It is in his symphonic work that Glière shows his greatest ability. His orchestral writing burns with the heat that is traditional in Russian music, and his handling of his themes, in development and contrapuntal treatment, is sometimes masterly. By far his greatest work is his third symphony,Ilia Mourometz, which is in reality a long and extremely ambitious symphonic poem. It tells the tale of the great hero, Ilia, of the Novgorod cycle of legends, who sat motionless in his chair for thirty years until some holy pilgrims came and urged him to arise and become a hero. Then he went forth, conquering giants and pagans, until he was finally turned to stone in the Holy Mountains. In this work the themes, most of which are national in character, and some of which seem taken directly from the people, are in the highest degree pregnant and expressive. They are used cyclically in all four movements, and are developed at great length and with great complexity. The harmonic idiom is chromatic, not exactly radical but yet personal and creative. If we except certainclichépassages which are unworthy of so fine a work, we must adjudge the symphony from beginning to end a masterpiece. Something of this mastery of the heroic mood is also to be seen in Glière's numerous songs. Though most of them are conventional in their harmonic scheme, they reveal great poetry and expressive power. With but one exception Glière seems to be the greatest of the conservatives of modern Russia.
This exception is Sergei Vassilievich Rachmaninoff, whose reputation, now extended to all parts of the civilized world, is by no means beyond his deserts. He was born on March 20, 1873, in the department of Novgorod,of a landed family of prominence. At the age of nine he went to St. Petersburg to study music, but three years later transferred to Moscow, where he worked under Taneieff and Arensky. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 with high honors, and his one-act opera,Aleko, written for graduation, was promptly performed at the Grand Theatre and made a deep impression. Two short periods of his later life were spent in the conducting of opera in Moscow, but the most of his time he has spent in composition. He is a pianist of rare abilities, and has played his own music much on tours. For some years he resided in Dresden.
Rachmaninoff's early fame is due to the sensational popularity of his C-sharp minor prelude for piano, a fine work of heroic import, holding immense promise for the future. While much of his later composition has been somewhat conventional in style, Rachmaninoff at his best has justified the promise. The magnificent E minor symphony ranks among the best works of its kind in all modern music. Scarcely inferior to it is the symphonic poem, 'The Island of the Dead,' suggested by Arnold Böcklin's picture. Two later operas have proved very impressive. The first, 'The Covetous Knight,' is founded on a tale of Pushkin, and follows the complete original text with literal exactness, achieving an impressive dramatic declamation which seems always on the verge of melody, and entwines itself with the masterly psychological music of the orchestra.Francesca da Riminiis more lyrical, and shows much passion and power in its love scenes.
Rachmaninoff's only chamber music is an 'elegiac trio' in memory of Tschaikowsky and a couple of sonatas. A large choral work, 'Spring,' has attained great popularity in Russia, and a recent one, founded on Edgar Allan Poe's poem, 'The Bells,' is said to reveal abilities of the highest order. For piano there aremany pieces—notably the various groups of preludes, some hardly inferior to the famous one in C-sharp minor; a set of variations on a theme of Chopin; six pieces for four hands, op. 11; two suites for two pianos, op. 5 and op. 17; and two superb concertos for piano and orchestra, of which the second, op. 18, is the more popular. His minor piano pieces are among the most vigorous and finely executed in modern piano literature. His songs are of wide variety, especially in regard to national feeling; in some, as, for instance, 'The Harvest Fields,' he is almost on a plane with Moussorgsky. We should mention also two works for orchestra, a 'Gypsy Caprice' and a fantasia, 'The Cliff.'
Rachmaninoff's music is justly to be called conservative and even academic in its later phase. But this must not be taken to imply that it is cold or unpoetic. No modern Russian composer can better strike the tone of high and heroic poetry. Rachmaninoff has taken the technique of the West, especially of modern Germany, and the spirit if not the letter of the tunes of his own lands and fused them into a music of his own, which, at once complex and direct, stirs the heart and inflames the blood. His orchestral palette is powerful and inclined to be heavy. His contrapuntal style is complex and masterful. His melody is free and impressive. He is by all odds the greatest of the modern Russian eclectics.
A number of other composers, loosely connected with the 'Western' tradition of Tschaikowsky, should here be mentioned. Some of these are young men who may as yet have given no adequate evidence of their real ability. But all of them are able musicians with some solid achievement to their credit. A. N. Korestschenko (born 1870) won the gold medal at the Moscow Conservatory for piano and theory after studying under Taneieff and Arensky, and is now professor of harmony at that institution. His most important work includesthree operas, a ballet 'The Magic Mirror,' and a number of orchestral works, notably the 'Lyric Symphony,' a 'Festival Prologue,' the Georgian and Armenian Songs with orchestra, and the usual proportion of songs and piano pieces. Nicholas Nikolaevich Tcherepnine was born in 1873 and studied for the law, but changed to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he energetically studied composition under Rimsky-Korsakoff. His style is eclectic and flexible. His name is best known through his two ballets,NarcisseandLe Pavilon d'Armide, but his overture to Rostand'sPrincesse Lointaine, his 'Dramatic Fantasia,' op. 17, and his orchestral sketch from 'Macbeth,' give further evidence of marked powers. His songs and duets have had great popularity, and his pianoforte concerto is frequently played. He has also been active as a composer of choral music, accompanied anda cappella.
Maximilian Steinberg, born in 1883 and trained under Rimsky-Korsakoff and Glazounoff, has worked chiefly in an academic way and has shown marked technical mastery, especially in his quartet, op. 5, and his second symphony in B minor. Nicholas Medtner, who is of German parentage, shows the same respect for classical procedure, together with an abundance of inspiration and enthusiasm. He was born in Moscow on December 24, 1879, and carried off the gold medal at the Conservatory in 1900. Since then he has been active chiefly as a composer, and has to his credit a number of very fine piano sonatas, as well as considerable chamber music. Attention has recently been attracted to his songs, which combine great technical resource with a fresh poetical feeling for the texts. There is nothing of the nationalistic about his work. The same, however, cannot quite be said for George Catoire (born Moscow, 1861), who, though educated in Berlin, has shown a feeling for things Slavic in his symphonic poem,Mzyri, and in his cantata,Russalka.Among his other large works are a symphony in C minor, a piano concerto, and considerable chamber music. J. Krysjanowsky is another modern eclectic, known chiefly by his sonata for piano and violin, which, though able, shows little poetical inspiration.
Let us complete this section of the history with a passing mention of certain minor composers of local importance. A. von Borchmann has shown a solid musical ability and a strong classical tendency in his string quartet, op. 3. J. I. Bleichmann (1868-1909) was the composer of many popular piano and violin pieces, of an orchestral work, several sonatas, and a sacred choral work, 'Sebastian the Martyr.' A. Goedicke has composed two symphonies, a dramatic overture, a piano trio, a sonata for piano and violin and another for piano alone, and numerous smaller pieces. W. Malichevsky is an able composer of great promise and has written three symphonies, three quartets and a violin sonata. M. Ostroglazoff is an 'eclectic' whose true powers are as yet undetermined. W. Pogojeff is fairly well known because of his able chamber music and piano pieces. S. Prokofieff (born 1891) is an able and classically minded pupil of Glière and Liadoff, and Selinoff (born 1875) has carried his early German training into the writing of symphonic poems. We should also make mention of E. Esposito, an able and charming composer of operetta.
Of radical Russian composers two have in recent years become internationally famous. Alexander Scriabine is notable for his highly developed harmonic method, which makes sensible subjective states of emotion hardly possible to music hitherto. And Igor Stravinsky has in his ballets carried free counterpoint and a resultant revolutionary harmony to an extreme almostundreamed of in the whole world of music. How much there is of mere sensation in these two musicians is at this time hard to determine. The question will be determined in part not only by the extent to which they retain a hold over their audiences, but also by the extent to which the new paths which they are opening prove fruitful to later followers. If one may judge by appearances at this writing, it would seem that Scriabine, who was essentially a theorist and a mystic, had little to give the world beyond a reworking of the chromatic style of Wagner's 'Tristan'—a style seemingly inadequate to the intimate subjective message he would have it bear. Stravinsky, on the other hand, though still crude, seems to be at the threshold of a new and remarkable musical development. In addition to these new men we find in Russia a number who may justly be called radicals, being influenced by the radicals of other lands, chiefly France. No creative ability of the first order has as yet been discovered among these minor men.
Alexander Scriabine was born in Moscow on December 25, 1871. He was destined by his family for a career in the army, but his leaning toward music determined him to quit the cadet corps and become a student in the Moscow Conservatory. Here he studied piano with Safonoff and composition with Taneieff. He graduated in 1892, taking a gold medal and setting out to conquer Europe as a concert performer. In 1898 he returned to the Moscow Conservatory to teach, but in 1903 resigned, determining to devote all his time to composition. Since then he has lived in Paris, Budapest, Berlin, and Switzerland. In 1906-07 he made a brief visit to the United States, appearing as a pianist. He died, dreaming great dreams for the future, in 1915. His compositions have been numerous and have shown a steady advance from the melodious and conventional style of his early piano works to the intense harmonicsensualism of his later orchestral pieces. The first piano works were characterized by Cui as 'stolen from Chopin's trousseau.' This is not unjust, although the works show a certain technical originality in the invention of figures. The first symphony is written in solid and conservative style, with a due element of Wagnerian influence, and a choral finale in praise of art speaking for its composer's good intentions. The second symphony shows a development of technical skill and an enlarging of emotional range, but gives few hints of the later style. The smaller music of this period—as, for instance, the Mazurkas, op. 25, the Fantasia, and the Preludes, op. 35—also show progress chiefly on the technical side. The 'Satanic Poem' for piano, op. 34, points to Liszt as its source.
It is the third symphony in C, entitled 'The Divine Poem,' which first gives distinct evidence of change. This work, composed in 1905, undertakes to depict the inner struggles of the artist in his process of creation, and reveals the subjective trend of its composer's growing imagination. Its three movements are entitled respectively, 'Struggles,' 'Sensual Pleasures,' and 'Divine Activity.' Here the emotional element is well to the fore. The first movement is stirring and dramatic, the second languorous and rich, the third bold and brilliant. The orchestra employed is large and the technique complex. Other ambitious works of the earlier period are the concerto in F-sharp minor, op. 20, a work of no outstanding importance, and the 'Reverie' for orchestra, op. 24, which is distinctly weak. But by the time we have reached the 'Poem of Ecstasy,' composed in 1908, we have the composer in all his long-sought individuality. The harmonic system is vague to the ear, and weighs terribly on the senses. There is evidence of some esoteric striving. One feels that 'more is meant than meets the ear.' It is in a single movement, but in three sections, and these are entitled,respectively, 'His Soul in the Orgy of Love,' 'The Realization of a Fantastic Dream,' and 'The Glory of His Own Art.' The orchestration is rich in the extreme and the development of the motives shows a mature musical power. The effect on the nerves and senses is undeniably powerful. But withal it remains vague as a work of art; it is obviously meant to convey an impression, but the definite impression, like the 'program,' is withheld, and perhaps it is as well so.
But it is the 'Prometheus,' subtitled 'Poem of Fire' (composed 1911, op. 60), which shows Scriabine at his most ambitious. The work is written in the general style of the 'Poem of Ecstasy,' but the style, like the themes, is more highly developed. And there is super-added the color-symbolism which has helped to give the work something of its sensational fame. The music is meant to tell of the coming of 'fire'—that is, of the creative principle—to man, and the orchestra describes (one might better say 'experiences') the various forces bearing upon incomplete man (represented by the piano, which serves as a member of the orchestral body), until the creative principle comes and makes complete him who accepts it. But in addition to thetonesScriabine has devised a parallel manipulation ofcolors, on a color machine partly of his own invention, and has 'scored' the 'chords' as he imagines them to suit the music. 'The light keyboard,' says a commentator, 'traverses one octave with all the chromatic intervals, and each key projects electrically a given color. These are used in combination, and a "part" for this instrument stands at the head of the score. The arrangement of colors is as follows: C, red; G, rosy-orange; D, yellow; A, green; E and B, pearly blue and the shimmer of moonshine; F sharp, bright blue; D-flat, violet; A-flat, purple; E-flat and B-flat, steely with the glint of metal; F, dark red.' The first performance of the work, with the color machine used as the composerplanned, was that of the Russian Symphony Orchestra of New York, in March, 1915. It can hardly be said that the experiment was convincing to many in the audience, but it seems altogether possible that some sort of union of the arts of pure color and pure tone in an expressive mission may be fruitful for the future.
In a posthumous work entitled 'Mystery,' Scriabine intended to use every means possible, including perfume and the dance, to produce a supreme emotional effect on the audience. We should also mention the ten piano sonatas, of which the seventh and ninth are the best, which show their composer's musical development with great completeness, but suffer in the later examples from a harmonic monotony. This seemed to be Scriabine's besetting sin. It seems doubtful whether his harmonic method, as he developed it, is flexible enough for the continued strain to which he put it. For in truth it is not a daring or extremely original system, however impressive it may sound in the commentator's notes. If we may sum the matter up in a slang phrase we might say that Scriabine's harmony 'listens' better than it sounds.
The influence of the French 'impressionists' on Russian composers is represented at its best in the work of such men as Vassilenko and Rebikoff. The Russians have ever been citizens of the world and have been quick to imitate and learn from their western neighbors. But in the past century they have also been quick to assimilate and to give back something new from their own individuality. This may be the destined course of the French influence on Slavic musicians.
Sergius Vassilenko was born in Moscow in 1872, entered the Conservatory in 1896, and was awarded the gold medal for a cantata written after five years' work under Taneieff and Ippolitoff-Ivanoff. His early work was much under the influence of the Russian nationalists, and his epic poem for orchestra, op. 4, illustratesa taste for mediæval poetry which he supported out of his profound knowledge of modal and church music. But his larger works after this were chiefly French in style. These include the two 'poems' for bass voice and orchestra, 'The Whirlpool' and 'The Widow'; a symphonic poem, 'The Garden of Death,' based on Oscar Wilde, and the orchestral suiteAu Soleil, by which he is chiefly known in foreign lands.
Feodor Akimenko, though less wholly French in his manner, may be ranked among those who chiefly speak of Paris in their music. He was born at Kharkoff on February 8, 1876, was educated in the Imperial Chapel in St. Petersburg, and later was instructed in one or another branch of music by Liadoff, Balakireff, and Rimsky-Korsakoff. The influence of these masters is evident in his work, however much he may have absorbed a French idiom. His is 'a fundamentally Slavonic personality,' says one commentator,[16]'which inclines toward dreaminess more than toward sensuality or the picturesque. His music resembles the French only in suppleness of rhythms and elaborateness of harmonies.' His early works, which are more thoroughly Russian in method, include many songs and piano pieces, three choruses for mixed voices, a 'lyric poem' for orchestra, a string trio and a piano and violin sonata. After his journey to Paris his style changed notably. From this later period we may mention such works for the piano as theRecits d'une âme rêveuse,Uranie,Pages d'une poésie fantastique, etc. His latest compositions include aSonata Fantastiqueand an opera, 'The Queen of the Alps.'
Another composer of much originality and of subjective tendencies is Vladimir Rebikoff, who was born on May 16, 1866, at Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia. Even in his piano pieces he has attempted to mirror psychological states. But this attempt is carried much further inhis operas. 'The Christmas Tree,' in one act, attempts to contrast the feelings of the rich and the poor, and it was successful enough in its artistic purpose to gain much popularity with its Moscow public. Rebikoff has written two other 'psychological' operas—'Thea,' op. 34, and 'The Woman and the Dagger,' op. 41—not to mention his early 'The Storm,' produced in 1894. In his 'melo-mimics,' or pantomimic scenes with closely allied musical accompaniment, Rebikoff has created a small art form all his own.
M. Gniessin is one of the most talented of the younger Russians who have shown marked foreign influence—in this case German. His important works include a 'Symphonic Fragment' after Shelley, op. 4; a Sonata-ballad in C-sharp minor for piano and 'cello, op. 7; a symphonic poem,Vrubel; and a number of admirable songs. W. G. Karatigin is known as the editor of Moussorgsky's posthumous works and composer of some carefully developed music. Among the remaining young composers of this group we need only mention the names of Kousmin, Yanowsky, Olenin and Tchesnikoff.
There remains Igor Stravinsky, perhaps the greatest of all the younger Russian composers in the pregnancy of his musical style. He is regarded as a true representative of nationalism in its 'second stage,' for, though his work bears little external resemblance to that of Moussorgsky, for instance, its style is indigenous to Russia and its thematic material is closely connected with the Russian folk-song. Stravinsky was born at Oranienbaum on June 5, 1882, the son of Feodor Stravinsky, a celebrated singer of the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg. Though his precocious talent for music was recognized and was fostered in piano lessons under Rubinstein, he received a classical education and was destined for the law. It was not until he met Rimsky-Korsakoff at Heidelberg in 1902—that is, at the age oftwenty—that he turned definitely and finally to music. He began work with Rimsky-Korsakoff and learned something about brilliancy in orchestration. But his ideals were too radical always to suit his master. The latter is said to have exclaimed on hearing his pupil play 'The Fire Bird': 'Stop playing that horrible stuff or I shall begin to like it.'
Stravinsky's first important work was his symphony in E-flat major, composed in 1906, and still in manuscript. Then came 'Faun and Shepherdess,' a suite for voice and piano, and, in 1908, theScherzo Fantastiquefor orchestra. His elegy on the death of Rimsky-Korsakoff, his four piano studies, and a few of his songs, written about this time, hold a hint of the changed style that was to come.
Here begins the list of Stravinsky's important compositions. 'Fireworks,' for orchestra, was written purely as a technicaltour de force. Music in the higher sense it is not, but it reveals immense technical resource in scoring and in the invention of suggestive devices. Pin wheels, sky rockets and exploding bombs among other things are 'pictured' in this orchestral riot of tone. In 1909 came the ballet 'The Nightingale,' which has recently been rewritten, partly in the composer's later style, and arranged as an opera. This led him to his first successful ballet. But before entering considering the three works which have chiefly brought him his fame let us refer to some of the later songs, e. g., 'The Cloister' and 'The Song of the Dew,' which are masterful pieces in the ultra-modern manner, and to the 'Astral Cantata,' which has not yet been published at this writing.
Stravinsky's fame in foreign lands (which is doubtless almost equal to that in his own, a strange thing in Russian music) rests almost entirely on the three ballets which were mounted and danced by Diaghileff's company of dancers, drawn largely from the ImperialOpera House, in St. Petersburg, who for several seasons made wonderfully successful tours in the European capitals. It must be understood that this institution, the so-called 'Russian ballet,' was in no wise official. It represented the 'extreme left wing' of Russian art in regard to music, dancing, and scene painting. It was altogether too radical to be received hospitably in the official opera house. But it proved to be one of the most brilliant artistic achievements of recent times, and on it floated the fame of Igor Stravinsky.
His first ballet, 'The Fire Bird,' was produced in Paris in 1910. It tells a long and richly colored story of the rescue of a beautiful maiden from the snares of a wicked magician. The music is by no means 'radical,' but it shows immense talent in expressive melody, colorful harmony, in precise expression of mood, in the suggestion of pictures, and in a certain elaborate and free polyphony which is one of Stravinsky's chief glories. It is a work irresistible alike to the casual listener and to the technical musician. The next ballet was 'Petrouchka,' produced in 1911. This is a fanciful tale of Petrouchka, the Russian Pierrot, and his unhappy love for another doll. The little man finds a rival in a terrible blackamoor, and in the end is most foully murdered, spilling 'his vital sawdust' upon the toy-shop floor. The characters are richly varied, and the carnival music is telling in the extreme. Stravinsky's musical characterization and picturing here is masterly. But his greatest achievement is his preservation of the tone of burlesque throughout—bouncing and joyous, yet kindly and refined.
In this work we notice much of the harmonic daring which is so startling in his third ballet, 'The Consecration of Spring.' Here is an elaborate dance in two scenes, setting forth presumably the mystic rites by which the pre-historic Slavic peoples lured spring, with its fruitful blessings, into their midst. The characterof the music and of the libretto is determined by the peculiar theory of the dance on which the ballet is founded. We cannot here go into this matter. Suffice it to say that the dancing does not pretend to be 'primitive' in an ethnological sense, though its angular movements continually recall the crudities of pre-historic art. The music is quite terrifying at first hearing. But a second hearing, or a hasty examination of the score, will convince one that it is executed with profound musicianship and a sure understanding of the effects to be obtained. Briefly, we may describe the musical style as a free use of telling themes, largely national in character, contrapuntally combined with such freedom that harmony, in the classical sense, quite ceases to exist. Because of the musical mastership displayed in the writing we can be sure that this is not a 'freak' or a blind alley experiment. Whether the tendency represents a complete denial of harmonic relations, with the attention centred wholly on the polyphonic interweaving, or whether it is preparing the way for a new harmony in which the second (major or minor) will be regarded as a consonant interval, we cannot at this time say. But Stravinsky's well-proved ability, and his evident knowledge of what he is about, are at least presumptive evidence that our enjoyment of this new style will increase with our understanding of it.
Certainly men like Scriabine and Stravinsky prove that Russian music has not been a mere burst of genius, destined to become embalmed in academicism or wafted on lyrical breezes into the salons. Probably no nation in Europe to-day possesses a greater number of thoroughly able composers than Russia. The Slav seems to be no whit behind his brothers either in poetic inspiration or in technical progress. Perhaps it is a new generation, that has just begun its work—a generation destined to achievements as fine as those of the glorious 'Big Five.'
H. K. M.