We have spoken several times of the absence of a true 'national school' of Russian composition in present times. But this statement must be amended. There is one school which represents in great purity the cult of the national and has achieved notable results in its work. This is the school of musicians who have undertaken to build up a pure ritual music for the Russian church. This group is purely national in character. It is the most intense contemporary expression of the 'Slavophile' ideal in recent times. The neo-Russian group of Balakireff was, it is true, only loosely connected with the Slavophile or nationalistic political movement of its time, but its relation to the 'Western' tendency of Tschaikowsky and Rubinstein is analogous with that of the novelist Dostoievsky to Turgenieff. The renaissance of Russian church music probably has a certain political significance, for church and state have been traditionally close to one another in the land of the czar. The Eastern church, like that of Rome, suffered from the musical sentimentalism of the nineteenth century and received a vast accretion of 'sacred' music which was flowery, thin, and utterly unsacred in spirit. And like the Roman church it made strenuous efforts to effect a reform, choosing as its basis the traditional ecclesiastical modes. These, in the Eastern church, are as rich and impressive as the Gregorian modes of Rome. The first definite step was the establishment, in 1889, of the Synodical School of Church Singing in Moscow, under the direction of C. V. Smolenski. It was only a preparatory step, for, under the advice of Tschaikowsky and Taneieff, it concentrated first upon the education of a number of singers thoroughly grounded in musical art and theory. In 1898 the school was enlarged and reformed, becoming a regular academy with a nine-year course and offering a thorough training in every branch of musical art, from sight reading up to composition. New methods of teaching, introduced in 1897, brought the choral work up to an unprecedented pitch of excellence, and a visit of the school choir to Vienna in 1899 left a profound impression upon the outside world. The school instituted, in addition to its regular theoretical studies, a course in the history of church music and its use in contrapuntal forms, and thus began the training of its own line of church composers, of whom the most able is to-day P. G. Chesnikoff. V. C. Orloff, who notably raised the standard of singing in the Metropolitan choir in St. Petersburg, is now director of the school, and with the help of the choral director, A. D. Kastalsky, has brought it to astonishing efficiency.
Kastalsky and Gretchaninoff have attained their eminence as composers chiefly through their work in the renaissance of church music. The former was born in 1856, received a regular preparatory school course, and studied music in the Moscow Conservatory. In 1887 he became teacher of piano at the Synodical school, and later of theory. He has composed much for the ritual, basing his work on the old church melodies and developing a style which is personal, yet in the highest degree religious and impressive. His position in Russian ecclesiastical music is now supreme. But in praising his work we should not forget to mention that of his predecessors, who did much to preserve a decent appropriateness for Russian church music in the dark days. Following the great Bortniansky came G. F. Lyvovsky (1830-1894), who was educated in the imperial choir and was later director of the Metropolitan choir in St. Petersburg. He was a man of much talent, and, feeling the approach of the new attitude toward sacred music, showed in his work the transition from the old to the new. Other notable church composers, both in the old and the new style, were A. A. Archangelsky (born 1846), Taneieff, Arensky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff.
But Gretchaninoff, though he has by no means given himself solely to the composition of sacred music, has brought the greatest genius to bear on it. He is no mere routineer and theorist. Some of his works for the ritual will stand as among the most perfect specimens of sacred music the world over. Combined with the greatest simplicity of method is an exhaustive technical knowledge and a poetical feeling for the noble and profound. It is he who has put into tones the supreme poetry of worship. The profound impressiveness of this new sacred music in performance is in part due to the traditional Eastern practice of singing the ritual unaccompanied. This a cappella tradition has disciplined a generation of choirs to an accuracy of intonation which is impossible where singers can depend upon the support of an organ. Further, there is the marvellous Russian bass voice, sometimes going as low as B-flat or A, which furnishes a 'pedal' support to the choir and makes an accompanying instrument quite superfluous. The newer church composers have not been slow in taking advantage of the striking musical opportunities offered by this peculiar Slavic voice. As a result of all these influences, the musical renaissance of the Eastern church has been far more successful than the parallel awakening in the Roman, and has produced a music and a tradition of church singing incomparable in the world to-day for nobility and purity.
Alexander Tikhonovich Gretchaninoff was born on October 13, 1864, in Moscow, studied piano in the Moscow conservatory and went in 1890 to St. Petersburg to enjoy the advantages of Rimsky-Korsakoff's teaching. He early gained a prize with a string quartet, and became known in foreign countries by his songs and chamber music. His style, outside of his church music, is not especially national. He is inclined to the lyrical, preferring Borodine to Moussorgsky, and throughout his secular work shows German influence. His symphony in G minor, op. 6, gained for him general recognition in Russia, and the symphony op. 27 justified the great hope felt for his talent. Gretchaninoff has been active in dramatic music. He has written incidental music to Ostrovsky's 'The Snow Maiden' and to two of the plays which go to form Alexander Tolstoy's trilogy on the times of Boris Godounoff. His two operas, Dobrinya Nikitich and 'Sister Beatrice,' are distinguished by great melodic impressiveness and in general by a lyrical style which derives from Rimsky-Korsakoff and Borodine. The latter opera, founded on Maeterlinck's play, met with disfavor at the hands of the Russian clergy, because of its representation of the Virgin on the stage, and was withdrawn after four performances.
A number of minor composers may also be grouped under the general head of nationalists. Most prominent of these is Nikolai Alexandrovich Sokoloff, who was born in St. Petersburg in 1859 and studied composition in the St. Petersburg Conservatory under Rimsky-Korsakoff. His chamber music comprises three quartets, a string quintet, and a serenade. For orchestra he has written incidental music to Shakespeare's 'A Winter's Tale' for performance at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg; a dramatic poem after Tolstoy's 'Don Juan'; a ballet, 'The Wild Swans'; and an elegy and serenade for strings. There are numerous small pieces for piano and violin, and choruses both for mixed voices and for men's voices alone. A. Amani (1875-1904) was also a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakoff and in his piano and chamber music took for his inspiration the poetry of the Orient and the melody of folk-song. F. Blumenfeld (born 1863) has distinguished himself as conductor at the Imperial Opera, St. Petersburg, and has written, besides the 'Allegro Concerto' for piano and orchestra and the symphony in C, many songs and smaller piano pieces which place him with the newer 'nationalists.' A. A. Iljinsky (born 1859) has composed an opera on Pushkin's 'Fountain of the Baktchisserai,' a symphonic scherzo, and an overture to Tolstoy's Tsar Feodor, besides much chamber and piano music. G. A. Kazachenko (born 1858) has written an opera, 'Prince Serebreny,' which was performed in St. Petersburg in 1892, and is now chorus-master at the Imperial Opera. A. Kopyloff (born 1854) has written much orchestral music, including a symphony in C major, a scherzo for orchestra, and a concert overture, also chamber music, including an effective quartet in G major, op. 15. N. V. Stcherbacheff (born 1853) is associated with the younger nationalists and has composed much for piano and voice, in addition to a serenade and two 'Idylls' for orchestra. Finally, B. Zolotareff has distinguished himself in chamber music and in song-writing, and has shown great ability in his Fête Villageoise, op. 24, his 'Hebrew Rhapsody,' op. 7, and his Symphony, op. 8.
III
We now come to a group of composers who have been little influenced by the Russian folk-song. They all trace their artistic paternity in one way or another to Tschaikowsky. They are men who have used their native talent in a scholarly and sincere way, and have attained to great popularity in their native land and even outside of it, but they seem likely not to retain this popularity long. (This judgment may, however, be premature in the case of Glière.) It is not, of course, their denial of nationalism which has placed them in the second class. But their loyalty to the past does not seem to be coupled with a sufficiently powerful creative faculty to make secure their hold upon the public.
Anton Stephanovich Arensky was one of the most popular composers in Russia. This reputation was gained in part by his piano pieces, which made rather too great an effort toward the superficially pleasing and have now almost passed out of sight. His ambitious operas, too, have failed to hold the stage, but his chamber music shows him at his best. He was the son of a physician and was born at Nijny-Novgorod on July 31, 1861. His early evinced musical talent was carefully nurtured in his home, and when he was still young he was sent to St. Petersburg to study under Zikke. Later he worked under Rimsky-Korsakoff at the Conservatory, and gained that institution's gold medal for composition. His first symphony and his piano concerto were both given public performance soon after his graduation in 1882, and Arensky was appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1888 he became conductor of the concerts of the Russian Choral Society in Moscow, and in 1895 moved to St. Petersburg to accept the position of director of the Imperial Chapel choir, to which he had been appointed on the recommendation of Balakireff. He died in 1906 and it was generally felt that the death had prevented the composition of what would have been his best works. Early in his career he gained the active sympathy and encouragement of Tschaikowsky, who influenced him strongly in a personal way. His talent was essentially conservative, and his scholarly cast of mind is shown in his published 'method,' which he illustrated with 1,000 musical examples, and in his book on musical forms.
His best works date from the Moscow period, since bad health decreased his creative vigor in his later years. Some of his smaller works may be placed beside the best of Tschaikowsky. Most popular outside of Russia have been the two string quartets, his trio in D minor, and his piano quintet in D major, op. 51. Of his two symphonies, the first, written in his boyhood, is quite the best. The piano fantasia on Russian themes, the violin concerto, and the cantata, 'The Fountain of Baktchissarai,' are among his best known works. His first opera, 'The Dream on the River Volga,' was written to a libretto which Tschaikowsky had abandoned and passed on to him 'with his blessing.' He aimed at dramatic force and truthfulness, but his talent was essentially lyrical, and he proved to be at his best in his clear and graceful ariosos. His later operas, 'Raphael' and 'Nal and Damayanti' (each in one act), show an advance in musical power, though the method still continues conservative. Arensky's ballet, 'A Night in Egypt,' was produced in 1899. His last work, composed on his deathbed, was the incidental music composed for the performance of 'The Tempest' at the Moscow Art Theatre. Some of these numbers are among the best things he ever wrote.
Sergei Ivanovich Taneieff is a conservative both in mind and in heart, and may be considered the only real pupil of Tschaikowsky. He was born of a rich and noble family in Vladimir on November 13, 1856, and at the age of ten entered the then newly opened Moscow Conservatory, where he studied the piano under Nicholas Rubinstein. Under Tschaikowsky he worked at theory and composition. In 1875 he graduated with highest honors and with a gold medal for his playing, which was characterized by purity and strength of touch, grace and ease of execution, maturity of intellect, self-control, and a calm objective style of interpretation. These qualities may well be considered typical of his compositions. After a long Russian tour with Auer, the violinist, Taneieff succeeded Tschaikowsky as professor of orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1885 he became director of the institution, but soon retired to devote himself wholly to composition. Though he is an admirable pianist, he seldom appears in public.