III
We now come to a group of composers who have been little influenced by the Russian folk-song. They all trace their artistic paternity in one way or another to Tschaikowsky. They are men who have used their native talent in a scholarly and sincere way, and have attained to great popularity in their native land and even outside of it, but they seem likely not to retain this popularity long. (This judgment may, however, be premature in the case of Glière.) It is not, of course, their denial of nationalism which has placed them in the second class. But their loyalty to the past does not seem to be coupled with a sufficiently powerful creative faculty to make secure their hold upon the public.
Anton Stephanovich Arensky was one of the most popular composers in Russia. This reputation was gained in part by his piano pieces, which made rather too great an effort toward the superficially pleasing and have now almost passed out of sight. His ambitious operas, too, have failed to hold the stage, but his chamber music shows him at his best. He was the son of a physician and was born at Nijny-Novgorod on July 31, 1861. His early evinced musical talent was carefully nurtured in his home, and when he was still young he was sent to St. Petersburg to study under Zikke. Later he worked under Rimsky-Korsakoff at the Conservatory, and gained that institution's gold medal for composition. His first symphony and his piano concerto were both given public performance soon after his graduation in 1882, and Arensky was appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1888 he became conductor of the concerts of the Russian Choral Society in Moscow, and in 1895 moved to St. Petersburg to accept the position of director of the Imperial Chapel choir, to which he had been appointed on the recommendation of Balakireff. He died in 1906 and it was generally felt that the death had prevented the composition of what would have been his best works. Early in his career he gained the active sympathy and encouragement of Tschaikowsky, who influenced him strongly in a personal way. His talent was essentially conservative, and his scholarly cast of mind is shown in his published 'method,' which he illustrated with 1,000 musical examples, and in his book on musical forms.
His best works date from the Moscow period, since bad health decreased his creative vigor in his later years. Some of his smaller works may be placed beside the best of Tschaikowsky. Most popular outside of Russia have been the two string quartets, his trio in D minor, and his piano quintet in D major, op. 51. Of his two symphonies, the first, written in his boyhood, is quite the best. The piano fantasia on Russian themes, the violin concerto, and the cantata, 'The Fountain of Baktchissarai,' are among his best known works. His first opera, 'The Dream on the River Volga,' was written to a libretto which Tschaikowsky had abandoned and passed on to him 'with his blessing.' He aimed at dramatic force and truthfulness, but his talent was essentially lyrical, and he proved to be at his best in his clear and graceful ariosos. His later operas, 'Raphael' and 'Nal and Damayanti' (each in one act), show an advance in musical power, though the method still continues conservative. Arensky's ballet, 'A Night in Egypt,' was produced in 1899. His last work, composed on his deathbed, was the incidental music composed for the performance of 'The Tempest' at the Moscow Art Theatre. Some of these numbers are among the best things he ever wrote.
Sergei Ivanovich Taneieff is a conservative both in mind and in heart, and may be considered the only real pupil of Tschaikowsky. He was born of a rich and noble family in Vladimir on November 13, 1856, and at the age of ten entered the then newly opened Moscow Conservatory, where he studied the piano under Nicholas Rubinstein. Under Tschaikowsky he worked at theory and composition. In 1875 he graduated with highest honors and with a gold medal for his playing, which was characterized by purity and strength of touch, grace and ease of execution, maturity of intellect, self-control, and a calm objective style of interpretation. These qualities may well be considered typical of his compositions. After a long Russian tour with Auer, the violinist, Taneieff succeeded Tschaikowsky as professor of orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1885 he became director of the institution, but soon retired to devote himself wholly to composition. Though he is an admirable pianist, he seldom appears in public.
His compositions, though not numerous, are all marked by sincerity and thoroughness of workmanship. Some of them have been compared to those of Brahms. His work is essentially that of a scholar, and makes little appeal to the emotions. His mastery, of form is marked. The most ambitious of his works is the 'trilogy' (in reality a three-act opera) based on the Æschylus 'Oresteia.' This, though never popular in Russia because of its severity of style, compels admiration for its nobleness of concept and its scholarly execution. The overture and last entr'acte are still frequently performed in Russia. In general the style is Wagnerian, and the leit-motif is used freely, though not to excess. A cantata for solo, chorus, and orchestra—the Ivan Damaskin—is one of the finest works of its kind in Russian music. Taneieff has also written three symphonies and an overture on Russian themes. But his most distinctive work is perhaps to be found in his eight string quartets (of which the third is the most popular), in his two string quintets, and his quartet with piano. There are also a number of male choruses and smaller piano works.
A much more likable, though no less conservative, figure is Michael Mikhaelovich Ippolitoff-Ivanoff. He was born of a working class family near St. Petersburg on November 15, 1859, and managed to get to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied for six years under Rimsky-Korsakoff. In 1882 he went to Tiflis, where he remained a number of years as director of the local music school, as conductor of the concerts of the Imperial Musical Society, and for a time as director of the government theatre. In 1893 he came to Moscow to teach harmony, instrumentation and free composition at the Conservatory, to the directorship of which he succeeded in 1906. But perhaps his greatest influence on Russian musical life was exerted by him in his position as director of the Moscow Private Opera, which he assumed in 1899, and which he helped to build up to its high artistic standard. His reputation in foreign lands rests chiefly on his string quartet, opus 13, and his orchestral suite, 'Caucasian Sketches,' opus 10. (A second Caucasian suite appeared in 1906 and has had much success.) The list of his works also includes notably a Sinfonietta and a piano quartet; three cantatas; Iberia, for orchestra; and the 'Armenian Rhapsody,' op. 48. In many of these works, as in his songs, he is frequently displaying his penchant for Oriental, Hebrew, and Caucasian music, which he has studied with a poet's love and appreciation. In his two operas, 'Ruth' and 'Assya,' these qualities are also apparent. The notable qualities of his music are its freedom from artificiality, its warmth of expression, and its consistent thoroughness of workmanship. But it is perhaps as an organizer and director that he has performed his chief service to Russian music.
One of the most promising of the younger conservative Russians is Reinhold Glière, who is now director of the Conservatory at Kieff and conductor of the Kieff Symphony concerts. He has in these positions been a dominant factor in the provincial, as opposed to the metropolitan, musical life of Russia, and has by his energy and progressiveness raised Kieff to a position in some ways rivalling the capital. He was born at Kieff on January 11, 1875, and was educated at Moscow, where he studied with Taneieff and Ippolitoff-Ivanoff. Though he was thus under conservative influences, he showed in his earliest compositions a feeling for the national musical sources which forbade critics to classify him as a cosmopolitan.
His first string quartet, in A (op. 2), showed national material treated with something of western softness, and his many small pieces for string or wind instruments often make use of folk-like melodies. It is in his piano pieces that he shows himself weakest, and these have contributed to an under-appreciation of him in his own as well as in foreign lands. Some of his works (especially the later ones) are thoroughly national in character. Thus his recently finished opera 'Awakened' is built entirely on folk-material, and comes with revolutionary directness straight from the heart of the people. His symphonic poem, 'The Sirens,' showed French influence, but was hardly a successful synthesis. His first symphony, in E flat, op. 8, revealed great promise, and his string quartets have drawn the attention of music-lovers in foreign lands.
Contemporary Russian Composers:
Alexander Glazounoff Reinhold Glière
Vladimir Rebikoff Sergei Rachmaninoff
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 certain cliché passages 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 Rimini is 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 are many 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 includes three 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, Narcisse and Le Pavilon d'Armide, but his overture to Rostand's Princesse 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 and a 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.