The most distinctive feature of Russian art and literature is the power to reflect clearly, as in a glass, various phases of popular life. This has also been the aim of the Russian composers, with few exceptions. They cheerfully accepted the limitations imposed by the national vision, and have won appreciation abroad by the sheer force of genius manifested in their works. They resolutely sought the kingdom of the Ideal, and would have been greatly surprised to find such things as universal fame added to them. Borodin, for example, cherished no illusions as to winning the approval of Berlin or Paris for his work. Prince Igor, he said, with admirable philosophy, “is essentially an opera for the Russians. It would never bear transplantation.” For many years, however, it could not even be said to be “a work for the Russians” in the fullest sense, because it was not offered to the right public. Works like Prince Igor and Boris Godounov, which should have been mounted at a People’s Palace in St. Petersburg, for the enjoyment of a large and really popular audience, were laid aside for many years awaiting the patriotic enterprise of rich men like Mamantov, who occasionally gave a series of Russian operas at their own expense, or the generous impulse of artists such as Melnikov and Shaliapin, who were willing to risk the production of a national masterpiece on their benefit nights.
César Cui offers in most respects a complete contrast to the composer of Prince Igor. It is true that he shares with Borodin the lyrical, rather than the declamatory, tendency in operatic music, but whereas the latter is a follower of Glinka in his close adherence to the national style, we find in the music of César Cui a strong blend of foreign influences. As in Tchaikovsky’s dramatic works we discern from first to last some traces of his earliest love in music—the Italian opera—so in Cui’s compositions we never entirely lose sight of his French descent. Cui’s position as a composer must strike us as paradoxical. The first disciple to join Balakirev, and always a staunch supporter of the new Russian school, we might naturally expect to find some strong, progressive, and national tendency in his music. We might suppose that he would assume the virtue of nationality even if he had it not. But this is not the case. The French element, combined, curiously enough, with Schumann’s influence, is everywhere predominant. Nevertheless, Cui has been a distinct force in the evolution of modern Russian music, for to him is generally attributed the origin of that “second generation” of composers with whom inspiration ranks after the cult of form, and “the idea” becomes subordinate to elaborate treatment. This tendency is also represented by Glazounov in his early work, and still more strongly by Liadov and one or two composers for the pianoforte.
Cui was born at Vilna, in Poland, in 1835. His father had served in Napoleon’s army, and was left behind during the retreat from Moscow in 1812. He afterwards married a Lithuanian lady and settled down as teacher of French in the Vilna High School. Here Cui received his early education. He showed a precocious musical talent and, besides learning the pianoforte, picked up some theoretical knowledge from Moniuszko; but he never—as is sometimes stated—received regular instruction from the Polish composer. Except for what he owed in later life to Balakirev’s guidance, Cui is actually that rara avis, a self-taught composer.
From the time he entered the School of Military Engineering in 1850, until he passed out with honours in 1857, Cui had no time to devote to his favourite pursuit. On obtaining officer’s rank he was appointed sub-Professor of Fortification, and lecturer on the same subject at the Staff College and School of Artillery. Among his pupils he reckoned the present Emperor, Nicholas II. Cui has now risen to be a Lieut.-General of Engineers and President of the I. R. M. S. At first his military appointments barely sufficed to keep him, and when he married—early in life—he and his wife were obliged to add to their income by keeping a preparatory school for boys intended eventually for the School of Engineering. Here Cui taught all day, when not lecturing in the military schools; while his nights were largely devoted to the study of harmony, and afterwards to composition and musical criticism. Very few of the Russian composers, with their dual occupations to fulfil, have known the luxury of an eight hours’ day.
Cui first met Balakirev in 1856, and was introduced by him to Dargomijsky. His earliest operatic attempt, a work in one act entitled The Mandarin’s Son, was a very slight composition in the style of Auber. An opera composed about the same time (1858-1859) on Poushkin’s dramatic poem The Captive in the Caucasus was a much more ambitious effort. Many years later—in 1881—Cui considered this work worth remodelling, and he also interpolated a second act. The patch is rather obvious, but The Captive in the Caucasus is an interesting work to study, because it reveals very clearly the difference between Cui’s earlier and later styles. Cui’s reputation as an operatic composer actually began, however, with the performance of William Ratcliff, produced at the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, in February 1869, under the direction of Napravnik, on the occasion of Mme. Leonova’s benefit. A composer who is also a critic is certainly at a disadvantage in many respects. Cui, who contributed during the ’sixties a whole series of brilliant—and often mercilessly satirical—articles to the Russian press,[43] gave his adversaries an excellent opportunity to attack him for inconsistency when Ratcliff made its appearance. Cui’s literary precepts do undoubtedly move somewhat in advance of his practice as a composer, and Ratcliff conforms in very few respects to the creed of the new Russian school as formulated by him in his well-known articles “La Musique en Russie.” That is to say, instead of following the example of Dargomijsky in The Stone Guest, Cui to a great extent replaces free-recitative by arioso; while at the same time the absence of such broad and flowing melody as we find in the operas of Glinka, Borodin, and Tchaikovsky places William Ratcliff in a position midway between declamatory and lyric opera. Some of the hostile criticisms showered upon this work are not altogether unjust. The subject of Heine’s early tragedy, the outcome of his “Sturm und Drang” period, is undoubtedly crude and sensational; even in Plestcheiev’s fine translation it was hardly likely to be acceptable to a nation who was beginning to base its dramatic traditions on the realistic plays of Gogol and Ostrovsky, rather than upon the romanticism of Schiller’s “Robbers,” and kindred dramas. The music is lacking in realistic power and certainly makes no pretensions to fulfil Dargomijsky’s dictum that “the note must represent the word.” Although the action of William Ratcliff takes place across the border, neither the sentiment nor the colour of the music would satisfy a Scottish composer. But Cui’s critics show a lack of perception when they neglect to praise the grace and tenderness which characterise his heroine Mary, and the sincerity and warmth of emotion which occasionally kindles and glows into passion as in the love-duet between William and Mary in the last act.
The public verdict which began by echoing that of the critics, with the inimical Serov at their head, afterwards became more favourable, and William Ratcliff, when produced in 1900 by the Private Opera Company in Moscow, was received with considerable enthusiasm.
Tchaikovsky, writing of this opera in 1879, says: “It contains charming things, but unfortunately it suffers from a certain insipidity, and from over-elaboration in the development of the parts. It is obvious that the composer has spent a long time over each individual bar, and lovingly completed it in every detail, with the result that his musical outline has lost its freedom and every touch is too deliberate. By nature Cui is more drawn towards light and piquantly rhythmic French music; but the demands of ‘the invincible band,’ which he has joined, compel him to do violence to his natural gifts and to follow those paths of would-be original harmony which do not suit him. Cui is now forty-four years of age and has only composed two operas and two or three dozen songs. He was engaged for ten years upon his opera Ratcliff. It is evident that the work was composed piecemeal, hence the lack of any unity of style.” This criticism contains a germ of carefully observed truth. The score of William Ratcliff, which looks deceptively simple and seems to be packed with dance rhythms in the style of Auber (Leslie’s song in Act II. for instance might be a chansonette from “Fra Diavolo”), shows on closer examination rather a tiresome succession of harmonic surprise tricks, intended perhaps to draw attention from themes which have not in themselves an impressive dramatic quality. At the same time, only prejudice could ignore the true poetry and passion expressed in the love scenes between William and Mary.
William Ratcliff was followed by a series of admirable songs which indicated that Cui’s talent as a vocal composer was rapidly maturing. A new opera, in four acts, entitled Angelo,[44] was completed and performed in St. Petersburg in February 1876, under the direction of Napravnik, the occasion being the benefit of the great baritone Melnikov. The book of Angelo is based upon a play of Victor Hugo—a tale of passionate love; of rivalry between two beautiful and contrasting types of womanhood; of plotted revenge, and final atonement, when Tisbe saves the life of her rival at the expense of her own. The scene is laid in Padua during the middle of the sixteenth century. This work is generally regarded as the fruit of Cui’s maturity. The subject is more suited to his temperament than Heine’s “Ratcliff,” and lends itself to the frequent employment of a chorus. Here Cui has been very successful, especially in the lighter choruses written in Italian dance rhythms, such as the tarantella “The moon rides in the clear bright sky,” in the third act, and the graceful valse-like chorus “Far o’er the sea.” The love duet between Catarina and Rodolfo is preferred by many to the great love duet in Ratcliff. Cui, whose heroines are more convincing than his male types, has found congenial material in Catarina and Tisbe, who have been described as “Woman in Society and Woman outside it”; thus combining in two typical personalities “all women and all womanhood.” There is power, too, in the purely dramatic moments, as when Ascanio addresses the populace. The opera concludes with a fine elegiac chorus, in which the character of the period and locality—mediæval Italy, tragic and intense—is not unsuccessfully reflected.
In Angela Cui made a supreme effort to achieve breadth of style and to break through the limitations he had imposed upon himself by adopting the methods and peculiarities of such composers as Schumann and Chopin. But this effort seems to have been followed by a speedy reaction. After the appearance of Angelo his manner becomes more distinctly finical and artificial. His military duties and his literary work made increasing demands on his time, and the flow of inspiration dropped below its highest level. Songs and miniatures for pianoforte were now his chief preoccupation, and, greater undertakings being perhaps out of the question, he became absorbed in the cult of small and finished forms, and fell increasingly under the influence of Schumann. It was at this time that he wrote the additional act for The Captive in the Caucasus, to which reference has already been made. Here the contrast between the simplicity and sincerity of his first style, and the formal polish and “preciousness” of his middle period, is very pronounced. The use of local colour in The Captive in the Caucasus is not very convincing. Cui is no adept in the employment of Oriental themes, and the Caucasus has never been to him the source of romantic inspiration it has proved to so many other Russian poets and composers.
Another four-act opera The Saracen, the subject taken from a play by the elder Dumas entitled “Charles VII. chez ses grands Vasseaux,” was first performed at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1899, and revived by the Private Opera Company at Moscow in 1902. The subject is gloomy and highly dramatic, with sensational elements almost as lurid as anything in William Ratcliff. The interest of the opera fluctuates between the love of the King for Agnes Sorel—two figures which stand out in relief from the dark historical background of that period, when Jeanne d’Arc was fighting the battles of her weak and indolent sovereign—and the domestic affairs of the saturnine Count Saverny and his wife Bérangère; complicated by the inner drama which is carried on in the soul of the Saracen slave Jakoub, who is in love with the Countess, and finally murders her husband at her instigation. As usual, Cui is most successful in the purely lyrical numbers—the love scenes between the King and Agnes Sorel. Here the music, almost effeminately tender, has that touching and sensuous quality which caused a celebrated French critic to write of Cui as “the Bellini of the North.” The “berceuse,” sung, strangely enough, by the harsh Count de Saverny as he keeps watch over the King’s son on the threshold of his bed-chamber, is a strikingly original number which should be better known in the concert-room.