Naturally Glinka's first attempts were ridiculed by contemporary salon critics and concert habitués, who looked at him as a 'moujik-maniac' and naïve dilettante. His attempt at something truly national in character was considered plebeian and undignified for a nobleman. But, encouraged by Shukovsky, the famous poet of that time and the tutor of the heir-apparent, later Czar Alexander II, Glinka published in 1833 the first volume of his songs and ballads, based purely on themes of folk-songs. As he was merely a functionary of the Ministry of Finance, without any systematic musical training and had no professional prestige, his work was ignored by the press, while society merely made fun of him and his songs. It was evident that he could not get any hearing in this way.
Shukovsky, whose apartment at the palace was a rendezvous of artists and reformers of that time, suggested to Glinka that he compose an opera out of the rich material in his unpublished ballads, songs, and instrumental sketches, and he on his part would take care that it should be produced on the imperial stage. Shukovsky even outlined a libretto on an historical subject similar to that used by Cavos and suggested to name it 'A Death for the Czar.' Baron Rosen, the poetic private secretary of the Czarevitch, wrote the libretto under the supervision of Shukovsky and Glinka named it 'A Life for the Czar.' This was the first distinctly national Russian opera that stands apart from the Italian and German style. Instead of effective airs and elaborate orchestration Glinka emphasized the use of choruses and spectacular scenic methods, which are more natural to Russian life than the former. When the opera was produced in 1837 for the first time in St. Petersburg the people went wild about it and the young composer was hailed as a great æsthetic reformer. The czar appointed him to act as a conductor of the court choir, the famous pridvornaya kapella. The phenomenal success embittered the professional musicians of Russia and they began to fight the composer with redoubled vigor.
Fortunately the czar, and especially Shukovsky, were on the side of Glinka, so that all the intrigues of his enemies failed. Meanwhile he had composed several songs and a large number of ballads and orchestral pieces, of which Kamarinskaya and the 'Spanish Overture' are the most known. Glinka's songs and instrumental pieces are full of melody and color, and they are still sung and played in Russia, but the best he has created are his two operas. In 1842 he finished his second opera, 'Russlan and Liudmilla,' which, though more poetic and melodious than 'A Life for the Czar', failed to arouse the enthusiasm which had greeted his first opera. The reason for that may have been that it was distinctly democratic and not historical, and historical pieces were a fad of that time.
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka was born in 1804, in the province of Smolensk, and his father, a wealthy nobleman, sent him at the age of thirteen to be educated in an aristocratic college in St. Petersburg. The young man was intended for the civil service of the government, but he loved music so passionately that he neglected his other studies and took lessons in piano and the theory of composition from various teachers of the capital until he was about to be expelled from the school. Graduated in 1824, he tried to get a position in the treasury department, but, failing in this, continued to study music till he secured it. Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert made a lasting impression upon his mind and he never ceased to worship them, though he never imitated them. Byron, Goethe, and Pushkin were the poets that inspired him most of all, and he used to say if he could be in his native music what those men had been in their native poetry he would die a happy man.
With all his lack of technical skill, Glinka remains the founder of the nationalistic school of music of his native land. In spite of his many shortcomings he is natural and superior to the opera composers of his time in Italy and Germany. As all Russians have inborn love of song and as that is expressed in manifold ways in their actual life more than in the life of any other nation, Glinka's main idea was to found the Russian opera on combined passages of realistic musical life, giving them a dramatic character. To emphasize this he made use of picturesque stage glitter and spectacular scenic effects. This betrays itself forcibly in the vivid colors that outline the semi-Oriental architecture of a cathedral, palace, public building or cottage, or in the picturesque costumes for marriage, for burial and for the various other social and official ceremonies characteristic of Russia.
In his private life Glinka was just as unfortunate as Tschaikowsky. The girl he had begun to love passionately married a man of more promising social career. He married a woman whom he did not love and they were divorced after some scandal and difficulty. Then the woman whom he had first loved and who was married to a prominent army officer changed her mind and eloped with Glinka. In order to avoid a public scandal the czar forced the composer to relinquish the woman of his choice. Glinka obeyed and fell into a mood of melancholy which undermined his health little by little until he died in Berlin in 1857. But, strange to say, the private life of Glinka did not affect his compositions, for there is nothing extremely melancholy or sentimentally sad in his music. An air of sentimental romanticism emanates from his numerous ballads, songs, and instrumental works. Like the rest of his contemporaries he is lyric, full of color and sentiment in his minor works. One and all are distinctly national.
Together with Glinka, Dargomijsky undertook to carry the idea of nationalism in music into practice, in spite of all the objections of contemporaries. They met frequently and became close friends. Their aspirations were the same, though Glinka was socially prominent by reason of his official position, and Dargomijsky was a mere clerk in the treasury department and composed chiefly for his own pleasure. It was much more difficult for him than for Glinka to obtain social recognition, though the majority of his works are far more national and artistic than Glinka's. His songs stand close to the heart of the moujik. 'Glinka is an artist of the nobility, I am of the peasants,' was the way Dargomijsky defined the difference between Glinka and himself.
Born on February 2, 1813, in the province of Tula, Alexander Sergeyevitch Dargomijsky was the son of a postal official, who lost his position and property in Moscow when Napoleon occupied that city. The boy grew up in great poverty and the only education he received was that given by his parents. At the age of twenty he made a trip to St. Petersburg and managed to get the position of clerk in the treasury department. Here he continued his studies in music, which had been near his heart since early childhood. After a few years of strenuous work he realized that it was more important for him to collect and study folk-music than to acquire the technique and theory of the art of music, and with this in view he undertook excursions to the villages during the summer vacation, collecting folk-songs, attending festivals and social ceremonies of the peasants. In this way he stored up a huge material and knowledge for his individual work. His first attempt was a series of songs and ballads. In 1842 Dargomijsky resigned his official position to devote his time exclusively to music. His first opera, 'Esmeralda,' had a great success in Moscow and gave him some prestige and courage to undertake the composition of his second opera, 'The Triumph of Bacchus,' which, however, was a failure.
Dargomijsky's masterpiece is and remains his opera Russalka ('The Nymph'), which is composed to a libretto based upon a poem of Pushkin. It takes a listener to the picturesque and romantic banks of the Dnieper River, where the heroine, Natasha, the daughter of a miller, is deserted by a princely lover. In despair she flings herself into the river and is at once surrounded by a throng of the russalkas—the nymphs, with whom Russian imagination has populated every brook, lake, and river. She herself becomes a nymph and eventually succeeds in enticing her false lover to her arms beneath the water.
Dargomijsky's last opera, 'The Marble Guest,' for the libretto of which he used the poetic drama of Pushkin, based on the legend of Don Juan, was produced only after his death in 1872. It differs from his previous operas by the predominance of recitative, concerted pieces being almost banished. Like Glinka, he was not over-prolific in his compositions. Besides the four operas he wrote only five or six orchestral pieces, some thirty songs and ballads and a few dances. Tschaikowsky complained bitterly that he was too lazy, although he admitted that Dargomijsky was greatly hampered by lack of systematic musical education.