[39] My article on Moussorgsky in Grove’s “Dictionary of Music.”
[40] In the reign of Alexis the revision of the Bible carried out by the Patriarch Nicon (1655) resulted in a great schism in the Orthodox Church, a number of people clinging to the old version of the Scriptures in spite of the errors it contained. Thus was formed the sect of the Old Believers which still exists in Russia.
[41] Quoted from an article by me, “Moussorgsky’s Operas,” in the “Musical Times,” July 1st, 1913.
[42] Published by V. Yastrebtsiev in the Moscow weekly, “Musika.” No. 135, June 22 (O.S.), 1913.
[43] He was appointed musical critic of the St. Petersburg “Viedomosty” in 1864.
[44] Ponchielli has used the same subject for his opera “Gioconda”; while Mascagni, influenced possibly by the Russian realists, made a literal setting of Heine’s poem “William Ratcliff” in the style of The Stone Guest (“Guglielmo Ratcliff,” Milan 1895.)
[45] The opera was produced in St. Petersburg in February, 1911, the Emperor and Empress being present. It will be given shortly by the Zimin Opera Company, in Moscow. Published by Jurgenson, Moscow.
[46] It will be remembered that Zaremba was satirized in Moussorgsky’s humorous Scena “The Musician’s Peep-show” as that “denizen of cloudland” who used to deliver to his bewildered classes inspired dictums something in this style:
“Mark my words: the minor key
Is the source of man’s first downfall;
But the major still can give
Salvation to your erring souls.”
[47] This opera is now given abroad under the title of Ivan the Terrible, which brings home to foreigners some realisation of its period and of its gloomy central figure.