its development, but kept strictly within classical form. His earliest operatic attempt, dating from his schooldays, and based upon Victor Hugo’s “Han d’Island,” was quite abortive as regards the music. Of the incidental music to “Œdipus,” suggested by Balakirev, we have Stassov’s testimony that a few numbers were actually written down, and performed at some of the friendly gatherings of the nationalist circle; only one, however, has been preserved, a chorus sung by the people outside the Temple of the Eumenides, which does not in any way presage Moussorgsky’s future style.
Faced with the prospect of service in a provincial garrison, Moussorgsky resolved to leave the army in 1859. His friends, and more particularly Stassov, begged him to reconsider his determination; but in vain. He had now reached that phase of his development when he was impatient of any duties which interfered with his artistic progress. Unfortunately poverty compelled him to accept a small post under the government which soon proved as irksome as regimental life. In 1856 he fell ill, and rusticated for a couple of years on an out-of-the-way country property belonging to his brother. During this period of rest he seems to have found himself as a creative artist. After working for a time upon an opera founded upon Flaubert’s novel “SalammbÔ,” he turned his attention to song, and during these years produced a number of his wonderful vocal pictures of Russian life, in its pathetic and humorous aspects. The music which he composed for SalammbÔ was far in advance of the Œdipus. Already in this work we find Moussorgsky treating the people, “the human crowd,” as one of the most important elements of opera. “In conformity with the libretto,” says Stassov, “certain scenes were full of dramatic movement in the style of Meyerbeer, evoking great masses of the populace at moments of intense pathos or exaltation.” Much of the music of this opera was utilised in later works. Stassov informs us that SalammbÔ’s invocation to Tanit is now the recitative of the dying Boris; the opening of the scene in the Temple of Moloch has become the Arioso in the third act of Boris Godounov; while the Triumphal Hymn to Moloch is utilised as the people’s chorus of acclamation to the False Demetrius in the same opera.
Moussorgsky’s next operatic essay took the form which he described as “opera dialoguÉ.” The subject—Gogol’s prose comedy “The Match-Maker”—was admirably suited to him, and he started upon the work full of enthusiasm for the task. His methods are shown in a letter written to CÉsar Cui in the summer of 1868, in which he says: “I am endeavouring as far as possible to observe very clearly the changes of intonation made by the different characters in the course of conversation; and made, so it appears, for trifling reasons, and on the most insignificant words. Here, in my opinion, lies the secret of Gogol’s powerful humour.... How true is the saying: ‘the farther we penetrate into the forest the more trees we find!’ How subtle Gogol is! He has observed old women and peasants and discovered the most fascinating types.... All this is very useful to me; the types of old women are really precious.” Moussorgsky abandoned The Match-Maker after completing the first act. This was published by Bessel, in 1911, under the editorship of Rimsky-Korsakov, and contains the following note: “I leave the rights in this work of my pupilage unconditionally and eternally to my dear Vladimir Vassilievich Stassov on this his birthday, January 2nd, 1873. (Signed) Modeste Moussoryanin, alias Moussorgsky. Written with a quill pen in Stassov’s flat, Mokhovaya, House Melnikov, amid a considerable concourse of people.
“The said Moussorgsky.”
Moussorgsky originally designated this work as “an attempt at dramatic music set to prose.” The fragment, with its sincere and forcible declamation, is interesting as showing a phase in the evolution of his genius immediately preceding the composition of Boris Godounov. The four scenes which it comprises consist of conversations on the subject of marriage carried on between four sharply defined and contrasted characters: Podkolessin, a court councillor and petty official in the Civil Service; Kocharev, his friend; Tekla Ivanovna, a professional match-maker, and Stepan, Podkolessin’s servant. Rimsky-Korsakov, who often heard the music sung and played by its author, says in his preface to the work that it should be executed À piacere; that is to say, that for each individual a particular and characteristic tempo must be observed: for Podkolessin—a good-natured, vain and vacillating creature—a slow and lazy time throughout; a more rapid movement for his energetic friend Kocharev, who literally pushes him into matrimony; for the Match-maker a moderate tempo, somewhat restrained, but alert; and for Stepan rather a slow time. Stassov thought highly of this work, and believed that as traditional prejudices vanished, and opera became a more natural form of art, this prose comedy, the music of which fits closely as a glove to every passing feeling and gesture suggested by the text, would come to be highly appreciated.
One more unfinished opera engages our attention before we pass on to consider Moussorgsky’s two masterpieces. Fragments, consisting of an introduction and several “Comic Scenes,” based upon Gogol’s “The Fair at Sorochinsi,” have been recently published by Bessel, with Russian text only. The subject is peculiarly racy and the humour not very comprehensible to those ignorant of Malo-Russian life; but the music, though primitive, is highly characteristic, and may be commended to the notice of all who wish to study Moussorgsky in as full a light as possible.
The idea of basing a music-drama on Poushkin’s tragedy “Boris Godounov” was suggested by Prof. Nikolsky. From September 1868, to June 1870, Moussorgsky was engaged upon this work. Each act as it was finished was tried in a small circle of musical friends, the composer singing all the male rÔles in turn, while Alexandra Pourgold (afterwards Mme. Molas) created the women’s parts. Dargomijsky, who heard a portion of it before his death in 1869, declared that Moussorgsky had entirely surpassed him in his own sphere.
Boris Godounov was rejected by the Direction of Imperial Opera on the ground that it gave too little opportunity to the soloists. The unusual form of the opera, the bold treatment of a dramatic, but unpopular, episode in national history, and the democratic sentiment displayed in making the People the protagonist in several scenes of the work, were probably still stronger reasons for the attitude of disapproval always shown by the “powers that be” towards Boris Godounov. Very unwillingly, yielding only to the entreaties of his friends, the composer consented to make some important changes in his work. The original plan of the opera consisted of the following scenes: The crowd awaiting the election of Boris, and his Coronation; Pimen in his cell; the scene in the Inn, on the Lithuanian frontier; Boris and his children, and the interview with Shouisky; the scene in the Duma, and the death of Boris; the peasant revolt, and the entry of the Pretender. It will be seen that the feminine element was curiously neglected. The additional scenes, composed on the advice of Stassov and the distinguished Russian architect V. Hartmann, were partially designed to rectify this omission. They include the scenes in the house of the Polish grandee Mnishek; the song of the Hostess of the Inn; portions of the first scene of Act I.; the episodes of the Chiming Clock and the Parrakeet; also some fine passages in the scene between Pimen and Gregory (Scene I, Act II.). Portions of Boris were given at Kondratiev’s benefit, at the Maryinski Theatre, in February, 1873, but the production of the opera in its entirety was delayed until January 24th, 1874. How often has Stassov described to me the excitement of the days that followed! The old-fashioned subscribers to the Opera sulked at this interruption to its routine; the pedants of the Conservatoire raged; the critics—Moussorgsky had already satirised them in “The Peepshow”—baffled, and consequently infuriated, “foamed at the mouth.” So stupid were the intrigues organised against Boris that some wreaths offered by groups of young people and bearing messages of enthusiastic homage to the composer, were intercepted at the doors of the opera house and sent to Moussorgsky’s private residence, in order to suppress a public recognition of his obnoxious genius. For it was the young generation that took Boris straight to their hearts, and in spite of all organised opposition, the work had twenty performances, the house being always crowded; while students sang the choruses from the opera as they went home through the streets at midnight.
SHALIAPIN AS BORIS GODOUNOV
SHALIAPIN AS BORIS GODOUNOV
While this controversy was raging, Moussorgsky was already occupied with a new music-drama upon an historical subject, suggested to him by Stassov, dealing with the tragic story of the Princes Khovansky and the rising of the old Archers-of-the-Guard—the Streltsy. He was full of confidence in his project, and just before the first performance of Boris in 1873, wrote to Stassov in the following characteristic strain: “Now for judgment! It is jolly to feel that we are actually thinking of and living for Khovanstchina while we are being tried for Boris. Joyfully and daringly we look to the distant musical horizon that lures us onward, and are not afraid of the verdict. They will say: ‘You are violating all laws, human and divine’; and we shall reply, ‘Yes’; thinking to ourselves, ‘so we shall again.’ They will warn us, ‘You will soon be forgotten for ever and a day’; and we shall answer, ‘Non, non, et non, madame.’” This triumphant moment in Moussorgsky’s life was fleeting. Boris Godounov was not suffered to become a repertory opera, but was thrust aside for long periods. Its subsequent revivals were usually due to some star artist who liked the title-rÔle and insisted on performing the work on his benefit night; and also to private enterprise.
In 1871 Moussorgsky shared rooms with Rimsky-Korsakov until the marriage of the latter in 1873. Then he took up his abode with the gifted poet Count Golenishtiev-Koutouzov, whose idealistic and mystical tendencies were not without influence on the champion of realism, as may be seen from the two song-cycles, “Without sunshine” and “Songs and dances of death,” composed to his verses. “The Nursery,” a series of children’s songs, the “Pictures from an exhibition,” inspired by Hartmann’s drawings, and the orchestral piece, “Night on the Bare Mountain,” date from this period. Meanwhile the stress of poverty and the growing distaste for his means of livelihood—a singularly unsuitable official appointment—were telling on his health. Feeling, perhaps, that his time on earth was short, he worked with feverish energy. Finally, some friction with the authorities ended in his resigning his post in 1879, and undertaking a tour in South Russia with the singer, Madame Leonova. The appreciation shown to him during this journey afforded him some moments of happiness; but his constitution was hopelessly shattered, and in 1880 he was obliged to rest completely. A series of terrible nervous attacks compelled him at last to take refuge in the Nicholas Military Hospital, where he died on his forty-second birthday, March 16/28, of paralysis of the heart and the spinal marrow.
The historical drama “Boris Godounov” was one of the fruits of the poet Poushkin’s exile at MikhaÏlovsky in 1824. Virtually imprisoned on his father’s estate to repent at leisure some youthful delinquencies, moral and political, Poushkin occupied his time with the study of Karamzin’s History of Russia and Shakespeare’s plays. “Boris Godounov” marks a transition from the extreme influence of Byron to that of the creator of “Macbeth.” Ambition coupled with remorse is the moving passion of the tragedy. The insane cruelty of Ivan the Terrible deprived Russia of almost every strong and independent spirit with the exception of the sagacious and cautious Boyard, Boris Godounov, the descendant of a Tatar family. Brother-in-law and Regent of Ivan’s weak-witted heir, Feodor, Boris was already, to all intents and purposes, ruler of Russia before ambition whispered that he might actually wear the crown. Only the Tsarevich Dmitri, a child of six, stood between him and the fulfilment of his secret desire. In 1581 Dmitri was murdered, and suspicion fell upon Boris, who cleverly exculpated himself, and in due course was chosen to succeed Feodor. He reigned wisely and with authority; but his Nemesis finally appeared in the person of the monk Gregory, the False Demetrius, whose pretentions were eagerly supported by the Poles. Boris, unhinged by the secret workings of conscience, was brought to the verge of madness just at the moment when the people—who had never quite resigned themselves to a ruler of Tatar origin—wavered in their allegiance. Urged by Rome, the Poles took advantage of the situation to advance upon Moscow. At this critical juncture Boris was seized with a fatal illness. The Tsars, as we know, may appoint their own successors; Boris with his last breath nominated his son (also a Feodor), and died in his fifty-sixth year, in April 1605.
The intellectual power and fine workmanship which Poushkin displayed in “Boris Godounov” entitle this drama to rank as a classic in Russian literature. It contains moments of forcible eloquence, and those portions of the play which deal with the populace are undoubtedly the strongest. Here Poushkin disencumbers himself of all theatrical conventions, and shows not only accurate knowledge of the national temperament, but profound observation of human nature as a whole. Such a subject accorded well with Moussorgsky’s genius, which, as we have seen, was eminently democratic.
Moussorgsky arranged his own text for Boris Godounov, retaining Poushkin’s words intact wherever that was practicable, and simplifying, remodelling, or adding to the original material when necessary. The result is a series of living-pictures from Russian history, somewhat disconnected if taken apart from the music, which is the coagulating element of the work. The welding of these widely contrasting scenes is effected partially by the use of recurrent leading motives, but chiefly by a remarkable homogeneity of musical style. Moussorgsky, as may be proved from his correspondence, was consciously concerned to find appropriate musical phrases with which to accompany certain ideas in the course of opera; but he does not use leading motives with the persistency of Wagner. No person or thing is labelled in Boris Godounov, and we need no thematic guide to thread our way through the psychological maze of the work. There is one motive that plays several parts in the music-drama. Where it occurs on page 49 of the pianoforte score of 1908 (just after Pimen’s words to Gregory: “He would now be your age, and should be Tsar to-day”), it evokes the memory of the murdered Tsarevich Dmitri; but it also enters very subtly into the soul-states of the impostor who impersonates him, and those of the remorseful Boris. There are other characteristic phrases for Boris, suggesting his tenderness for his children and his ruthless ambition.
The opera opens with a prologue in which the people are gathered in the courtyard of the many-towered monastery of Novo-Dievichy at Moscow, whither Boris had withdrawn after the assassination of the Tsarevich. The crowd moves to and fro in a listless fashion; it hardly knows why it is there, but hopes vaguely that the election of a new ruler may bring some amelioration of its sad lot. Meanwhile the astute Boris shows no unseemly haste to snatch at the fruit of his crime. The simplicity and economy of means with which Moussorgsky produces precisely the right musical atmosphere is very striking. The constable enters, and with threats and blows galvanises the weary and indifferent throng into supplications addressed to Boris. The secretary of the Duma appears, and announces that Boris refuses the crown; the crowd renews its entreaties. When the pilgrims enter, the people wake to real life, pressing around them, and showing that their enthusiasm is for spiritual rather than for temporal things. In the second scene, which shows the coronation procession across the Red Square in the Kremlin, the Song of Praise (Slavsia) is sung with infinitely greater heartiness; for now the Tsar comes into personal contact with his people. The scenes of the Prologue and the Coronation move steadily on, just as they would do in real life; there is scarcely a superfluous bar of musical accompaniment, and the ordinary operatic conventions being practically non-existent, we are completely convinced by the realism of the spectacle and the strangely new, undisciplined character of the music. The truth is forcibly brought home to us of M. Camille Bellaigue’s assertion that every collective thought, or passion, needs not only words, but music, if we are to become completely sensible to it.
The text of the opening scene of Act I. is taken almost intact from Poushkin’s drama. Played as it now usually is between the strenuous animation of the Prologue and the brilliant Coronation Scene, its pervading atmosphere of dignity and monastic calm affords a welcome interlude of repose. Moussorgsky handles his ecclesiastical themes with sure knowledge. In early days Stassov tells us that he learnt from the chaplain of the Military Academy “the very essence of the old Church music, Greek and Catholic.” The scene in the Inn, where Gregory and the vagabond monks, Varlaam and Missail, halt on their flight into Lithuania, is often cut out of the acting version. It contains, however, two characteristic and popular solos: a lively folk-song for the Hostess, and a rollicking drinking-song for Varlaam (bass); besides frequent touches of the rough-hewn, sardonic humour which is a distinguishing quality of Moussorgsky’s genius. The unabashed “naturalism” of this scene displeased a fashionable Russian audience; although it was found possible to present it to a London audience which must have travelled much farther from the homely ribaldry of Elizabethan days than had the simple-minded “big public” of Russia to whom Moussorgsky’s work was designed to appeal a generation ago.
With the opening of Act II. we feel at once that Moussorgsky is treading on alien ground. 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. True, he may intend by these dance measures to emphasise the boastful vanity of the Polish nobles and the light, cold nature of Marina Mnishek; but the method becomes monotonous. Marina’s solo takes this form, and again in the duet by the fountain we are pursued by the eternal mazurka rhythm.
The second scene of Act II. is packed full of varied interest, and in every episode Moussorgsky is himself again. The lively dancing-songs for the young Tsarevich and the Nurse are interrupted by the sudden entry of Boris. In the scene which follows, where the Tsar forgets for a moment the cares of State and the sting of conscience, and gives himself whole-heartedly to his children, there is some exquisitely tender music, and we begin for the first time to feel profound pity for the usurper. The Tsarevich’s recital of the incident of the parakeet, reproducing with the utmost accuracy and transparent simplicity the varied inflections of the child’s voice, as he relates his tale without a trace of self-consciousness, is equal to anything of the kind which Moussorgsky has achieved in “The Nursery” song cycle. This delightful interlude of comedy gives place on the entrance of Shouisky to the first shadows of approaching tragedy. Darker and darker grows the mind of the Tsar, until the scene ends in an almost intolerable crisis of madness and despair. From the moment of Boris’s terrible monologue the whole atmosphere of the work becomes vibrant with terror and pity. But realistic as the treatment may be, it is a realism—like that of Shakespeare or Webster—that is exalted and vivified by a fervent and forceful imagination.
In the opening scene of Act III., enacted amid a winter landscape in the desolate forest of Kromy, Moussorgsky has concentrated all his powers for the creation of a host of national types who move before our eyes in a dazzling kaleidoscopic display. They are not attractive these revolted and revolting peasants, revenging themselves upon the wretched aristocrat who has fallen into their hands; for Moussorgsky, though he raises the Folk to the dignity of a protagonist, never idealises it, or sets it on a pedestal. But our pulses beat with the emotions of this crowd, and its profound groan of anguish finds an echo in our hearts. It is a living and terrible force, and beside it all other stage crowds seem mechanical puppets. In the foreground of this shifting mass is seen the village idiot, ‘God’s fool,’ teased by the thoughtless children, half-reverenced, half-pitied, by the men and women. After the False Demetrius has passed through the forest, drawing the crowd in his wake, the idiot is left sitting alone in the falling snow. He sings his heart-breaking ditty: “Night and darkness are at hand. Woe to Russia!” and the curtain falls to the sound of his bitter, paroxysmal weeping.
The last scene is pregnant with the “horror that awaits on princes.” The climax is built up step by step. After the lurking insanity of Boris, barely curbed by the presence of the Council; after his interview with Pimen, who destroys his last furtive hope that the young Tsarevich may not have been murdered after all; after his access of mental and physical agony, and his parting with his beloved son—it is with a feeling of relief that we see death put an end to his unbearable sufferings.
Although Khovanstchina may in some ways approach more nearly to the conventional ideal of opera, yet foreigners, I think, will find it more difficult to understand than Boris Godounov. To begin with it lacks the tragic dominant figure, swayed by such universal passions as ambition, remorse, and paternal tenderness, which gives a psychological unity to the earlier work. Here the dramatic interest is more widely dispersed; it is as though Moussorgsky sought to crowd into this series of historical pictures as many different types of seventeenth-century Russia as possible; and these types are peculiarly national. Except that it breaks through the rigid traditions of Byzantine art, the figures being full of vitality, Khovanstchina reminds us of those early ikons belonging to the period when the transport of pictures through the forests, bogs, and wildernesses of Russia so restricted their distribution, that the religious painter resorted to the expedient of representing on one canvas as many saints as could be packed into it.
Stassov originated the idea of utilising the dramatic conflict between old and new Russia at the close of the seventeenth century as the subject of a music-drama. It was his intention to bring into relief a group of representative figures of the period: Dositheus, head of the sect known as the Rasskolniki, or Old Believers,[40] a man of lofty character and prophetic insight; Ivan Khovansky, typical of fanatical, half-oriental and conservative Russia; Galitsin, the westernised aristocrat, who dreams of a new Russia, reformed on European lines; two contrasting types of womanhood, both belonging to the Old Believers—the passionate, mystical Martha, falling and redeeming herself through the power of love, and Susan, in whom fanaticism has dried up the well-springs of tenderness and sympathy; the dissolute young Andrew Khovansky, ardently attracted by the pure, sweet young German girl, Emma; the egotistical Scrivener, who has his humorous side; the fierce Streltsy, and the oppressed and suffering populace—“all these elements,” says Stassov, “seemed to suggest characters and situations which promised to be intensely stirring.” It was also part of his original design to bring upon the scene the young Tsar, Peter the Great, and the Regent, the Tsarevna Sophia. But much of Stassov’s original scenarium had perforce to be dropped; partly because it would have resulted in the building up of a work on an unpractically colossal scale, but also because Moussorgsky’s failing health spurred him on to complete the drama at all costs. Had he lived a few years longer, he would probably have made of Khovanstchina a far better balanced and a more polished work.
From the musical point of view there is undoubtedly more symmetry and restraint in Khovanstchina than in Boris. We are often impressed by the almost classic simplicity of the music. A great deal of the thematic material is drawn from ecclesiastical sources.
Khovanstchina opens with an orchestral Prelude, descriptive of daybreak over Moscow, than which nothing in Russian music is more intensely or touchingly national in feeling. The curtain rises upon the Red Square in the Kremlin, just as the rising sun catches the domes of the churches, and the bells ring for early matins. A group of Streltsy relate the havoc they have worked during the preceding night. The Scrivener, a quaint type of the period, appears on the scene and is roughly chaffed. When the Streltsy depart, the Boyard Shaklovity enters and bribes the Scrivener to write down his denunciation of the Khovanskys. No sooner is this done, than the elder Khovansky and his suite arrive, attended by the Streltsy and the populace. In virtue of his office as Captain of the Old Guard, the arrogant nobleman assumes the airs of a sovereign, and issues autocratic commands, while the people, impressed by his grandeur, sing him a song of flattery. When the crowd has departed the Lutheran girl, Emma, runs in, hotly pursued by the younger Khovansky. She tries in vain to rid herself of his hateful attentions. At the climax of this scene, Martha, the young Rasskolnik whom Prince Andrew has already loved and betrayed, comes silently upon the stage and saves Emma from his embraces. Martha approaches Andrew, who tries to stab her; but she parries the blow, and in one of her ecstatic moods prophesies his ultimate fate. The elder Khovansky and his followers now return, and the Prince inquires into the cause of the disturbance. Prince Ivan admires Emma and orders the Streltsy to arrest her; but Andrew, mad with jealousy, declares she shall not be taken alive. At this juncture Dositheus enters, rebukes the young man’s violence, and restores peace.
Act II. shows us Prince Galitsin reading a letter from the Tsarevna Sophia, with whom he has formerly had a love-intrigue. In spite of his western education Galitsin is superstitious. The scene which follows, in which Martha, gazing into a bowl of water, as into a crystal, foretells his downfall and banishment, is one of the most impressive moments in the work. Galitsin, infuriated by her predictions, orders his servants to drown Martha on her homeward way. A long scene, devoted to a dispute between Galitsin and Khovansky, is rather dry. Dositheus again acts as peacemaker.
Act III. takes place in the quarter of Moscow inhabited by the Streltsy. Martha, seated near the house of Andrew Khovansky, recalls her passion for him in a plaintive folk-song. The song closes with one of her prophetic allusions to the burning of the Old Believers. Susan, the old fanatic, overhears Martha and reproves her for singing “shameless songs of love.” She threatens to have her brought before the Brethren and tried as a witch; but Dositheus intervenes and sends Susan away, terrified at the idea that she is the prey of evil spirits. Night falls, and the stage is empty. Enter Shaklovity, who sings of the sorrows of his country in an aria that is one of the most beautiful things in the music-drama. The next scene is concerned with the Streltsy, who march in to a drinking song. They encounter their womenfolk, who, unlike the terrified populace of Moscow, have no hesitation in falling upon them and giving them a piece of their mind. Undoubtedly the Streltsy were not ideal in their domestic relations. While they are quarrelling, the Scrivener comes in breathless, and announces the arrival of foreign troopers and Peter the Great’s bodyguard, “the Petrovtsy.” The cause of Old Russia is lost. Sobered and fearful, the Streltsy put up a prayer to Heaven, for the religious instinct lurks in every type of the Russian people, and even these savage creatures turn devout at a moment’s notice.
SHALIAPIN AS DOSITHEUS IN “KHOVANSTCHINA”
SHALIAPIN AS DOSITHEUS IN “KHOVANSTCHINA”
In Act IV. the curtain rises upon a hall in Prince Ivan Khovansky’s country house, where he is taking his ease, diverted by the songs of his serving-maids and the dances of his Persian slaves. Shaklovity appears, and summons him to attend the Tsarevna’s Council. As Khovansky in his robes of ceremony is crossing the threshold, he is stabbed, and falls with a great cry. The servants disperse in terror, but Shaklovity lingers a moment to mock the corpse of his enemy. The scene now changes to the open space in front of the fantastic church of Vassily Blajeny, and Galitsin is seen on his way to exile, escorted by a troop of cavalry. When he has gone by, Dositheus soliloquises on the state of Russia. Martha comes in and tells him that the foreign mercenaries have orders to surround the Old Believers in their place of assemblage and put them all to death. Dositheus declares that they will sooner perish in self-ignited flames, willing martyrs for their faith. He enjoins Martha to bring Prince Andrew among them. During the meeting between Martha and Andrew, the young Prince implores her to bring back Emma, and learning that the girl is safely married to her lover, he curses Martha for a witch, and summons his Streltsy to put her to death. In vain the Prince blows his horn, his only reply is the hollow knelling of the bell called “Ivan Veliky.” Presently the Streltsy enter, carrying axes and blocks for their own execution. At the last moment a herald proclaims that Peter has pardoned them, and they may return to their homes.
In the fifth and last Act the Old Believers are assembled by moonlight at their hermitage in the woods near Moscow. Dositheus encourages his followers to remain true to their vows. Martha prays that she may save Andrew’s soul by the power of her love for him. Presently she hears him singing an old love song which echoes strangely amid all this spiritual tension. By sheer force of devotion she induces him to mount the pyre which the Brethren, clothed in their white festal robes, have built up close at hand. The trumpets of the troopers are heard drawing nearer, and Martha sets a light to the pyre. The Old Believers sing a solemn chant until they are overpowered by the flames. When the soldiers appear upon the scene, they fall back in horror before this spectacle of self-immolation; while the trumpets ring out arrogantly, as though proclaiming the passing of the old faith and ideals and the dawning of a new day for Russia.
“My first introduction to the works of Moussorgsky came through Vladimir Stassov. Together we went through the earlier edition of Boris Godounov (1875), and Khovanstchina, already issued with Rimsky-Korsakov’s revisions. ‘There is more vitality in Moussorgsky than in any of our contemporary composers,’ Stassov would declare to me in my first moments of doubtful enthusiasm. ‘These operas will go further afield than the rest, and you will see their day, when I shall no longer be here to follow their fortunes in Western Europe.’ How surely his predictions regarding this, and other questions, were destined to be fulfilled is a fact borne in upon me every year that I live and work in the world of music. Later on he gave me the new edition of Boris (1896), edited by the composer’s life-long friend, who was in some degree his teacher—Rimsky-Korsakov. Theoretically, Stassov was fully opposed to these editorial proceedings; for, while admitting Moussorgsky’s technical limitations, and his tendency to be slovenly in workmanship, he thought it might be better for the world to see this original and inspired composer with all his faults ruthlessly exposed to view, than clothed and in his right mind with the assistance of Rimsky-Korsakov. Stassov’s attitude to Moussorgsky reminds me of the Russian vagabond who said to Mr. Stephen Graham: ‘Love us while we are dirty, for when we are clean all the world will love us.’ We who loved Moussorgsky’s music in spite of all its apparent dishevelment may not unnaturally resent Rimsky-Korsakov’s conscientious grooming of it. But when it actually came to the question of producing the operas, even Stassov, I am sure, realised the need for practical revisions, without which Moussorgsky’s original scores, with all their potential greatness, ran considerable risk of becoming mere archÆological curiosities. In 1908 Bessel published a later edition of Boris, restoring the scenes cut out of the version of 1896. This is the edition now generally used; the first one, on which I was educated, having become somewhat of a rarity.”[41]
At the present moment it is impossible to write of Moussorgsky’s operas without touching on this vexed question of Rimsky-Korsakov’s right to improve upon the original drafts of his friend’s works, since it is daily agitating the musical press of Russia and Paris.
Throughout his whole life, it was Rimsky-Korsakov’s lot to occupy at frequent intervals the most delicate, difficult and thankless position which can well be thrust upon a man, when, time after time, he was asked to complete works left unfinished in consequence of the illness, untimely death, or incompetence of their authors. That he attacked this altruistic work in a self-sacrificing and perfectly honest spirit cannot for a moment be doubted by anyone who knew him personally. But his temperament was not pliable, and as time went on and his Æsthetic theories became more set, it grew increasingly difficult for him to see a work in any light but that of his own clearly illumined orderly vision. The following conversation between himself and V. Yastrebtsiev—if it contains no note of exaggeration—shows the uncompromising view which he took of his editorial duties. In 1895 he had expressed his intention of writing a purely critical article on “the merits and demerits of Boris Godounov.” But a year later he changed his mind, because he said: “a new revised pianoforte score and a new orchestral score will be a more eloquent testimony to future generations of my views on this work, not only as a whole, but as regards the details of every bar; the more so, because in this transcription of the opera for orchestra, personality is not concerned, and I am only doing that which Moussorgsky himself ought to have done, but which he did not understand how to carry out, simply because of his lack of technique as a composer. I maintain that in my intention to reharmonise and re-orchestrate this great opera of Moussorgsky there is certainly nothing for which I can be blamed; in any case I impute no sin to myself. And now,” he concluded, “when I have finished my revisions of Boris and Sadko it will be necessary to go through the entire score of Dargomijsky’s The Stone Guest (which was orchestrated by me), and should I find anything in the instrumentation which seems to me not good (and I think I shall find much) I will correct it, in order that in the future none will be able to reproach me with carelessness as regards the works of others. Only when I have revised the whole of Moussorgsky’s works shall I begin to be at peace and feel that my conscience is clear; for then I shall have done all that can and ought to be done for his compositions and his memory.”[42]
Rimsky-Korsakov was a noble and devoted friend, but he was before all things a craftsman of the highest excellence. When it came to a question of what he believed to be an offence against art, he saved his friend’s musical soul at the expense of his individuality. We have therefore to weigh his close personal knowledge of Moussorgsky’s aims and technical incapacity against the uncompromising musical rectitude which guided his editorial pen. When the question arises whether we are to hear Moussorgsky according to Rimsky-Korsakov, or according to Diaghilev-Ravel-Stravinsky, for my own part, having grown accustomed to the versions of Rimsky-Korsakov—which still leave in the operas so much of Moussorgsky’s essential genius that they have not hitherto failed in their profound psychological impression—I feel considerable doubt as to the wisdom of flying from them to evils that we know not of. For, after all, Rimsky-Korsakov was no purblind pedant, but a gifted musician with an immense experience of what was feasible on the operatic stage and of all that could militate against the success of a work.
