The great body of Russian folk-songs is far nearer to the primitive than is the popular music of Italy, Scotland, and Germany. Many of the loveliest tunes are mere snatches of melody. The more highly organized tunes are frequently irregular and crude. The scales are usually distinctive, and the tonic is inclined to be very movable, if not entirely absent. The minor, of course, predominates, as in all primitive music. It is used with the utmost distinction, showing how utterly Russian life (except in the highest classes) has for centuries been isolated from the influence of Western Europe. The common impression, because of the predominance of this minor, is that Russian songs are all ‘sad’ or ‘moody.’ This is not just, for the minor, which is an expressive means with us, is nothing more than a convention in Russian folk-music. It is the material out of which the music is made. It can be manipulated to express almost any emotion which the singer can feel. Hence the notion that the range of Russian folk-songs is narrow is quite false. They have a remarkably wide range, from the deepest gloom, through the tenderest sentimentality, to the fiercest exhilaration of physical life. The irregularity of the melodies, too, is not necessarily a sign of crudeness, but often an instrument of the highest expressive potency.
The brief studies which will be made later in this volume into Russian art-song can have but little meaning, except in relation to the folk-songs which are the source of it. The irregularity of metre in Moussorgsky’s songs, the barbarity of some of Borodine’s and Rachmaninoff’s, are the direct outcome of these composers’ studies in folk-song. It is difficult to mention these songs by name, since few of the texts have been translated into English. Yet it would be a pity if the student were altogether debarred from a knowledge of this wonderful literature on that account. The standard collections of Russian folk-music are available, though somewhat difficult to obtain. And though the words are printed in fearsome Russian, the music is in an international language. And it is of course true that many of the Russian songs are to be found in general folk-song collections and may be discovered with a little searching. Those who read French will find in Mme. Lineva’s work, published in two languages by the Russian government, an admirable discourse on Slavic song, thoroughly scientific, yet clear and without great technicality. In this work the interested musical student will find one of the most fascinating subjects imaginable—the growth of independent polyphony and counterpoint spontaneously among the singers of the melodies, a thing unthinkable to those of us who have learned counterpoint from dry text books.
Bohemia and Poland, though Slavic in blood, are widely separated from Russia in their art. The latter has for many centuries been Roman Catholic in religion, and had attained a high degree of Western culture and refinement when Muscovy was still semi-barbarian. In fact the political rivalry between the eastern and western Slavs, intensified by the difference in religion, led the Poles to look to the west for their friends and their cultural models. Bohemia, too, as early as the thirteenth century, was peculiarly western in its ideals. It possessed the earliest real university, and nurtured the non-secular attitude toward learning which later came to such glorious fruit in France and Germany. Further, the Bohemians were the earliest Protestants and free-thinkers, and showed the most enlightened political aspirations in an age of darkness. So, in spite of blood and language, these two nations show in their art a dominant kinship with Germany.
One of the earliest Bohemian folk-songs, Sirotek (‘The Waif’), might almost be taken for a German chorale of the sixteenth century. Other popular songs, like Wsak nam tak (‘The Sweetheart’) and Dobromyslua husicka (‘The Happy Gosling’), are almost Tyrolese in their mellifluous facility. Still another fine song, Na tech Kolodejskejch (‘Vain Regrets’), might in parts be a German children’s song. Again the song, Pod tim nasim okeneckem (‘Under Our Cottage Window’), with its ‘snaps’ and sharp accents, suggest the melodies of Hungary. Thus Bohemia, in her folk-music, shows the influence of her neighbors on all sides, but scarcely a trace of the indigenous Slavic stock. Many of the songs show a high degree of formal perfection, and the sentiment, especially in the tenderer moods, is often deep and moving. Such a lyric as the lullaby, Hajej muj andilku, may rank with the best of any land in sheer beauty. If we look among the Bohemian songs for the nationalism that reveals itself in strange scales and irregular rhythm we shall find scarcely a trace of it. The metre and melodic line are always mature and polished. But with our inner ear we may detect, in the best songs, an endearing quality, a sweet lovableness, which speaks with a distinct and national voice.
The qualities of Polish national music have been made known most widely in the mazurkas of Chopin. These must not be taken as representing the real qualities of the Polish folk-song, but they offer an excellent point of departure. In some ways the songs of Poland show a racial relation with the Russian. The swift-moving energy, the recurring and pervading melancholy, find their parallels in the music of the eastern Slavs. But the scale is nearly always the familiar major, or a slightly modified minor. The western nations outgrew the uncertain tonality of the old modes much earlier than the east, and Poland, with her eyes always toward the west, doubtless adopted the technique of music as she found it. Thus such a song as the Krakowiak (an irresistible dance movement), though it recalls in some vague way the spirit of Little Russian music, lends itself perfectly to conventional German harmonization. Another song, Gdy wczystem polu (‘In Summer’), might have been thrown off in one of Chopin’s idle moments. What these songs have, above all other qualities, is grace. No nation, in its folk-music, has used rhythm with greater delicacy. They recall to us a Poland of the story-books, a land of dilettantism and social graces. More than any other folk-songs, except the French, they demand in their interpretation a subtle ear and a firm artistic control.
The United States of America has its own folk-music of a sort, a part of it quite indigenous. This part is the music of the North American Indians, which is more primitive than any other large body of folk-music in our possession. There are, also, the songs of the western cowboys, the ‘Spirituals’ and slave-songs of the southern negroes, and the songs of Stephen Foster, all of which are worthy to rank as folk-songs. All these examples of American music have been exhaustively treated in Volume IV (Chapter XI).
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Countess Martinengo-Cæsareseo.
[8] Cf. Vol. I, chap. VI.
[9] Heinrich Reimann: Ausländische Volkslieder.