Chapter V: Part IV: Songs

I.

Before proceeding to make detailed reference to Moussorgsky’s songs, it should be mentioned that the composer did not look upon a song as a vocal solo with instrumental accompaniment. He was just as unwilling to do so as he would have been to regard an opera as a “concert in costume.” For him, the song was a vehicle for the description of something not to be described by any other means. His songs are best considered as musical scenes with a vocal part, the voice naturally becoming prominent where description gives place to narration or dialogue. In order to facilitate reference to the style of Moussorgsky’s forty-odd examples, their stylistic attributes may be roughly specified under the following heads: (1) National or Popular: Where the text possesses a national character or appeals to nationalistic sensibilities, or where the music is in the style of folk-song. (2) Poetical or Idealistic: Where the text is based upon a poetical idea and the music is “absolute” rather than suggestive, reflecting the general sentiment of the whole rather than the particular meaning of a phrase. (3) Realistic: Where the text possesses the attributes of a _genre_ production and the music occupies itself for the most part with description. (4) Declamatory: Where the text is in the nature of a narration and the vocal music is mostly recitatival. (In this class of song Moussorgsky has not hesitated to alter the bar-design or measure wherever the syllabic structure of the text has demanded such variation.) Even this generous allowance of categories takes no account of the satirical pieces in which there is the purpose of ridiculing certain persons, types, or ideas, and which in two cases have been conveniently and appropriately described as “musical pamphlets.”

II.

In the first, or national, category comes one of Moussorgsky’s best-known vocal works, the “Gopak.” The stirring words of the martyr-poet Taras Shevchenko are set melodically, with a fitness that could not have been surpassed had this sublime Ruthenian patriot himself, and not a Muscovite, been responsible for the music. The invocation to the Dnieper, also the work of this poet (he is buried on its banks), while national in character, is musically of quite a different order from the first. Beginning with a recitatival introduction in freely varied rhythms (7/4, 6/4, 3/4), a folk-song character prevails throughout the sombre Allegro. The final section, a return to the introductory theme, is a magnificently eloquent appeal to the Ruthenian river, the two bars in which the name is pronounced being lengthened to 7/4 to admit of due emphasis.

“To the Mushrooms” is another song which may well be cited in this category, for the folk-song element is here also very conspicuous. It is national in text as well as music--mushroom-picking being in Russia made the occasion of a special ceremonial. The refrain has a strong melodic resemblance to the song of the Innkeeper in “Boris Godounof.” The “coda,” which is at greater length than Moussorgsky usually allows himself, is a masterly piece of harmonic variation.

The “Peasant’s Cradle Song” is in an entirely different mood. The mother sings in turn of the oppression that will be her child’s lot, and of the Divine solicitude that may lighten the burden. The music suits itself wonderfully to the change of sense; only the rocking is constant.

The most characteristic examples among Moussorgsky’s realistic songs are “The Orphan” and “Savishna.” Both of them are sheer strokes of genius, not merely as to their general conception but in respect of their composer’s happy disregard of tradition at a moment when the consideration of form would have prevented a fitting illustration of their textual idea. The first represents a street beggar imploring charity of a passer by. “Oh, kind gentleman, take pity on a poor, miserable, homeless orphan....” The child describes the conditions of his existence; he has no strength left. “... To die of hunger is terrible ... my blood is frozen ... have pity on a miserable orphan....” The music has simply spoken and moaned with the child; the misery described for us by its harmony might have softened the heart of the passer by; yet it fails.... The child is left standing, as an incomplete cadence tells us. Charity, like its resolution, is missing.

The orphan’s appeal, while hardly more than a monologue, has a suggestion of melody. In “Savishna” Moussorgsky approaches more closely the declamatory style. It is a monotonous supplication, the melodic element being restricted to three notes in a rhythm of five.

The composer, occupied in writing the “Labourer’s Cradle Song” during the period spent on his brother’s estate at Minkino, in 1865, happened to overhear the addresses of a half-witted suitor paid to the village beauty. It is the love-declaration of Vanya, the “yourodivy” or spiritual fool--the prototype of the pathetic creature who utters the closing words of the Kromy scene in “Boris”--that Moussorgsky has noted down in “Savishna.” Its harmony strikes but two notes. The fool asks for love and for pity. The empty fourths and fifths in the closing three bars proclaim the hopelessness of his suit.

For the gibes of “The Urchin” Moussorgsky has used the same rhythmic arrangement, but in this case he varies his rhythm, using as occasion demands 6/4, 5/4, 3/2 and 3/1 to emphasize the variety of epithets flung by the ragamuffin at the old woman he is mocking. The 5/4 rhythm is retained for her remonstrance, but the strength of her arm is made manifest in a couple of strenuous bars--for the chastisement.

“SONGS AND DANCES OF DEATH”

III.

We have passed from the category of realism into that of declamation without referring to the _genre_ type. To this heading belongs undoubtedly the song-cycle entitled “Songs and Dances of Death.” The “Trepak” (“Still is the Forest”) contains the elements of nationalism, realism, and melody. To the dance rhythm, to which Death conducts the starved peasant into eternity, is given a considerable prominence as a suggestion of Death’s mood. Its measure is only blotted out by the howling of the tempest. Becoming audible once more at the promise of eternal peace, it mingles with the cradle-song that lulls the peasant into a last sleep. Death surveys the corpse with a smile at the recollection of his artifice.

There is little vocal melody in Moussorgsky’s portrayal of the heart-rending scene that follows. A mother’s tired voice has crooned through a sorrowful all-night vigil over her sick child. There is no conventional cradle-song. The movement is suggested by the rise and fall of a figure which appears to represent the weary woman’s anxiety. The swaying becomes feebler. The mother turns her head. Someone is stealthily approaching the hut. There is a knock. Through the doorway the trembling mother sees, silhouetted by the light of dawn, the terrible intruder whose presence betokens that she can hardly dare hope. The gentleness of Death’s accents fails to hide his intention. He will rock the child and afford the mother a well-earned respite. His voice will soothe the sufferer. In vain she refuses, protests, implores. Death gains possession of the little sufferer. “See! I have sung him to sleep....”

The third picture is that of a frail young woman to whom Death appears in the guise of a gallant. Its refrain is a serenade. The sinister cavalier prosecutes a brief and horrible courtship. For him there can be but one reply. A pedal note proclaims that his flattering utterances are but a veil that will not long obscure the end. It comes in the rhythm of the serenade ... with it for a moment is heard the counsel of submission. A horrible silence follows. Death casts away his disguise. “Thou’rt Mine!” The means by which Moussorgsky attains to positive descriptiveness at no sacrifice of the lyrical quality are so absolutely simple that, were this song divorced from its text, one might seek in vain for anything in the nature of poetic suggestion. Yet as a complement of the words of Kutuzof, the music becomes a masterpiece that is second to none of its kind.

The method of the last number is somewhat different. The poet has given a more generous description of the _mise en scène_. Death has found a worthy vicar and is not yet here. The scene is a corpse-strewn battlefield. The conflict is recalled by its human remnants. Presently the rising moon reveals the hideous figure of a skeleton whose bones reflect its light. He is mounted. It is Field-Marshal Death. His subtle strategy has brought him an easy and an overwhelming victory. He sings the restrained song of a warrior who has never doubted his strength. To the dead he dispenses sophistries. “In life you were always in conflict. Death will unite you....” To a military music he bids his victims rise and pass before him in review. Surveying the ghostly army, he promises that he will awaken them daily to entertain them at a midnight revel.

“WITHOUT SUNLIGHT”

IV.

“Apart from Pushkin and Lermontof,” wrote Moussorgsky to Stassof, “I have not discovered elsewhere what I find in Kutuzof.” In the “Songs and Dances of Death” there is sufficient evidence that the composer had found someone capable of inspiring the very best he could create. In the second cycle, which may be classified as Idealistic, there is so clear a representation of the composer’s own personality that one could almost credit him with the text.

“Without Sunlight” is a collection of six poems by the poet of the “Dances of Death”; their musical setting shows that Moussorgsky was capable, on occasion, of being subjective, that the capacity for introspection and self-revelation was not altogether foreign to his nature. In all his other creations he is seen looking around him and depicting objects worthy of admiration or pity, or deserving ridicule. In “Without Sunlight” he has given us music that represents himself as surely as the text represents the psychology of the type to which he conforms.

In all six numbers the vocal part approaches nearer to definite melody than to melo-declamation. But in connection with the last one only can the term lyrical be mentioned.

The first, “Within Four Walls,” is a glimpse through the door of a hospital. The soliloquy of a patient is overheard. His mental eye fixes momentarily upon some past happiness. Its gaze shifts to the present, and the sick one realizes that this is solitude and night. There is little movement in Moussorgsky’s harmonies; it is as though all sound were, like the room, in shadow.

“In the crowd thou didst not know me,” is the complaint of the second song, which is the record of a passion starved by neglect. The recollection brings a sharp reminder of the first pangs of disappointment. Here, as in “The Orphan,” the return to the prevailing tonality is neglected.

“The Festal Days are Over” is also in reminiscent vein. The sufferer is wakeful, and in the dead of night turns over the pages of a distant past, rendered more vivid by solitude. The accompaniment is of a much more pictorial kind than that of the foregoing numbers. The passage in which the poet speaks of “vernal passions of the past returning as phantoms in dreams” is accompanied by a figure which has since served Debussy in depicting his nocturnal “_Nuages_.”[13]

“Tedium” is unrelievedly pessimistic. Cynical self-damnation is its note. It catalogues all life’s joys and decrees that they are to befall one insensible: “Tedium until the very tomb, and God be with you there.” At the opening of the song the harmony seems to fail in reflecting the full weariness of spirit described by the text, but once the exordium is done with there is no further doubt as to its fitness. Poignant bitterness permeates the music until the final words, which evoke a major chord.

There is a harmonic wealth in the “Elegie” that is not forthcoming from any of the previous numbers. It is also of much more generous dimensions, and is at times quite rhapsodical. The text once more concerns past emotions to which the music seeks to attune itself. At one moment there is positive description. At “the sound of the bells of death,” the accompaniment is suspended and the knell introduced.

“On the Stream,” the last of the series, does not merely suggest the abstract sentiment, but is definitely pictorial, so far, that is, as concerns the water alone. This is depicted in a constant triplet figure. The text tells us that death will soon put an end to these solitary communings, and the voice of the sufferer answering the call with a cheerfulness that strikes a new note is heard in an ascending phrase borne on the bosom of the still rustling stream into the unknown.[14]

A closer relation with the import of these vocal poems would have been established by the use of such a title as “Songs Before Death.”

“THE NURSERY”

V.

“The Russian child,” says M. d’Alheim, “whether belonging to the peasant or the middle class, only differs from the child of another nationality in the matter of racial traits.”[15] This difference, however, as revealed in the child-scenes of Moussorgsky, assumes a not inconsiderable importance. The Russian child resembles other children in that he is father to the man; but both child and man live in a world singularly different, in one particular, from their Western prototypes. They spend their lives in a world from which the supernatural element has not been banished. It is introduced by the nurse through the medium of the folk-stories in which the Russian, whether child or man, delights. By their own confession Pushkin, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakof have made us aware that their oft-displayed affection for legendary lore was instilled into them by the trusted peasant-woman under whose care their childhood was passed.

To this influence the world owes several of the national poet’s immortal works, and the operas and symphonic pieces founded upon them by such as Glinka, Dargomijsky, Rimsky-Korsakof, and Moussorgsky. The child’s request, in the first number of “The Nursery,” for a tale concerning certain legendary personages whose behaviour is, to say the least of it, a little uncommon, needs no further explanation. A Russian, hearing the words, would in imagination be immediately transported, as though by the good offices of some benevolent _genie_, to his native heath. This little vocal scene has a special claim to be quoted as a specimen of art-nationalism, showing as it does the extent to which a popular affection for folk-lore will contribute to a form of art which may be wooed but cannot be won by the less imaginative peoples.

The misdemeanours of Mishenka, left for a moment to himself, are not perhaps distinctively national. A nursery “strewn with a fearful mess of cotton, wrecked stitching, and all the contents of the nursery work-basket, to which a bottle of ink has contributed even greater devastation,”[16] is a scene which must surely be common to the nurseries of the civilized world. In contradistinction the third and sixth numbers reflect the very special interest that the zoological creation has for the Russian child. The one describes Mishenka in conflict with a too venturesome cockchafer, and the youngster’s mystification in the presence of Death; the other relates how the caged robin escaped, through the timely interference of Mishenka, from the teeth and claws of Matros the cat.

The fourth, fifth, and seventh concern respectively a doll, the child’s evening prayer, and a gallop round the nursery astride a stick. The doll is exhorted to remember the dreams of its slumber in order that they may beguile the waking hour; the prayer is rendered characteristic by an episode--the child’s lapse of memory on approaching the passage in which Divine grace is solicited on its own behalf; the furious gallop during which the nursery is “transformed into a veritable battlefield”[17]--the furniture sustaining heavy casualties--is a marvellous example of “the notation of pantomime.”

In “The Nursery” the declamatory method prevails. In the vocal part there is even less suggestion of melody than in “The Orphan” or “Savishna.” Moussorgsky never turns aside from his intention of giving us the child’s speech. The nearest approach to melody is in “The Child’s Prayer,” in which there are to be found some repeated phrases. But these are nothing more than a suggestion of the mechanical way in which the prayer is uttered. The words come not from his mind but his lips.

With the accompaniment it is otherwise. In such numbers as “The Cockchafer,” “The Doll” (a cradle-song), and “The Hobby-Horse,” there is a clearly defined rhythmic pattern and a sufficiently formal structure to allow of music that could be divorced from its text. It must surely have been these numbers that caused Liszt to consider an arrangement for piano alone. One cannot imagine that any sort of coherency could have been infused into “Nurse, Tell Me a Tale,” with its twenty-seven changes of time-signature!

“The Nursery” is a work of art in which the principles formulated by Dargomijsky have been carried to their logical conclusion. It is the equivalent in its special sphere of “The Matchmaker.” The setting of that comedy was held by the composer to represent his “very self.” But as the text of “The Nursery” is Moussorgsky’s own, we may consider it for that reason alone as still more representative. Besides revealing the genius it shows us the man.

As a series of child-pictures it stands alone. It is doubtful whether in the whole world of art its equal as an exposition of the child could be found. “Moussorgsky,” says M. Combarieu, “is no onlooker; in depicting the children he himself returns to childhood; one might say that he plays with them and sulks with them....”[18]

SATIRICAL SONGS

VI.

The category of “Satirical,” like the classification of “Pamphlet,” is one which takes no heed of the musical qualities of the example thus placed. “The Seminarist” is satirical, but in contradistinction to “The Peepshow” must be called non-political. Musically speaking it is declamatory, but has a certain rhythmic pattern. So long as the divinity student attends to his Latin lesson he sings in an appropriate monotone; when his mind wanders towards the thought of his instructor’s daughter the vocal contour is softened. As this happens quite often, “The Seminarist” possesses a musical interest that would have been absent had the student been of saintly character.

“The Classicist” is both satire and musical politics. Its victim, Famintsin, a contemporary critic, was a lover of Handel and a stern opponent of all “modernist tricks.” “The Classicist,” in ridiculing these prejudices, takes on the appearance of a _pastiche_. In one line we are listening to innocuous Handelian music; in the next to the detested “modernist tricks.” After the quotation from Rimsky-Korsakof’s “Sadko,” which does not strike us as appalling cacophony, “The Classicist” becomes itself again, establishing an atmosphere of repose suitable to a _milieu_ in which music reflecting the contemporary spirit is taboo.

“The Musicians’ Peepshow” belongs obviously to the same category. Its satire is more biting, its political sphere somewhat wider, and quotations abound. But neither “The Classicist,” nor “The Peep-show,” nor the Mephistophelean “Flea-song” is in the least representative of Moussorgsky’s art, however much they may tell us about that of other folk. Still, they are documents that help to increase our knowledge of the man, and they have the one great merit of being exceedingly entertaining.

The present description of the text, method, and general treatment of the songs dealt with cannot possibly convey any definite idea of their musical quality. From the preceding notes it will have been gathered that the range of material employed by Moussorgsky was exceedingly wide, and the method of treatment extraordinarily varied. It will have been realized, moreover, that the composer set before himself an ideal which made immense demands upon both the imagination and the inventive faculty.

For many famous composers a song need claim nothing more than to be a poem set to music. The accompaniment is a complement of the vocal line and has little bearing on the text. In Moussorgsky’s songs we have a new type--they constitute a form of art in which all three constituents, the text, the vocal line, and the piano part, have a truly vital function, contributing directly and equally to the artistic whole.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] A similar coincidence of musical invention, relating to
the same composers, may be observed by comparing passages
in “La Chevelure” (Trois Chansons de Bilitis) and the
“Galitsin” Act of “Khovanshchina.”

[14] The text of this song was also set to music by Balakiref.

[15] _Op. cit._

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

[17] From a notice by M. Debussy.

[18] _Revue Musicale_, January, 1911.

LIST OF PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED WORKS

MUSIC-DRAMA.

Boris Godounof.
Khovanshchina.
The Matchmaker (First Act).
The Fair at Sorochinsk (fragments).

ORCHESTRA.

A Night on the Bare Mountain.

CHORAL.

The Destruction of Sennacherib.
Joshua.
Œdipus.
Women’s Chorus from abandoned opera Salammbô.

PIANO.

The Picture-Show (Tableaux d’une Exposition).
A number of small pieces.

SONGS.

The Orphan.
Yeremoushka’s Cradle Song.
Labourer’s Lullaby.
Night.
The Classicist.
The Peepshow.
The Dnieper.
The Seminarist.
Savishna.
Gopak.

SONG CYCLES.

Without Sunlight (six numbers).
The Nursery (seven numbers).
Songs and Dances of Death (four numbers).

INDEX

Alexander II., 45

Alheim, d’, 26, 91

_Antar_, 82

Azanchevsky, 16

Balakiref, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 28, 37, 44, 47, 76, 82, 91

Beethoven, 15

Belayef, 81

Berlioz, 21, 81

Betz, 32

Bogomolof, 44

_Boris Godounof_, 16, 19, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42,
46, 49, 53, 54-66, 67, 72, 73, 78, 79, 85, 86

Borodin, 17, 18, 20, 23, 26, 34, 37, 44, 47, 81, 82

Byron, 28, 76

Calvocoressi, 51

_Central Asia, In the Steppes of_, 82

_Chansons de Bilitis_, 90

Chernishevsky, 24

_Children’s Scherzo_, 22

_Classicist, The_, 37, 45, 95, 96

Combarieu, 94

Cui, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27, 34, 37, 38, 47, 53, 81

Dargomijsky, 16, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 38, 43, 47, 49,
50, 52, 53, 54, 62, 75, 92, 94

_Death_, 31

Debussy, 77, 90, 93

Demidof, 16

_Dnieper_, 84

_Don Juan_, 49

Dostoievsky, 61

Edwards, Sutherland, 50

_Ensigns’ Polka_, 15, 23

Famintsin, 37, 38, 95

Ferrero, 32

Field, 14

Filippof, 44

Flaubert, 25, 46, 48

_Flea-song_, 6, 96

Free School of Music, 41, 44, 76

Gedeonof, 33, 54, 81

General Lavine, 77

Glinka, 19, 20, 26, 31, 32, 46, 47, 55, 56, 60, 62, 63, 65, 75, 82

Gogol, 26, 27, 28, 29, 40, 50, 51, 53

_Golden Bird_, 26

Golenishchef-Kutuzof, 42, 43, 88, 89

_Gopak_, 6, 54

_Gopak_ (Song), 29, 84

Granados, 77

Gunsburg, 44

_Han d’Islande_, 16

Handel, 95

Hartmann, 33, 39, 77, 78, 79, 80

Heine, 49

Herke, 14, 15

Holbein, 43

Hugo, V., 16

_Impromptu passionné_, 22

Ivanovsky, 23

Ivan the Terrible, 56

_Joshua_, 76

_Kallistrate_, 25

Karamzin, 31

Karatigin, 48, 54

_Khovanshchina_, 16, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42, 46, 66-75, 90

Kondratief, 35

Kroupsky, 16

Leonof, 41, 42, 43

Lermontof, 22, 89

_Life for the Tsar, A_, 19, 46, 55, 60, 62

Liszt, 14, 21, 80

Lyadof, 21, 34, 54

_Maid of Pskof_, 33

Manjean, 32

Marnold, 66

_Matchmaker, The_, 26, 27, 29, 30, 49-53, 94

Mendelssohn, 23

Mérimée, 57

Minkus, 34

_Mlada_, 34, 54, 81

Moussorgsky, Filaret, 13, 24, 45

Mozart, 19

_Mushrooms_, 84

Napravnik, 32

_Night_, 25

_Night in Madrid_, 82

_Night in May, A_, 53

_Night on the Bare Mountain_, 28, 34, 54, 80-82

Nikolsky, 31, 33

_Nursery, The_, 38, 42, 43

Obolensky, 16

_Œdipus_, 21, 76

Opochinin, 31, 33

Orfano, 16

Orlof, 16

_Orphan, The_, 29, 85, 90, 93

Oulibishef, 19

Patti, 38

_Peasant’s Cradle Song_, 85

_Peepshow_, 6, 38, 95, 96

Peter the Great, 68

Petrof, 35

_Picture-Show, The_, 39, 77-80

Polejaef, 49

Popof, 17

Pourgold, Alexandra, 29

Pourgold, Nadejda, 29

_Prince Igor_, 17

Pushkin, 13, 31, 49, 58, 61, 89, 92

Rimsky-Korsakoff, 11, 18, 20, 22, 28, 29, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41,
42, 44, 47, 53, 80, 81, 82, 92, 95

_Rogneda_, 38

Rubinstein, A, 21

_Russalka_, 18

Russian Musical Society, 21, 37

_Russlan and Ludmilla_, 42

_Sadko_, 37, 95

_Salammbô_, 25, 46, 48, 49, 54, 76

_Savishna_, 85, 86, 93

Schumann, 21, 23

_Seminarist, The_, 29, 95

_Sennacherib, Destruction of_, 28, 44, 76

Serof, 37

_Sheherazade_, 82

Shestakof, 31

Shevchenko, 29, 84

_Songs and Dances of Death_, 43, 86-88, 89

Sophocles, 21, 76

_Sorochinsk Fair_, 40, 44, 53, 54, 81

Stassof, V. V., 12, 21, 22, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41,
42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 53, 67, 78

_Stenka Razin_, 82

_Stone Guest_, 25, 26, 27, 30, 47, 49

_Tableaux d’une Exposition._ See _Picture-Show_

_Tamara_, 82

Tolstoi, 37, 38

_Traviata_, 18

_Trovatore_, 18

_Tsar’s Bride, The_, 26

_Urchin_, 86

Vanliarsky, 18

Velyaminof, 29

Volkonsky, 36

Wagner, 46

_Without Sunlight_, 42, 89-91

Yastrebtsef, 11

_Yeremoushka’s Cradle Song_, 29

Zaremba, 38

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND

Transcriber’s Note:

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of each chapter. Musical chords and meters are presented with numbers separated by a slash, e.g. 6/4.

In the index, extraneous commas were deleted from the ends of page numbers, and page number 38 was corrected under the entry for Dargomijsky; “an” was changed to “a” before the word “dastardly.”