Russian Schools of Musical Thought
The two chief cities of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg and Moscow, have each had its representative school of musical thought, the one at first working almost entirely for the advancement of a purely national style, the other, with a more eclectic taste, favouring outside ideas and influences.
Tschaïkovsky was the leader at Moscow, having for his adherents Arensky, Rachmaninoff, and Siloti; while Rimsky-Korsakoff, Balakireff, Borodin, and others represented the more conservative St. Petersburg. But along with this external division of interests there always prevailed the utmost unanimity and a genuine feeling of brotherhood, and one result of this may be found in their working together, in a quite intimate way, in the composition of works like the String Quartett based on the notes B A F, which is the joint production of Rimsky-Korsakoff, Liadoff, Borodin, and Glazounoff.
Belaieff
The story runs[35] that in the year 1881, at St. Petersburg, a certain M. Belaieff, a wealthy and enthusiastic amateur, happened to be present at the rehearsal of the first Orchestral Symphony by Alexander Glazounoff, and was so much impressed by its fine qualities that he decided to remove what had hitherto been a difficulty and establish a music-publishing house, which should have for its object the issuing of Glazounoff’s works and those of other composers of this Russian school. He, indeed, proved himself a very Mæcenas, organising concerts in and out of Russia, and never tiring in his endeavours to gain a hearing for the composers whose cause he had thus so practically espoused.
No wonder, therefore, that they should desire to do him honour, and in this Quartett we find one such act of homage. As most musicians are quite well aware, the note B♭ is in Germany called B, and B♮ is called H; hence the possibility of writing, as has several times been done, a fugue whose subject is the name of the great composer Bach.
B A C H
String Quartett on Name Belaieff