Glinka (1803-57) is usually regarded as the founder of the movement, but his chief works are operatic. He was a man of remarkable character, and did a great work for the welfare of music in Russia. His opera, Life for the Czar, marks an epoch in the national artistic life. Apart from his operas, however, he did not write a great deal, his chamber music being limited to a Septett, two String Quartetts, and a Trio for piano, clarinet, and oboe. Some of his orchestral pieces are remarkable. He took a deep interest in this kind of composition, and being a man of progressive mind he shook off the ordinary conventional methods; and his works show this in details such as quitting the routine which had previously made the first violins always play above the seconds, and these above the violas. He was also in the habit of calling the wind instruments “orchestral colour,” and the strings “orchestral motion.”
Russian orchestral music (notably Tschaïkovsky’s Pathetic Symphony, and other of his works) has, chiefly by the efforts of Mr. Henry J. Wood and the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, become familiar amongst us, and by the use of strong colour and highly emotional effects, such music has no doubt obtained much attention, but it is very doubtful if we yet know the best about this Russian school, for an examination of the chamber music of the composers named above, reveals a surprising number of works, written with true feeling and the highest technical skill. Some of these shall be referred to in detail, but it may be observed that many of these composers are manifestly influenced by, and have gathered up into classical form (as did Haydn, and, to name a modern instance, Grieg), the folk music of the common people. There seems to be an immense wealth of this kind of musical material to be found in Russia, often couched in quaint, irregular rhythms, but full of a weird charm, even though strange to Western ears. That such material should appeal strongly to the musicians of a race so powerfully affected by their emotions as are the Sclavs is what might be expected, and as the supply is said to be practically inexhaustible and often of considerable artistic beauty, the further developments in this direction will be watched with keen interest.
IPPOLITOFF-IVANOFF.
ARENSKY.
Quartett by Ippolitoff-Ivanoff
Our first example is a String Quartett in A minor, op. 13, by Ippolitoff-Ivanoff (Jurgenson, Moscow). It has been said that the Sclav temperament is one of “fiery exaltation on a basis of languid melancholy.” Ivanoff’s quartett, in a measure, illustrates this, for it opens with a sorrowful passage of much intensity, which, in its feeling (not the notes), reminds one of the Tristan Prelude of Wagner. The entry of the two violins on one note, and the poignant effect which immediately results as they separate a semitone, is a marked and original feature of the whole work, and may indeed be regarded as its “motto.” It reappears at the end of the first allegro, and again, in fuller form with fine effect, just before the coda of the finale. The commencement of Tschaïkovsky’s String Quartett in F, op. 22, has a certain kinship to this, but the treatment and the effect are quite different. The same may be said as to the beginning of his Quartett op. 30 in E♭ minor.
Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Op. 13.
