Rimsky-Korsakoff's works, in addition to the fifteen operas already mentioned, include three symphonies (one of them the Antar), a 'Sinfonietta on Russian Themes,' several symphonic poems, including the 'symphony' Scheherezade, the Sadko, and the 'Symphonic Tale' founded on the prologue to Pushkin's 'Russlan and Ludmilla'; several large orchestral works, including the famous 'Spanish Caprice,' the 'Fantasia on Serbian Themes,' and the 'Easter Overture'; a fine piano concerto and a violin fantasia; some church music, a limited amount of piano music and many songs.
Rimsky-Korsakoff's operas are the staple of the Russian opera houses. They are not works of such genius as those of Moussorgsky and Borodine, but, taken together, they reveal a creative genius of a high order. In general their style is lyric rather than declamatory, but in this respect Rimsky-Korsakoff applied a wide variety of means to his special problems. Some, like his first, 'The Maid of Pskoff,' follow loosely the principles laid down by Dargomijsky in 'The Stone Guest,' in which the libretto is regarded as a spoken text to be followed with great literalness by the music. Others, like Snegourotchka, are almost purely lyric in character. Yet another, 'Mozart and Salieri,' is written in the style of the eighteenth century. But in one way or another the national feeling is in all of them, and folk-tunes are introduced freely with more or less literalness. Though Rimsky-Korsakoff could occasionally reach heights of emotional intensity (as in the last scene of 'The Maid of Pskoff'), his genius is more properly lyrical and picturesque. The songs and pictures of Snegourotchka and Sadko, in which a huge variety of resource is brought to achieve vividness and brilliancy of effect, are the work of a rich imagination. The melody is supple and varied, the harmony extremely expressive and colorful, but neither is so original as with Moussorgsky. The orchestration, however, never fails to be masterful in the highest degree. This suits admirably the legendary and picturesque subjects which Rimsky-Korsakoff invariably chose. With only one or two exceptions, his operas have held the stage steadily in Russia, and two or three of them have become familiar, by frequent performances, to foreign audiences.
Among Rimsky-Korsakoff's other works the 'Spanish Caprice' and the Scheherezade symphony have become classics of the concert room. The former is a virtuoso piece in brilliantly colored orchestration. The other is one of the most successful musical stories ever told. In these pieces he is working in his own field, that of national or oriental color, made vivid by every device of the modern musician. When he is composing in the more 'absolute' or classical forms, as in the 'Belaieff Quartet,' or the piano concerto, his inspiration seems to wane. Mention should be made of the songs, which include some of the most perfect in Russian literature, though in many the slender melody is weighted down by the richness of the accompaniment. Finally, we should not forget Rimsky-Korsakoff's great service to Russian church music, which will be referred to later.
From this brief outline we can see how great was the variety of his activities. Very little that he did was undistinguished. When he was at his best, in the exploitation of the resources of the modern orchestra, in painting natural scenery, the sea or the woods, in narrating a story of fairies or heroes, he was in the very front rank of composers of the nineteenth century.
In comparison with Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff was a conservative. He inclined toward the sensuous and regular melody of Borodine, which was always somewhat Italian. His harmony was far from revolutionary. He can show us no pages like that wonderful page of Moussorgsky's, introducing the Kremlin scene in Boris Godounoff, where the light of the rising sun is painted striking the towers of the ancient churches—a page which has become historic in connection with modern French impressionism. On the whole, indeed, he seems rather timid about venturing off the beaten path. His harmonic heterodoxies, where they occur, are introduced discreetly, obtaining their effect rather by their appropriateness than by their originality. Nor was Rimsky-Korsakoff so instinctive a nationalist as either Balakireff or Moussorgsky. In a great quantity of his music we find nothing to mark it as Russian. But when we listen to the music of Rimsky-Korsakoff we feel that it is daring, novel, and exotic. The striking difference between this music seen and heard is due chiefly to the orchestration, which so glitters with strange colors that we forget how orthodox the musical writing generally is. By tone coloring the composer gives it qualities of pictorial suggestiveness and Oriental strangeness which is quite lacking in the piano score. Sometimes he even covers up musical poverty by his magnificent scoring; the 'Spanish Rhapsody,' for instance, is a work of little inherent originality, but is maintained on our concert programs because of its inexpressible brilliancy of orchestration. If, on the whole, we find Rimsky-Korsakoff's music thin, we must give due credit to the style which enabled the composer to write a great quantity of music with easy facility, while his taste kept him almost always above the level of banality.
IV
The fifth and last member of the nationalist group was César Cui, the least distinctive and least important of the five. He occupied a somewhat anomalous position in the movement. The son of a Frenchman, he became an enthusiastic nationalist, being the first of Balakireff's important converts. As a teacher in the Government Engineering School in St. Petersburg he had little time for active composition, but exerted great energy in defending the nationalist group in the press and in pamphlets. In all Russia, with the single exception of Vladimir Stassoff, there was no more vigorous and overbearing apologist of the Russian school of composition. Yet his own music is hardly tinged with Russian elements, being a compound of Schumann and of some of the most superficial of the French composers, notably Auber. Though he was undoubtedly a musician of considerable learning and much talent, he has left nothing of much creative vigor.
His father came to Russia with Napoleon's army, was wounded at Smolensk, and later became a teacher of French in a private school at Vilna, near Poland. Here, on January 18, 1835, César Antonovich Cui was born. He received fairly good instruction in piano and violin in his early years, and at the age of fifteen was sent to the School of Military Engineering at St. Petersburg. Here, in a seven years' course, he distinguished himself so that he was made sub-professor in the school, and later became a specialist in military fortifications. (The present czar was at one time his pupil.) All his life he gave distinguished service in this capacity, and during the war that is going on at this writing, though he is past eighty years of age, he is taking a prominent part in the military defense of Russia.
It was in 1856, when he was twenty-one years old, that he was introduced to Balakireff. He immediately became fired with the latter's enthusiasm for a Russian school of music. But his first works show no signs of it. Some early piano pieces are written entirely in the style of Schumann, and his first dramatic work, an operetta called 'The Mandarin's Son,' is a weak piece in the manner of Auber. His first important opera, 'The Prisoner of the Caucasus,' finished about this time though not performed until twenty years later, shows some originality and an attempt at local color. Early in the 'sixties Cui was at work on his opera 'William Ratcliff,' which established his reputation. It was performed in the year 1869 at the Imperial Theatre, St. Petersburg, and though coldly received at the time was revived with considerable success many years later in Moscow. But Cui's chief influence on the music of his time was exerted through his newspaper articles, which stoutly championed the 'Big Five.' In these he showed himself an able, but a somewhat dogmatic, commentator. He held his ground successfully until the music of the new school had ceased to depend on the written word for its prestige. His pamphlet, 'Music in Russia,' was the chief source of knowledge of Russian composers to the outside world for many years. Cui further helped the cause among foreign lands through the performances of his operas in Belgium and Paris. In fact, two of his later operas, 'The Filibusterer' and M'selle Fifi, were composed to French texts. The opera 'Angelo,' performed in 1876 and in some ways his strongest work, was also drawn from a French source—a play by Victor Hugo. When we have mentioned 'The Saracen,' founded upon a work of Dumas, and 'The Feast in Plague Time,' based on Pushkin, we have named all his works for the stage. In these the dramatic element is always subordinate to the lyrical. The harmony, though often meticulous, is rarely strong or original, and in general the style is thin and conventional. But Cui had a rich fund of melody, and in a few scenes, as in the love episodes in 'The Saracen,' he succeeded to a notable degree in the expression of emotion. But it is in Cui's songs and small pieces for violin and piano that he shows his talent most markedly. Here his French feeling for nicety of form and delicacy of effect revealed itself at its best. We feel that the pieces were written by some lesser Schumann, but we admire the taste and judgment displayed in their execution. Further, we must admire Cui's confining himself to his own style of music. His enthusiasm for and appreciation of the neo-Russian composers is unquestionable, and he might have produced much flamboyant nonsense in trying to make their style his own. As it is he has played an important part in the development of Russian music, and displayed abilities which are by no means to be overlooked.
Before leaving the Russian nationalists we should mention several composers of their generation who were not definitely allied with them or with their school, but still demand mention in any history of Russian music. Edward Franzovitch Napravnik was born August 12, 1839, in Bohemia, and moved to St. Petersburg in 1861. He had received his musical education in his native country and in Paris, where he studied organ and piano, and later taught. In St. Petersburg he took charge of Prince Youssipoff's private orchestra, and thereafter became intimately associated with the musical life of his adoptive country and worked indefatigably for its improvement and independence. In 1863 he was appointed organist to the Imperial theatres, and assistant to the conductor. At the time of the latter's illness in 1869 he was appointed conductor, and this post he held for nearly half a century. He found Russian operatic life under the complete dominance of the Italian influence and made every effort to shift the centre of gravity toward native work. His productions of Glinka's, Tschaikowsky's, and Rimsky-Korsakoff's operas were notable. He was always distinctly hospitable to native work, and the subsequent triumph of Russian musical expression was due in no small degree to his faith and energy. He further built up the opera orchestra in St. Petersburg until it became one of the best in all Europe, and restored to the opera house its old brilliancy of performance. He was also an able and frequent conductor of orchestral concerts in the capital. His compositions, though many and varied, show chiefly French and Wagnerian influence, and are not highly important. He has written four symphonies, among them one with a program taken from Lermontov; several symphonic poems, of which 'The Orient' is most important; three string quartets and a quintet, two piano trios, a piano quartet, a sonata for violin and piano, two suites for 'cello and piano, a piano concerto; fantasias on Russian themes for piano and violin, all with orchestral accompaniment; a suite for violin and numerous vocal and instrumental pieces in the smaller forms.