Like Glinka, Dargomijsky was unhappy in his private life. The woman whom he loved so deeply was the wife of another man, and the one who loved him found no response on his part. He was relieved of his worries for daily bread after his Russalka made a success on the stage. His apartment was the real rendezvous of the group of young Russian nationalistic composers who surpassed him by far in their works, such as Borodine, Moussorgsky, Balakireff, César Cui, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and Seroff. Dargomijsky died in 1869.
III
At the same time that the Balakireff group of Russian nationalists began its work in St. Petersburg a romantic temple was founded by Rubinstein. Among the masters of Russian music he occupies an interesting place, being, as it were, a link between the lyric Oriental and the nationalistic Slav. In many ways he was a phenomenal figure. Though he laid the corner-stone of the modern Russian musical pedagogic system and was a dominant authority of his time, he never caught the true national spirit of Russia and by no means all his talented pupils became his followers. He died a man disappointed in his ideals and ambitions. 'All I care about after my death is that men shall remember me by this conservatory; let them say, this was Anton Rubinstein's work,' he said, pointing to the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg,[8] of which he had been not only the founder but the director for many years.
During all his influential life Rubinstein was bitterly opposed to the Russian nationalistic school of music, at the head of which stood Balakireff, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff. He referred to them as to dabblers and eccentric amateurs. Even toward his pupil, Tschaikowsky, he assumed a condescending attitude. His veneration of the classics was almost fanatical. In the genius of his contemporaries he had no faith. He truly believed that music ended with Chopin. Even Wagner and Liszt were small figures in his eyes. To the realistic style initiated by Berlioz and the music dramas of Wagner he was indifferent. His aspirations were for the highest type of pure music, but he lacked the ability to transform his own ideals into something real. Lyric romanticism was all he cared for. The slightest innovation in form, all attempts at realism in music, upset his æsthetic measuring scale. But, despite his deficiencies and faults, he deserves more credit from posterity than it seems willing to accede to him. Saint-Saëns has said: I have heard Rubinstein's music reproached for its structure, its large plan, its vast stretches, its carelessness in detail. The public taste to-day calls for complications without end, arabesques, and incessant modulations; but this is a fashion and nothing more. It seems to me that his fruitfulness, grand character and personality suffice to class Rubinstein among the greatest musicians of all times.'
The outspoken romanticism of Rubinstein's works is in a sense akin to the spirit of Byron's poems. There is a passionate sweetness in his melodies that one finds rarely in composers of his type. But in giving overmuch attention to objective form, he often missed subjective warmth, especially in his operas and his larger instrumental works. He achieved the greatest success in his songs of Oriental character, from which there breathes the spirit of a heavy tropic night. But in these his best moments he remains exotic and inexplicable to our Occidental ears.
Russian Romanticists:
Mikhail Glinka Alexander Dargomijsky
Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky Anton Rubinstein
Romantic as his music was the course of Rubinstein's life. He himself, according to Rimsky-Korsakoff, blamed the romantic incidents of his life for his shortcomings. 'I was spoiled by the flattery of high society, which I received during my first concert tour as a boy of thirteen,' Rubinstein told his brother composer. 'It made me conceited and fanatical. The misery that I endured later wasted the best creative years of my life, and the sudden success which followed my acquaintance with the Grand Duchess Helen [the sister of the Czar, who loved him] killed my aspirations for the higher work by making me unexpectedly the dictator of Russian musical education. If I had worked up step by step by my own efforts I would have reached the goal of my ambition.' At any rate the unusual career of Rubinstein explains the psychological side of his achievements and disappointments. Born in 1829 in the village of Vichvatinetz, in the Province of Podolia, in southwestern Russia, he began to study the piano at the age of eight in Moscow. His teacher, Alexander Villoing, at once realized that his pupil was a genius and for five years spent his best efforts upon him. When the boy was thirteen his teacher undertook a concert tour with him, first through Russia, later abroad. Rubinstein was a pianistic marvel and was received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm. Chopin and Liszt declared him a 'wonder child.' After three years of touring he settled in Paris, lived in princely style and spent all the money he had earned. Feeling the pinch of poverty, he went to Vienna to secure the influence of Liszt, who advised him to go to Berlin and gave him letters of introduction. There he found the city in a state of revolution and abandoned by society. In despair and almost starving, Rubinstein pushed on to St. Petersburg, where the once celebrated prodigy began to earn his living with piano lessons at fifty cents until by a mere chance he secured the position of pianist in the court choir. At this time he composed his first opera, Dimitry Donskoi, which was performed with some success.
Rubinstein now undertook another trip to Liszt, at Weimar, and there he met the Grand Duchess Helen, who at once invited the young pianist to be her guest in Italy. This was the beginning of his career. In 1856 Rubinstein composed some of his songs and piano pieces and soon after this the Imperial Conservatory of Music was founded in St. Petersburg and Moscow with the Grand Duchess as patroness. In 1862 Rubinstein became the director of the conservatory in St. Petersburg and held the position until 1867 and later from 1887 to 1891. In 1865 he married and made his residence at Peterhof, where he lived in close touch with Russian society. During this period of power and comfort Rubinstein composed his sonatas, symphonies, operas, and piano pieces, few of which are ever performed nowadays.