Chapter II: Part I: Career

I.

Modeste Petrovich Moussorgsky was born on March 16th (O.S.), 1839, at Karevo, a village situated in that district (Toropets) of the Pskof Government nearest to the Muscovite boundary. The household at that moment consisted of his father, Pyotr Alexeyevich, a small landowner; his mother, whose maiden name was Shirikof; a brother, Filaret; and the all-important nurse.

The child’s surroundings from the very first were such as to contribute most happily to the development of his particular form of genius. His father appears to have enjoyed music, although not displaying any executive ability; his mother was a very fair pianist. For her influence he was never tired of expressing his indebtedness in terms such as leave no room for doubt as to his filial affection. But it was to his nurse, as was the case with Pushkin, that he owed the very seeds of his art. “My nurse,” wrote the composer in after years, “made me intimately acquainted with Russian folk-lore.” Her stories of the terrible Kashchei, the fearful Baba Yaga, the heroic Ivan Tsarevich, and the inexhaustibly beautiful Tsarevna, played so vividly upon the child’s imagination as to keep him awake at night for hours together. As soon as he realized the functions of the piano, he set about making childish musical pictures of these personages. For the first ten years of his life he enjoyed a rural environment, and at an early age he displayed that affection for the land and its denizens that characterized his later outlook upon the world.

Naturally it fell to his mother to give him his first lessons in music. Seeing that the only region in which Moussorgsky ever reached technical excellence was in that of piano-playing, it may be supposed that her instruction was not wanting in method. But perceiving, no doubt, that his studies would be of greater value if carried on under the guidance of someone trained in the art of teaching, she lost no time, once the boy’s gift was evident, in engaging a governess--a German, whose qualifications were unexceptionable. In her hands little Modeste made quite rapid strides. At the age of seven he could already give a fair account of some light pieces of Liszt, and when only nine he astonished the guests at an evening party by his mastery over a concerto by John Field.

A few years later the two brothers were taken to Petrograd and placed in a school. Modeste was eventually to enter the army, but the parents, rejoicing at his evident gift for music, determined to do everything in their power to develop it. Necessary inquiries having been made, their choice fell upon Herke, a teacher with a considerable following, whom they engaged to direct the youngster’s studies. The master was able at once to endorse the opinion of Modeste’s parents, and undertook his training with great enthusiasm. The little fellow soon showed that his teacher’s confidence was not misplaced. He made such progress that after a year’s tuition he was allowed to take part in a small concert; he acquitted himself so well, and attracted so much attention, that his delighted master bestowed on him a copy of a Beethoven sonata as a mark of his esteem.

In 1852, Moussorgsky entered a private preparatory institution, from whence he passed into the school for Ensigns of the Guard. His first composition was an “Ensigns’ Polka,” which he dedicated to his comrades. Herke, with whom he was still taking lessons, insisted on publishing the piece. During the last two years of his course at the school, which ended in 1855, he was obliged to devote rather less attention to music; his military studies were taking up a good deal of his time. He went to Herke once a week, and was allowed also to attend when the daughter of the school director took her lessons.

Moussorgsky appears to have been a particularly diligent scholar. His biographers record that at this time, in addition to his military and musical studies, he displayed a decided liking for history and philosophy; he is said to have begun a translation of Lavater while still in the early ’teens, surely a remarkable taste in a youth. Hardly less odd, perhaps, was the desire to acquaint himself with the basic principles of the music of the Greek Church, for which purpose he studied privately with one of the school staff. A little later in life he had every reason to congratulate himself on having made these researches. Moussorgsky wrote no music which could be called, in the strict sense of the term, sacred, but in the two music-dramas, “Boris Godounof” and “Khovanshchina,” as well as in a satirical song, he has proved that the hours passed with the priest Kroupsky were well spent.

Already during his school-days he had made one or two musical friends; among them was Azanchevsky, who eventually became Director of the Petrograd Conservatoire; and on entering the Preobajensky regiment of Guards (in 1856), he found himself among quite a number of young amateurs of music. Sub-lieutenant Orfano had a weakness, for which his name seems to account, for Italian opera; Orlof’s taste ran in the direction of the military march; Demidof, afterwards a friend of Dargomijsky and class inspector at the Conservatoire, was a popular song-writer; while Prince Obolensky, the nature of whose proclivities is not defined, was deemed worthy to receive the dedication of a little piano piece written by Moussorgsky at this time.

It is clear that the young composer had no intention of limiting his efforts to the region of salon music, for not long after his entrance into the Preobajensky he began his first attempt at opera. Here, however, desire outran performance, and neither the libretto which he tried to adapt from Hugo’s “Han d’Islande,” nor its abortive musical setting, resulted in anything more tangible than the respectful admiration of his comrades.

It is likely that, had his musical environment not been enlarged, he might not have been encouraged to widen his outlook upon the art. Hitherto his social circle had consisted of young men who regarded music purely as a diversion, and the possession of a pleasant baritone voice and a marked talent for piano-playing was sufficient to secure a considerable popularity among them.

II.

Towards the early autumn of 1856, however, he fell in with someone whose aims were a little more elevated, someone serious enough to realize the futility of Moussorgsky’s musical life at that moment. This was A. P. Borodin, now known to the world as the composer of “Prince Igor,” but then a young man of some twenty-two years who divided his time between scientific research and the pursuit of music. Borodin has left us a pen-picture which describes in graphic fashion the young guardsman himself and the musical society he was then wont to affect.

“My first meeting with Moussorgsky took place in September or October, 1856. I had just been made an army surgeon. Moussorgsky was then seventeen years of age. We met in the hospital common-room. We were both rather bored by our duties and were glad of an opportunity for conversation. In a few moments we had discovered our common interest. That evening we had been invited to the quarters of the chief medical officer Popof. The latter had a marriageable daughter.... Moussorgsky was at this time a real dandy ... with the airs of a great personage.... He had a rather affected way of talking, and his conversation was interlarded with French expressions.... He would seat himself at the piano and play snatches of ‘Trovatore’ or ‘Traviata,’ to the delight of the assembled company of ladies.... I only saw Moussorgsky three or four times, and then lost sight of him....”

More important in its effect upon Moussorgsky’s musical development was his meeting, a month or so later, with Dargomijsky, to whom he was introduced by one of his comrades, Vanliarsky by name. The composer of “Russalka,” which had just been produced, took a great liking for the young officer, and under this influence the latter’s taste rapidly underwent a change. He began to feel a need for a more serious type of music and a more discriminating audience. As time went on he became conscious that beneath his superficial respect for the vanities of life and of art lay a desire to come to grips with their realities. There was thus a good deal in common between Dargomijsky and his young disciple.

Just about a year after the chance meeting described by Borodin, Moussorgsky became acquainted with two others, whose names are now invariably associated not only with his own and Borodin’s, but with that of Rimsky-Korsakof, who afterwards joined and completed the little côterie subsequently famous as the “Five.” These two, Mili Alexeyevich Balakiref and Cesar Antonovich Cui, were frequent visitors at Dargomijsky’s. In the previous year Balakiref had come to Petrograd to complete the musical studies he had until then been prosecuting under the guidance of Oulibishef, the biographer of Mozart. Oulibishef had given his young _protégé_ a letter to Glinka, and the composer of “A Life for the Tsar” had been mightily pleased to meet with one who was so obviously suited to conduct a propaganda on behalf of his cherished nationalistic ideal. Balakiref was not long in the capital before he met Cui. Both were young men under twenty, and their common dissatisfaction with the condition of musical taste in Petrograd served as a bond of friendship. Cui had known Dargomijsky for some little time, and was thus well versed in the principles of the Glinkist ideal. Balakiref and Cui resolved that the prevailing taste for all things foreign must be discouraged, and that, in music at any rate, a national style should be founded which should oust the German, French, and Italian traditions that had so long been objects of worship in Russia.

Moussorgsky’s association with Dargomijsky and his two disciples was the means of leading him to the study of a work of which, in one sense, “Boris Godounof” is to be considered the prototype. Glinka’s “A Life for the Tsar,” of which he appears hitherto to have known little or nothing, contains at least two of the elements that are characteristics of Moussorgsky’s music-drama. It has a purely Russian subject, and it glorifies the Russian people. Here, then, was a work which could hardly fail to inspire a man who had but lately turned away from the facile successes of the drawing-room.

Besides these, there are other components to be discovered in Moussorgsky’s operatic and vocal works which are to be traced, not to the influence of Glinka, but to that of Dargomijsky. Discussion of this influence must, however, be deferred; for the moment we are concerned only with drawing attention to the circumstances responsible for Moussorgsky’s remarkable emancipation. The young guardsman had found himself; he had seen, as it were, a reflection of his own latent creative powers and tendencies in the works of Glinka and Dargomijsky; the patriotism of the first and the sincerity of the second drove him to realize that this type of music must for the future monopolize his attention and interest. He would, in his own words, devote himself to “real” music.

III.

As up to this time Moussorgsky’s musical activities had been largely of a social kind, he felt that in order to take his place, as he desired, beside his new associates, he must render himself conversant with the form and structure of music; to this end he resolved to take lessons from Balakiref, whose knowledge was sufficiently wide to enable him to take the place of leader in the newly established côterie.[2]

Balakiref’s account of his method of instruction is a little astonishing. Master and pupil played through, in four-handed arrangements, the works of the classic masters, and those of such moderns as Schumann, Berlioz, and Liszt. “So well did I explain to him their musical form,” says a communication to Stassof, “that he was soon able to compose a symphonic Allegro which was not altogether wanting in merit.”

Balakiref was plainly cognizant that these lessons were not to be regarded as comprehensive. He avows that his own knowledge did not permit of anything more than the analysis of forms, that he was unable to undertake instruction in harmony; but he appears to have been satisfied that for Moussorgsky such knowledge was negligible. He was at all events sufficiently pleased with his pupil’s early essays in composition to recommend them for performance, with the result that one of two orchestral scherzos (that in B minor) was played in 1860 at a concert of the Russian Musical Society, under the conductorship of Anton Rubinstein. The choral setting of Sophocles’ “Œdipus,” also written at this time, was performed in the following year--Constantin Lyadof, the father of the famous composer, conducting.

With the development of his creative capacity, Moussorgsky began to conceive an aversion from his military duties, and his transference to a station at some little distance from Petrograd served to increase his desire to be freed from them. Arguing to himself that absence from the capital would involve a cessation of his musical activities, he resolved to send in his papers.

Stassof’s reminder that the great Lermontof had contrived to reconcile the two occupations of poet and soldier met with the laconic reply: “Lermontof and I are two different people.” He had also to argue with his other friends. Despite all remonstrance, he carried his determination into effect and, forsaking Mars, devoted himself henceforth to St. Cecilia.

The cause of Moussorgsky’s subsequent physical degeneration is now known to have been intemperance, but there can be little doubt that his nervous system was far from normal. More than once in the chronicle of his short life one finds a record of nervous breakdown. The first of these occurred shortly after the severance of his connection with the army, and in consequence he was obliged to betake himself from Petrograd for a time. The medicinal waters at Tikhvin, the birthplace of Rimsky-Korsakof, brought about an improvement in his health which enabled him to resume his activities as a composer. During the summer he wrote a “Children’s Scherzo” and an “Impromptu Passionné,” both for piano; the latter, which is said to have been inspired by a perusal of a then popular “problem” novel, was not published until after his death.

The change in Moussorgsky has been referred to as a physical degeneration; it should be understood that the later intellectual decay did not manifest itself during the period now under review. On the contrary, he has left indisputable evidence of a spiritual awakening which seems to have begun soon after his resignation from the army. In a letter to Cui, written from his mother’s house at Toropets, he records his exasperation at the behaviour of the reactionaries who had set themselves energetically to oppose the emancipation of serfs, which had just then been effected. The composer of the “Ensigns’ Polka” was becoming aware that the real greatness of Russia lay in the temper of its people. The triumphs of the smart guardsman were forgotten; he had now an altogether different social ideal.

Borodin, who again met Moussorgsky in the autumn of 1859, was apparently struck rather by the physical than the mental change, although the former tells us that the latter’s views on music had undergone a remarkable transformation. “He looked much older, had grown stouter, and had lost his military bearing. As might be supposed, we talked a good deal about music. I was at that time a devotee of Mendelssohn; of Schumann I knew nothing.... Ivanovsky (assistant professor at the Medical Academy), seeing that we had a common ground of sympathy, asked us to play a four-handed arrangement of Mendelssohn’s A minor symphony. Moussorgsky demurred at first, but consented on condition that the Andante, which he submitted was not symphonic and savoured of the ‘Songs without words,’ should be omitted.... Later Moussorgsky spoke enthusiastically of Schumann’s symphonies.... He began to play excerpts from the one in E flat. Arrived at the development section, he stopped for a moment, saying: ‘Now for the musical mathematics!’”

Further light upon Moussorgsky’s changing outlook on life is shed by his choice of a mode of living on his return from Toropets to Petrograd. He now joined a party of young progressives, whose views on the prevailing topic are revealed in the name given to their côterie, “La Commune.”

Some half-dozen of them shared a flat, each having a private room; their evenings were spent in a common-room, in which took place lively discussions on music, art, and sociological matters. This arrangement was of a kind very popular at that time among students, single officers, and State employees. Their “gospel” was Chernishevsky’s socialistic volume, “Shto dyelat?” (What is to be done?), in which the problems of the newly freed peasantry had been dealt with.

In this circle Moussorgsky was the only member not employed by the State. But after a time he discovered that to live by music alone was impossible, and he began to undertake translation work. This occupation, while solving the one problem, raised another. His health began once more to give way. His brother Filaret tried to induce him to give up the “Commune.” Moussorgsky at first refused, but when a little later his constitution gave signs of a breakup, he gave way, left Petrograd, and established himself at Minkino. This sojourn in the country, which lasted until 1868, was altogether beneficial to his health.

IV.

Although Moussorgsky was worried both by a decline in health and by money matters, the period spent with the “Commune” was not entirely unfruitful. Considering, indeed, the ultimate fate of the composition which represents that period, it may be regarded as singularly important.

One of the literary topics discussed by the little côterie had been a newly issued Russian version of Flaubert’s “Salammbô.”

Moussorgsky’s work as a whole shows far less of a predilection for Orientalism than that of his colleagues of the “Five.” Yet this subject appealed to him sufficiently to suggest itself as the plot of an opera, and having contrived to adapt the original for its dramatic purpose, entered upon his first serious operatic undertaking. On his departure from Petrograd he put this on one side. It was never resumed, but various fragments of the three completed scenes were afterwards drawn upon, and are now to be heard in the mature works with which the world is familiar. Thus “Salammbô,” although itself an abortive work, may be considered as foreshadowing the composer’s maturity. The songs composed contemporaneously, “Night” and “Kallistrate,” are also to be classed with his later vocal works in point of quality and style.

In the meantime Moussorgsky had fallen more and more under the influence of Dargomijsky. The latter’s epoch-making opera “The Stone Guest” was attracting the attention of the Circle as a whole, and performances of the completed portions were a prominent feature of the gatherings which now took place at Dargomijsky’s house. Moussorgsky’s share in the proceedings was the doubling of the parts of Leporello and Don Carlos, but his attention to the work did not end with this; he had arrived at a complete agreement with its composer as to the method of operatic construction employed therein.

“When Moussorgsky left St. Petersburg for the country in 1866,” says M. Olenin d’Alheim, “his friends in parting with him expressed the hope that he would return with an opera. No sooner had he settled down to country life than he hastened to comply.”[3]

Of the Circle two other members had begun to write operas, of which the method of construction was to be in conformity with that of “The Stone Guest.” Balakiref had taken the subject of “The Golden Bird,” in a version resembling Grimm’s story, whilst Borodin was occupied with a setting of Mey’s “The Tsar’s Bride,” a dramatized record of an episode in the life of Ivan the Terrible. Both these attempts were abandoned. Balakiref discovered that he had no gift for Opera, and Borodin soon realized that his vocation lay in following Glinka rather than Dargomijsky. Lyricism and not dramatic realism was the medium natural to him. As to Cui, he was not precisely disenchanted with the Dargomijskian method; it may be said that he persevered with the decreed principles, but in putting them into practice he was but partially successful.

Moussorgsky’s choice of a libretto fell on Gogol’s well-known play “The Matchmaker.” The task of providing this with a musical setting would hardly have attracted anyone who had not been in complete sympathy with the propaganda on foot in the Circle. Viewed even as a demonstration of the principle that “the word must be reflected in the sound,” which was Dargomijsky’s watchword, Gogol’s “utterly incredible comedy” might well have been considered as presenting certain insuperable difficulties. “The Matchmaker” is throughout in colloquial prose; no one who had been brought up to respect the settled traditions of Opera could for one moment have dreamed of such a libretto. With Moussorgsky it was different. He knew “The Stone Guest”; it never occurred to him to regard it as a “recitative in three acts” (it was thus described on its first performance by a cynical critic); he saw in it an attempt to give dignity to the name of Opera, and as this had become his own particular desire he resolved to make a similar attempt.

When Moussorgsky returned for a short time to Petrograd, he did not bring an opera with him. But, far from showing any disappointment, his friends displayed the greatest interest in the plan of the projected work. On leaving the capital once again he addressed himself immediately to the composition of the music for “The Matchmaker.” Writing on July 3rd, 1868, to Cui, from the village of Chilof, he reports progress: “... No sooner had I got away from St. Petersburg than I finished the first scene.... The first act is divided into three scenes.... I am trying to work out the various inflections of intonation which will be heard from the performers in the course of the dialogue, and this, moreover, is to be observed in the minutest particular. In this, in my opinion, is to be found the secret of the greatness of Gogol’s humour....” To this letter Moussorgsky adds a postscript, dated July 10th: “I have finished the first act.... There will be four instead of three scenes: it had to be.” The composer’s enthusiasm for the subject is shown in a further communication to his friend, written a month or so later: “What a subtle imagination Gogol has! He has studied the peasant class and has discovered some most captivating types among them.... His old women are priceless.”

In addition to his actual creative work Moussorgsky had for some time been striving to improve his very deficient technique. “In Balakiref’s community,” writes Rimsky-Korsakof in his Memoirs, “it was the custom to regard such studies as those of harmony and counterpoint as negligible....” If Moussorgsky at that time (1866-67) was capable of “making a virtue of his ignorance,” it is certain that he very soon realized the futility of so doing, even if he did not reveal his altered attitude to his friends.

It is unfortunately impossible to determine his progress. “The Destruction of Sennacherib” (after Byron’s poem), a work for chorus and orchestra, is supposed to have been an “exercise” prompted by the consciousness of an improvement in the art of instrumentation, but this, like the “Night on the Bare Mountain,” composed in 1867, has been published in the later version, in which the instrumentation is that of Rimsky-Korsakof; the version of the latter now used is so different from the symphonic tableau of 1867 that it throws no more light upon the composer’s technical capabilities at the date at which it was written than does the choral work.

Some interesting specimens of vocal writing are also to be associated with this period. Among them are the popular “Gopak” (to a text by the Ukrainian Shevchenko); “The Seminarist,” a song in the satirical vein, which portrays a theological student “whose efforts to grapple with some Latin substantives are sadly disturbed by the intruding mental vision of his teacher’s fair daughter”;[4] “The Orphan,” a wonderful example of the musical reflection of the spoken accent; and “Yeremoushka’s Cradle Song.”

Such specimens as “The Seminarist” and “The Orphan” are obviously by-products of “The Matchmaker” period. In the one we are able to recognize the spiritual affinity between Moussorgsky and Gogol; in the other we may observe the realization of the Dargomijskian ideal in a small form.

The period above referred to was destined to reach an abrupt termination. “The Matchmaker” was never finished. On the resumption of the meetings of the Circle in the autumn of 1868, the first act was given a drawing-room performance at Dargomijsky’s house, the parts being played by the composer, Dargomijsky, Velyaminof--an amateur vocalist--and the two sisters Pourgold--Alexandra in the title-rôle, and Nadejda, who afterwards married Rimsky-Korsakof, at the piano. The last-named composer records in his Memoirs that the fragment made a profound impression, especially upon Stassof, to whom the work was afterwards dedicated. The composer of “The Stone Guest,” we are told, considered that Moussorgsky had a little over-reached himself, in what respect does not transpire; one imagines that exception was taken to the meticulousness with which in “The Matchmaker” Moussorgsky sought a co-ordination of text and music.

The cause of Moussorgsky’s sudden resolve to abandon his “_opera dialogué_” was that the subject of “Boris Godounof” had been suggested to him. In that section of the musical world in which this great national music-drama is well known, there must surely be something approaching unanimity of opinion that of the two the latter work could less be spared. “Boris” is of course a much more genial score. And without approaching at all closely the conventional opera, it is at all events more in conformity with that type than the quite revolutionary “Matchmaker.” But if, as one hopes may be, the reform of Opera is ever carried to the same lengths as have already been reached in the domain of the drama pure and simple, Moussorgsky’s fragment must then be estimated at a higher value. It is a work that makes no concessions whatever. It is a musical comedy in which the effect of the humour of the original is heightened by its musical setting. “The Matchmaker” demonstrates that music may be married to drama without danger of its becoming a mere handmaiden of the other art. Moussorgsky has been himself a matchmaker; the marriage he brought about must surely have received the sanction of St. Cecilia; it is a great misfortune that the union should have been shortlived.

V.

On Moussorgsky’s return to urban life he sought the hospitable shelter offered by some friends of his mother, Opochinin by name. Here he continued to live for two years, during half of which period he held a post in the Department of Woods and Forests. The composer has left tributes to the kindness shown him by these friends in the shape of various dedications. The unfinished song entitled “Death--an Epitaph” is inscribed “To N.P.O...chi...n,” and is said to have been inspired by his grief at the lady’s death. It was under the Opochinins’ roof that much of “Boris Godounof” was written. Its subject was suggested to the composer by Vladimir Vassilievich Nikolsky, a professor at the University of Petrograd, whom Moussorgsky had met at the house of Mme Shestakof, Glinka’s sister. For the libretto he went to the famous work of Pushkin, interpolating certain interesting historical episodes from Karamzin’s chronicles of the period. This initial version was subsequently modified to no small extent, not without some reluctance, however, on Moussorgsky’s part.

Aware that a successful treatment of the subject would entitle him to wear the mantle of no less a man than Glinka, he threw himself into his work with immense enthusiasm, and “Boris” progressed with wonderful rapidity. Begun on September 6th, 1868, it was completed within a year. Its first act was finished in a little over two months, and won the warm approval of Dargomijsky, who, despite his failing health, still took part in the meetings of the Circle. There was, however, a complete unanimity of opinion as to certain defects in the general plan of “Boris,” one of them being an absence of feminine interest. To this the composer demurred.

But when in the autumn of 1870 he submitted the work to the operatic authorities, he was forced to see that even if the criticism was uncalled for, the hiatus complained of would militate against his chances of seeing the opera accepted.

The Imperial Operatic Committee consisted of Napravnik, Manjean, and Betz, the respective conductors of Russian, French, and German Opera, and Ferrero, a double-bass player who was apparently watching over the interests of Italian music. The novelty of the composer’s music was not viewed with the sympathy it commanded in his own immediate circle, and the absence of a prominent female character was pronounced by the Committee to be a vital defect. There were some other quite frivolous objections, among them the point raised by Ferrero, who took exception to certain “impossible” passages for his own instrument. Moussorgsky was of course deeply offended, but he seems to have realized that his scenario left much to be desired. At any rate he set about making some radical alterations. He inserted the Polish Act, which brought in a love interest; and the scene in the Kromy forest, hitherto the penultimate, was now placed at the end of the opera. The episodes of the striking clock and the parakeet, which occur in the second act (the Tsar’s apartments), were also added.

The whole of the year 1871 was devoted to the reconstruction of “Boris.” Moussorgsky was guided in this labour by several of his friends, Stassof the critic, Hartmann the architect, whose name he has immortalized in “The Picture-Show,” Nikolsky, and Rimsky-Korsakof, with whom he had now begun to share rooms.

One imagines the latter to be right in supposing this to be the single instance of two composers thus joining forces. He gives us an assurance that each of the pair was able to carry on his work (Moussorgsky was occupied with the revision of “Boris,” and Rimsky-Korsakof was composing his first opera, “The Maid of Pskof”) without any sort of clash. The latter spent two mornings a week at the Conservatoire (he was already a professor in that institution); the former left the house at about noon to attend to his official duties at the Ministry of Woods and Forests, and often dined at the Opochinins’. “Nothing,” records Rimsky-Korsakof, “could have turned out better.... In that autumn and the following winter there was a constant exchange of ideas and plans.”

This arrangement became really opportune when Gedeonof approached the Circle with his historic proposal. The then Director of the Imperial Opera brought forward his “Mlada” project, soliciting the co-operation of Borodin, Cui, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakof. The scheme of “Mlada” was to be a combination of ballet, opera, and fairy-tale, on a subject taken from the chronicles of the Polabian Slavs. The ballet dances were entrusted to Minkus, and the rest of the music to the four composers named. The second and third sections of “Mlada” fell to Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakof; and as the pagan deity Chernobog figured prominently in the libretto, the former proposed to make use of the unpublished “Night on the Bare Mountain,” in the programme of which the Black god is a protagonist.

For reasons not unconnected with finance, Gedeonof was obliged to renounce his ambitious project, and the four composers were left with their musical material on their hands. Long afterwards, when editing Borodin’s compositions, Rimsky-Korsakof, at the suggestion of Lyadof, went to this subject for the literary foundation of his opera-ballet “Mlada.”

VI.

Moussorgsky returned at once to his work on “Boris.” While yet thus occupied Stassof, whose judgment had so often been sought in the choice of a libretto (it is supposed that he had been consulted in the matter of “Mlada”), recommended to Moussorgsky the subject of “Khovanshchina.” In Stassof’s opinion “the antagonism between the old Russia and the new, and the triumph of the latter, would provide excellent material.... Moussorgsky,” continues the critic, “was of the same mind.... He set to work with ardour. To study the history of the Raskolniks (Old Believers) and the chronicles of seventeenth-century Russia involved immense labour. The many long letters he wrote me at this time were full of information as to his researches and his views in regard to the music, characters, and scenes of the opera. The best sections were written between 1872 and 1875.”

It so happened that, during the earliest days of his occupation with this subject, it was proposed to stage a fragment of “Boris Godounof” at the Maryinsky Theatre on the occasion of a “benefit” given to the _régisseur_ Kondratief. The portions chosen were the Inn scene--the famous Petrof undertaking the rôle of Varlaam--and the scene at the fountain, from the Polish Act. The performance, which took place in February, 1873, was so successful that it was decided to stage the whole opera forthwith. From Rimsky-Korsakof one learns that, at a supper held after this preliminary performance, the composer and his opera were toasted in champagne.

The circumstance of this somewhat belated acceptance of “Boris Godounof” called forth the caustic communication (in a birthday letter) addressed to Stassof on January 2nd, 1873: “... When we are crucified by the musical Pharisees, then shall we have begun to make progress.... It is highly gratifying to think that whilst they are reproaching us for ‘Boris’ we are absorbed in ‘Khovanshchina.’ Our gaze is fixed upon the future, and we are not to be deterred by criticism. They will accuse us of having violated all the divine and human canons. We shall just say ‘Yes,’ adding to ourselves that there will be ere long many such violations. ‘You will soon be forgotten,’ they will croak, ‘for ever and aye,’ and our answer will be: ‘_Non, non, et non, Madame._’” In a postscript he explains to Stassof that the final French denial is a quotation from a certain Princess Volkonsky.

The first complete representation of “Boris Godounof” took place on January 24th, 1874, at the Maryinsky Theatre. With the result of this performance Moussorgsky and his friends had every reason to be satisfied. “We were all triumphant,” says Rimsky-Korsakof. The reception of the work by the public was in no respect lacking in warmth. Bands of enthusiasts left the theatre singing passages from the familiar folk-tunes it contains. “Four wreaths, appropriately inscribed, were brought to the theatre on one of the evenings, but through the machinations of an infuriated opposition, their presentation, intended to take place during the performance, was obstructed, and they had to be sent to Moussorgsky’s private dwelling.”[5]

The “infuriated opposition” appears to have been organized by the reactionary critics. These accused the composer of “technical ignorance, vulgarity, want of taste....” It would appear that the critical faction wielded a power so great as to defeat popular enthusiasm. After running for twenty performances, “Boris Godounof” disappeared from the placards of the Imperial Opera, and was kept quite in the background for many years.

VII.

The period in which the preparation of “Boris Godounof” bulks so largely is also notable for some other important compositions.

The first among these is the satirical song known as “The Classicist.” The arrogance of “The Invincible Band” as a whole, and particularly that displayed by Cui in his criticisms, was a constant source of vexation to the orthodox party. Balakiref, as conductor of the Russian Musical Society’s concerts, came in for a good share of the opprobrium heaped upon the Circle; and the constitution of a programme, given in 1869, in which the compositions of the “New Russian School” figured somewhat prominently, was warmly criticized by such writers as Serof, Theophilus Tolstoi, and Famintsin, on the score of its neglect of the classics. The chief object of the attack was Borodin’s E flat major symphony, the leading assailant being Famintsin. A short time after this, Rimsky-Korsakof’s symphonic tableau “Sadko” was performed. Its theme had been suggested by Moussorgsky, who at one time had intended making use of it himself, and his ire was thoroughly aroused when Famintsin greeted the work with a particularly spiteful article. It needed no more than a mere suggestion from Stassof to provoke the composition of “The Classicist,” a satire on the reactionary critic with a special allusion to the disapproval of certain manifestations of modernism in “Sadko,” from which work “The Classicist” contains a quotation.

A few months later Moussorgsky applied himself to a general castigation of the opposing party by means of the thongs of satire. “In ‘The Peepshow’ he did not confine himself as before to the lampooning of one critic, but committed himself to a characteristic reproduction of the particular musical foible of each.... It invites inspection of a series of puppets in a showman’s booth.”[6] Zaremba, director of the Conservatoire, the pietist for whom the minor mode signified original sin, the major, redemption; Theophilus Tolstoi, an unqualified critic whose ignorance and whose admiration of Patti have been suitably dealt with by Cui in a “fable” which is really a masterpiece of satire; Famintsin, whose appearance is accompanied by a reference to some law proceedings instituted against Stassof; and lastly Serof the Wagnerian, referred to by means of a quotation from his “Rogneda”--these were the subjects of Moussorgsky’s musical caricature. When a further attack was suggested--Stassof proposed a song to be called “The Crab”--Moussorgsky must surely have considered that this would be tantamount to thrashing a dead horse; at any rate he did not act upon the hint.

Another work belonging to this period, one which possesses a far greater significance as a work of art, is the set of seven songs called “The Nursery.” The first of these, “Nurse, Tell Me a Tale,” is dedicated to Dargomijsky, whose encouragement is responsible for the subsequent completion of the series. In “The Nursery” is to be found the most remarkable of the composer’s manifestations of genius. In two respects these little sketches of child-life are absolutely unconventional. In the first place, as the composer not only loved children, but possessed the rare faculty of understanding them, he does not portray them from the view-point of those “grown-ups” who are so confident of the advantages of experience that they forget to give credit for intuitive insight. Moussorgsky looked upon children not as miniature and inexperienced men and women, but as beings peopling a world of their own. Secondly, he repudiated the tradition that when writing for the voice a lyrical method must invariably be employed. The method of “The Nursery” is not the mere expression in music of emotions aroused by the text. The music fulfils the function of description concurrently with the text; it speaks with the words; it describes, moreover, the very gestures and actions of the _dramatis personæ_.

The circumstances under which the “Picture-Show” was composed should here be related, since it was in 1874 that Moussorgsky undertook this novel kind of musical memorial. It was proposed by Stassof, in the spring of that year, to hold an exhibition of drawings and water-colours by the architect Victor Hartmann--one of the designers of the Nijni Novgorod monument in commemoration of the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the Russian State--who had recently died. Moussorgsky had been on very friendly terms with the artist, and wished to pay a tribute of his own devising. He determined, therefore, to attempt the reproduction of some of the pictures in terms of descriptive music. Aiming at something more than a mere reproduction, he gives, in the “Promenade” which connects the little pieces, a clue to his own emotions when contemplating Hartmann’s work.

VIII.

We have already recorded the enthusiasm with which Moussorgsky began his preparation of the material for the libretto of “Khovanshchina,” the subject recommended to him by Stassof in 1872. His researches kept him busy until late in the autumn of the following year, when he began work on the music. In course of its construction the libretto underwent several changes of plan, some of them dictated by the Censor. The music progressed but slowly, for the composer’s powers had already begun to suffer from the excesses in which for some time he had been indulging. He was unable to apply himself for any length of time to one particular task, and had contracted a habit of dividing his attention among a number of projects simultaneously.

Thus with “Khovanshchina” little more than begun, he was deep in plans for a comic opera on the subject of Gogol’s “Sorochinsk Fair.” Like the former, “Sorochinsk Fair” was never finished; under stress of poverty, however, the composer was prevailed upon by a publisher to issue one or two numbers arranged for piano solo. These pieces gave no indication whatever as to their dramatic import.

Moussorgsky’s dissipated habits were by this time beginning to estrange him from his boon companions. A certain eccentricity of manner had also begun to show itself. What annoyed his friends most was an affectation of superiority, which seems to have been prompted partly by the success of “Boris,” by the unreserved praise of Stassof, and by the admiration of people unworthy to express an opinion on Moussorgsky’s work. In spite of these changes, however, his connection with the Circle was not entirely severed, and the composer of “Khovanshchina” occasionally brought to their evenings the fruit of his intermittent labours upon that score.

In 1879, Rimsky-Korsakof introduced into the programme of a concert at the Free School of Music the chorus of Streltsy, Martha’s song, and the Persian Dances. At another he gave a scene from “Boris.” The conductor’s account of Moussorgsky’s behaviour at the rehearsal of this concert shows pretty plainly the degree to which his mental decay had already proceeded.

The excerpt from “Khovanshchina,” given at the first-mentioned Free School Concert, was performed by the then well-known singer Mlle Leonof, who had recently opened a small academy of music in Petrograd. This lady’s education had been somewhat scanty, but she possessed sufficient acumen to perceive that while her name would undoubtedly attract pupils, her capacity for instruction was too slender to enable her to retain them. Moussorgsky’s financial position was just then an extremely unfortunate one, and in order to improve matters he engaged himself to Mlle Leonof as supervisor of studies in her school.

In the summer of 1880 he went with her on a concert tour of Southern Russia, as accompanist and soloist. As, since his youth, he had neglected the pianist’s repertoire, the choice of programme was not by any means a simple matter. To cope with the situation he played selections from operas with which he happened to be familiar, among them the introduction to Glinka’s “Russlan and Ludmilla,” and the bell music from the Coronation scene of “Boris.”

In a letter dated January 16th, 1880, he communicates to the faithful Stassof the glad tidings that at Nikolayef and Kherson the “Nursery” songs have been performed with the most gratifying results before an audience of children. During this tour, inspired by the Crimean scenery, Moussorgsky composed three descriptive piano pieces; one of them, described by Rimsky-Korsakof as a somewhat lengthy and quite ridiculous Storm-fantasia--a reminiscence of the Black Sea--was not committed to paper.

It has been related that Moussorgsky’s work on “Khovanshchina” was not continuous, and that other absorbing tasks occupied his mind during its composition. Following Rimsky-Korsakof’s marriage, Moussorgsky took up his abode in rooms which he shared with the poet Count Golenishchef-Kutuzof. Two groups of poems by the latter were set to music by Moussorgsky in 1874 and 1875.

The first, “Without Sunlight,” contains six exquisite numbers. In these the composer has ceased to be objective, and has for once become introspective. It is perhaps in these songs that Moussorgsky approaches most closely to the ideal of melo-declamation set up by his precursor Dargomijsky. The vocal line is to some extent melodic in character, but is rarely cast in continuous melody. On the other hand they preserve a musical quality which is absent from the quasi-conversational manner of “The Nursery.”

The second cycle, “Songs and Dances of Death,” was composed at different periods, the first three in 1875 and the last number two years later. Their textual idea originated with Stassof, who suggested to Count Golenishchef-Kutuzof the creation of poems dealing with Holbein’s well-known work.[7] The “Trepak,” “Cradle Song,” and “Serenade,” present the dread figure in rather more convincing a manner than the fourth, “The Commander-in-Chief”--a picture of Death surveying a battlefield. The somewhat inferior conception of the music of the last has been attributed, no doubt correctly, to the state of the composer’s health at the time at which it was written.

Moussorgsky’s last years were spent in poverty and physical decay. Already in 1876 his financial resources were reduced to the bare pittance he received from the State department in which he was employed. Writing to Stassof at this time, he spoke of supplementing this beggarly income by taking engagements as a pianist. This led to the arrangement with Mlle Leonof, and the Crimean tour.

In 1878 he lost a dear friend through the death of Petrof, for whom he had intended to write an important part in “Sorochinsk Fair.” This event so affected him that he was unable to do work of any description for a considerable time. Following the tour, he began to model an orchestral suite with a Crimean programme, but got no further than the preliminary sketch.

The summer of 1880 was spent in the country, but his health showed no signs of improvement. In the following February he journeyed to Petrograd to attend a Free School concert, at which Rimsky-Korsakof conducted “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” His work was acclaimed, and he made his last public appearance in acknowledging the tributes of this audience. A month later he became seriously ill as the result of an attack of delirium tremens. His friends Balakiref, Borodin, Stassof, and Rimsky-Korsakof were summoned, and they visited him in turn at the Military Hospital up to the moment of death. This occurred on his birthday, March 16th, 1881.

Arrangements had already been made with a view to preserving as many of his works as could be found for publication. Balakiref’s friend, T. I. Filippof, was appointed executor, and he speedily found a publisher willing to undertake their issue. The responsibility of revising them was assumed by Rimsky-Korsakof, who devoted many years to this labour.

Moussorgsky was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, and a monument--the work of Bogomolof and Gunsburg--was erected to his memory.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] The associated reformers, Balakiref, Cui, Borodin,
Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakof, have been collectively
designated in a variety of appellations, some of them
disrespectful. They are referred to elsewhere in this
volume as “The Circle,” the “Five,” and “The Invincible
Band.”

[3] “Moussorgski.” Paris, 1896.

[4] M. Montagu-Nathan, “A History of Russian Music.” (W. Reeves.)

[5] M. Montagu-Nathan, _op. cit._

[6] M. Montagu-Nathan, _op. cit._

[7] “Death’s Doings,” by Richard Dagley, London, 1827, is a
work of a similar kind.