A coterie of accomplished and versatile musicians which yields to none for intrinsic charm, vitality, and poetic spontaneity is that of the so-called Neo-Russians, self-styled 'the Invincible Band.' Resenting Rubinstein's almost total surrender to Teutonic standards, and scorning Tschaikowsky as representing a pitiable compromise between Russian and German standpoints, they revolted against conventional technique with as great pertinacity as did Galileo, Peri, Caccini, and Monteverdi in the late sixteenth century. Their æsthetic foster-father, Balakireff, for a time dominated the studies and even supervised the composition of the members—Borodine, Cui, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff. Ultimately, each followed his own path, though not without a certain community of ideal. Aiming to continue the work of Glinka and Dargomijsky, both in opera and instrumental music, they wished to use folk-songs for themes and to utilize national legends or fairy stories. But they could not resist the alien form of the symphonic poem, and with it the orchestra of Liszt, and, while they opposed the Wagnerian dramatic forms, one at least, Rimsky-Korsakoff, could not withstand the palpable advantages of the Wagnerian orchestra. Their works combined the elements of western and oriental Russia, adhered largely to folk-song or elements of its style, and in the opera embodied folk-dances, semi-Pagan worship and ceremonial with striking nationalistic effect. Many of their orchestral pieces have taken place in the international repertory of orchestras; of the operas a smaller number have penetrated to European theatres. While the nationalistic operas of Rimsky-Korsakoff are little known beyond Russia, they show his talent in a broadly humanistic and epic standpoint, hardly hinted at in his orchestral works. Moussorgsky's Boris Godounoff, one of the finest operas since Wagner, claims attention from the fact that it attains dramatic vitality from a standpoint diametrically opposed to Wagner. The influence of Boris Godounoff is palpable as forming the subtle dramatic idiom of Pelléas et Mélisande.
Glazounoff, Taneieff, and Glière represent the cosmopolitan element among Russian composers of to-day. Of these Glazounoff is the most notable. His early symphonic poem, Stenka Razine, gave promise of an original and brilliant career, but instead he has become steadily more reactionary. Among his eight symphonies there is scarcely one that is preëminent from beginning to end. His ballets, Raymonda, 'The Seasons,' and 'Love's Ruses,' have been surpassed by younger men. His violin concerto is among his most able works. A master of technique and structure and a remarkably erudite figure, his lack of progressiveness has been against him. A younger composer, Tcherepnine, is known for his skillful ballets, 'Narcissus,' 'Pan and Echo,' and 'The Pavilion of Armida,' which incline, nevertheless, towards the conventional. Rachmaninoff is also of reactionary tendencies, although his piano concertos and his fine symphonic poem, 'The Isle of the Dead,' have shown his distinction.
The rise of the modern French school, largely owing to a patriotic reaction after the Franco-Prussian war and the liberal policies of the National Society, has brought about one of the most fertile movements in modern music. The transition from the operas of Gounod, Thomas, Bizet, and the early Massenet to those of Chabrier, Lalo, d'Indy, Bruneau, Charpentier, Debussy, Dukas, Ravel, and Fauré is remarkable for its concentrated progress in dramatic truthfulness. Similarly, beginning with the eclectic and facile Saint-Saëns, the more romantic and fearless Lalo, and the mystic Franck, through the audacious Chabrier and the suave and poetic Fauré, including the serious and devoted followers of Franck, d'Indy, Duparc, de Castillon, Chausson, and Lekeu, the versatile Dukas, to the epoch-making Debussy with the younger men like Ravel, Schmitt and Roussel, French instrumental music has developed, on the one hand, a fervently classic spirit despite its modernism and, on the other, an impressionistic exoticism which is without parallel in modern music. Aside from a vitally new harmonic idiom, which in Debussy reaches its greatest originality despite d'Indy, Fauré, and the later developments of Ravel, the attainment of racially distinct dramatic style in such works as Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Dukas' Ariane et Barbe-bleue, Ravel's L'Heure espagnole, and Fauré's Pénélope is one of the crowning achievements of this group. Furthermore, following the examples of the younger Russians, the ballets of Jeux and Khamma by Debussy, La Péri by Dukas, La Tragédie de Salomé by Florent Schmitt, Le Festin de l'Arraignée by Roussel, Orphée by Roger-Ducasse, and, most significant of all, Daphnis et Chloé by Maurice Ravel, have given a remarkable impetus to a genuine choreographic revival.
There has been no nationalistic development in England comparable to that in other countries, although there has been no lack of serious and sustained effort to be both modern and individual. The most important of British composers is undoubtedly Elgar, who has attained something like independence with his brilliant and well-made orchestral works, and more especially for his oratorio 'The Dream of Gerontius.' If Elgar only carried on further a systematized use of the leading motive as suggested by Liszt in his oratorios, it was done with a dramatic resource and eloquence which made the method his own. Bantock, gifted with an orchestral perception above the average, showing a natural aptitude for exoticism, achieved a successful fusion of eclectic elements with individuality in his three-part setting of the Rubaîyat of Omar Khayyám. Other choral works and orchestral pieces have met with a more uncertain reception. William Wallace has been conspicuous for his imaginative symphonic poems, and the insight of his essays on music. Frederick Delius, partly German, has maintained a personal and somewhat detached individuality in orchestral, choral and dramatic works of distinctive value. Josef Holbrooke has been mentioned already for his unusual mastery of orchestral technique, and his courageous and ambitious attempts in opera. Many younger composers are striving to be personal and independent, though involuntarily affected by one or another of existent currents in modern music. Of these Cyril Scott attempts a praiseworthy modernistic and impressionistic sentiment, in which he leans heavily on Debussy's harmonic innovations. Thus, while English composers have been active, they have fallen to the ready temptations of eclecticism, a growing force in music of to-day, and in consequence their art has not the same measure of nationalistic import as in Russia, France, and Germany.
III
In the meantime, as the musical world has moved forward in respect to structure from the symphony to the symphonic poem, followed by its logical sequence the tone-poem, in which the elements of various forms have been incorporated, so has there been progress and even revolution in the technical material of music itself. Dargomijsky was probably the pioneer in using the whole-tone scale, as may be seen in the third act of his opera 'The Stone Guest,' composed in 1869. Rimsky-Korsakoff elaborated on his foundation as early as 1880 in his opera Sniégourutchka. Moussorgsky showed unusually individual harmonic tendencies, as the first edition of Boris Godounoff before the revisions and alterations by Rimsky-Korsakoff clearly demonstrate. After casual experiments by Chabrier, d'Indy, and Fauré, Debussy founded an original harmonic system, in which modified modal harmony, a remarkable extension of whole-tone scale chords, the free use of ninths, elevenths and thirteenths are the chief ingredients. Dukas has imitated Debussy to some extent, Ravel owes much to him; both have developed independently, Ravel in particular has approached if not crossed the boundaries of poly-harmony. Scriabine, following the natural harmonic heritage of the Russians, has evolved an idiom of his own possessing considerable novelty but disfigured by monotony, in that it consists chiefly of transpositions of the thirteenth-chord with the alteration of various constituent intervals. What he might not have accomplished can only be conjectured, since his career has been terminated by his sudden death. Although Richard Strauss has greatly enlarged modern harmonic resource, his results must be regarded on the whole as a by-product of his contrapuntal virtuosity. In his treatise on harmony Schönberg refers to his 'discovery' of the whole-tone scale long after both Russians and French had used it, but it is noteworthy that Schönberg arrived at the conception of this scale and its chords with an absolute and unplagiaristic independence.
The most recent developments affecting the technical character of music are poly-harmony, or simultaneous use of chords in different keys, and free dissonant counterpoint. Striking instances of the former type of anarchic experiment may be found in the music of Igor Stravinsky, whose reputation has been made by the fantastic imagination and the dramatic sincerity of his ballets 'The Bird of Fire,' Petrouchka, 'The Ceremonial of Spring,' and 'The Nightingale.' In these he has mingled Russian and French elements, fusing them into a highly personal and extremely dissonant style, which in its pungent freedom and ingenious mosaic of tonalities is both highly diverting and poignantly expressive. Stravinsky is one of the most daring innovators of to-day, and both his dramatic vitality and the audacity of his musical conceptions mark him as a notable figure from whom much may be expected.
If Maurice Ravel, as shown in his ballet Daphnis et Chloé, was a pioneer in poly-harmony, Alfred Casella, of Italian parentage but of French education, has gone considerably further. Similar tendencies may be found in the music of Bartók, Kodály and other Hungarians.
It seemed formerly that Strauss had pushed the dissonant contrapuntal style as far as it could go, but his style is virtually conventional beside that of the later Schönberg. Schönberg has already passed through several evolutionary stages, but his mature idiom abjures tonality to an incredible extent, and he forces the procedures of free counterpoint to such audacious disregard of even unconventional euphony that few can compass his musical message. Time may prove, however, that tonality is a needless convention, and it is possible to declare that there is nothing illogical in his contrapuntal system. It lies in the extravagant extension of principles of dissonance which have already been accepted. It is indubitable that Schönberg succeeds in expressing moods previously unknown to musical literature, and it is conceivable that music may encompass unheard-of developments in this direction, just as poly-harmony has already proved extremely fruitful.
The developments of poly-harmony and dissonant contrapuntal style prophesy the near inadequacy of our present musical scale. Busoni and others have long since advocated a piano in which the sharps and flats should have separate keys. As music advanced from the modes to the major and minor keys, and finally to the chromatic scale, so the necessity for a new scale may constitute logically the next momentous problem in musical art.