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Music of Russia USAD 2012-2013 Folk Music Folk songs varied locally from region to region Different villages sang different songs Urban assimilation of villages transformed folk songs ¨ They also sang different variations of the same song ¨ In some cases, urban popular music obliterated folk tradition The late 18th century gave rise to folk song transcription Educated urban gentlemen spearheaded the notation of folk music Many of these men were amateur musicians Their work introduced folk songs into the world of art music Transcription Scotland pioneered transcription, but Germany performed most important legwork Achim von Arnim (1781-1831) and Clemens Brentano (1778-1842) compiled Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1805-1808) ¨ This folk song collection only included song lyrics ¨ However, ensuing anthologies often featured melodies as well Johann Gottfried Herder Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) linked folk songs and nationalism This German philosopher traveled through Europe and Russia He believed national divisions existed based on language Herder considered folk song part of the national, not just local, culture He was one of the first to note the national importance of folk music Herder wrote that folk music channeled national spirit Folk songs became part of national heritage Transcription methods and their flaws Before audio recording, transcribers relied solely on their memories Circumstances did not always allow the transcriber to hear the song multiple times Even if he did, the same singer might still vary the song Folk tradition did not stress rigid adherence to pitch and rhythm Peasants only performed certain songs on certain occasions Many folk songs were tied to ritual or work-related events Thus, the transcriber only had one chance to listen These events, like weddings, often came with distractions as well Problems cont’d The extensive lyrics took a long time to perform Many publishers only printed excerpts from songs A nonsensical verse about nature might have led to a profound tale of love Worse yet, publishers rarely indicated these omissions to the reader Some scholarly works generally included full texts However, the general public could not easily access these publications Even with the help of audio recording, transcribers must still make choices Transcribers must decide which irregularities to preserve and which to exclude Problems cont’d Early transcribers did not bother themselves with issues of authenticity Above all, these transcribers viewed folk songs as market goods Transcriptions needed to appeal to domestic consumers Most arrangements involved solo voice and piano Arrangers ignored or rewrote polyphony and heterophony These textures greatly differed from Western art music Arrangers feared buyers would not approve Sometimes arrangers replaced Western-like idioms to increase “folk” appeal Notated folk songs reflected urban expectation more than rural tradition More Problems with transcriptions Despite their claims, arrangers always invented their own harmonies for folk melodies The original songs most often involved only solo voice However, arrangers still claimed to use “authentic” harmonies 20th-century arrangers became more conscious of authenticity and accuracy Track 1: “The Day was Breaking” This folk song derives from the Smolensk region “The Day was Breaking” exemplifies the protyazhnaya genre It features a long, winding melody The melody is melismatic Each syllable stretches out over an entire musical phrase Thus, the lyrics unfold incredibly slowly The lyrics refer to army recruitment Russian conscripts served in the Tsarist army for 25 years “The Day was Breaking” cont’d - excerpt Each verse begins with a zapev, or solo introduction The zapev centers on the interval of the fifth Protyazhnayas often focus on this interval Mikhail Glinka described the fifth as “the soul of Russian music” Podgoloski (“undervoices”) overwhelm the zapev, thickening the texture Each ensuing verse becomes more dissonant At the end of each verse, the texture reverts to unison “The Day was Breaking” cont’d - excerpt The song takes liberties with intervals At the outset, a minor third featuring the modal center and the third scale degree appears However, at the end of each verse, a major third appears This interval sounds widely tuned compared to Western music 19th century collectors would dismiss the sound However, 20th century collectors indicated the wider tuning in their notation The singers use “open” sounds, just as real folk singers do Overview Various types of “Russian folk songs” pervade the musical world Their repertoire included both true folk songs and urbancreated “folk” songs Most 18th- and 19th-century collectors focused on notating legitimately rural folk songs Examples include “Dark Eyes,” “Those Were the Days, My Friend,” and “Coachman, Spare Your Horses” A few songs originated in the countryside 19th-century Russian restaurants often featured gypsy singers and choirs These songs reflected local village traditions and rituals However, collections did include the occasional popular song Scholars classify folk songs into genres They base these decisions based on the song’s function They also consider the lyrics and character of the song Protyazhnaya A solo performer may sing a lyrical song without a special occasion These songs often focus on a tale of unhappy love The best-known subgenre of lyrical songs is the protyazhnaya Protyazhnaya literally means “prolonged” A protyazhnaya typically features a long, winding melodic line The melismatic aspect of the songs further increases their length Melismatic songs stretch each syllable over a musical phrase Even native Russian speakers struggle to piece together the slowly unfolding lyrics The protyazhnaya took on great symbolic status in the 19th century Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) established the protyazhnaya as a symbol for Russia as a whole His novel Dead Souls (1842) includes a memorable image Three horses lead a coach across an unending stretch of Russian land The coachman sings a melancholic, interminable protyazhnaya Thus, Gogol implies that both Russia and the protyazhnaya are endless and tragic Many people came to believe all Russian folk songs sounded melancholy City dwellers encountered the protyazhnaya more frequently than other folk genres Calendar Songs Rural peasants only performed calendar songs for certain seasonal rituals These occasions include Advent, Christmas, Shrovetide, and the summer solstice The lyrics of these songs often combine pagan and Christian symbols Many Christian festivals replaced earlier pagan holidays Calendar songs differ significantly from protyazhnaya songs Scholars believe calendar songs are much older than lyrical ones Calendar songs use shorter, more syllabic melodic phrases Each pitch corresponds to a single syllable of text Other folk genres Wedding songs included joyous hymns and more depressing tunes Funeral laments featured naturalistic sobbing sounds The North of Russia favored byliny, or epic songs Barge workers sang the “Song of the Volga Boatmen” The rhythm allowed the many workers to pull ropes simultaneously Plyasovye refers to energetic dance songs These solo tunes recounted ancient legends and historical events Byliny were syllabic and imitated human speech Labor songs helped coordinate group labor projects Tradition required the bride to sing a song lamenting leaving her parental home These repetitive melodies featured strong rhythms Other genres included lullabies, game songs, and military marches “Akh ty step” V. Sokolov arranged this Russian folk song The song reflects popular (urban) elements rather than true rural roots Three aspects of the song reveal its classification as a protyazhnaya Many songs of this genre feature the same opening line: “O, ye steppes…” The melody features wide intervals The opening starts with an ascending sixth Later, we hear an ascending octave Like other protyazhnayas, the song sounds lyrical and sorrowful “Akh ty step” cont’d “Akh ty step” clearly displays urban influence This arrangement is much less melismatic than traditional folk songs Urban styles override folk-like variants and irregular harmonies The modern choral arrangement adds a hummed introduction and a lengthy conclusion However, the arranger does attempt to imitate folk devices Some of the four verses begin with expressive vocal solos Middle voices actively participate in the harmony The ends of phrases often converge to a unison or octave Folk Songs Collections & Arrangements Lvov-Pratsch The Lvov-Pratsch collection was the most influential early folk song anthology It (1790) included both text and music Nikolai Lvov transcribed the text Johann (Ivan) Pratsch arranged the music City dwellers used the collection for domestic music playing Composers included the arranged melodies in their own works Lvov-Pratsch cont’d Accusations of Westernization contributed to the collection’s fall from grace Lvov did not keep records of his sources Critics charged Pratsch with rewriting melodies to match urban expectation Pratsch supposedly placed accents on the wrong syllables to match Western meter Later musicians found Pratsch’s harmonizations insensitive and Western67 The sources may already have been altered from the rural originals Thus, scholars cannot know the extent of Pratsch’s changes In the 19th century, collectors became more conscious of accuracy and authenticity Balakirev (1866) The Balakirev collection stressed the distinctive sound of Russian folk music Unlike Pratsch, Mily Balakirev did not try to urbanize folk melodies Rather, he attempted to exaggerate the differences between folk and art music This choice reveals the abrupt shift in consumer taste in the 19th century Balakirev favored non-Western musical ideas and simple harmonies He often used flattened seventh degrees instead of Western leading tones Sometimes he misrepresented sources to emphasize nonWestern sounds Balakirev cont’d Balakirev mostly employed diatonic harmonies He used triads rather than four-note chords From 1600 onward, seventh chords frequently appeared in Western art music Balakirev believed folk music should sound more ancient Balakirev also meticulously adhered to the natural stress pattern of words In other words, he only used the pitches of a single scale Other than hymns, Western art music did not typically do this These harmonies created a modal sound He varied meter rather than sacrifice the stress pattern Despite his scrupulous methodology, Balakirev still produced arrangements In other words, the transcriptions did not accurately reflect folk practice However, they were more accurate than Pratsch’s approach Melgunov and Palchikov Before the late 19th century, collectors did not transcribe polyphony or heterophony Polyphony refers to simultaneous melodies Russian folk collectors were not very aware of these textures in folk song Few early transcribers made serious attempts to notate them Composers imitated the effect vaguely, but few understood the texture well Heterophony involves unsynchronized singers performing the same melody It can also refer to a single melody with simultaneous variations They began folk-like choruses with a soloist They then incorporated the rest of the choir The section ended in unison Composers only became aware of these two textures after recording technology appeared Yuli Melgunov & Nikolai Palchikov cont’d Yuli Melgunov and Nikolai Palchikov each attempted to notate folk heterophony and polyphony before recording technology Melgunov published his collection of folk songs in 1879 He succeeded in notating heterophony His attempts did not truly transcribe a choral folk song To do so, he listened to the music in melodic, not harmonic, terms He listened to several singers in the same village performing one at a time Then he combined these variations on a single melody into one score However, they served as good approximations of heterophony Composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov dismissed the collection as “barbaric” He could not bear the heterophonic texture The idea contradicted his own method of harmonizing folk songs Yuli Melgunov & Nikolai Palchikov cont’d Nikolai Palchikov produced the best notation of folk polyphony Palchikov lived in a village Thus, he could observe the same songs and singers multiple times Unfortunately, he also remained in relative obscurity Palchikov stood next to each singer and notated each part He then combined these separate lines into a score The result proved better than Melgunov’s compilation Unfortunately, Melgunov’s collection received greater attention Melgunov’s arrangements introduced Russian folk texture to the art world Linyova (1904) Yevgeniya Linyova released her first folk song collection in 1904 She spearheaded the use of audio recording technology Now, composers could not deny the textures in Russian folk music Composer Igor Stravinsky was the first to embrace these folk textures Other 20th century composers eagerly followed his lead At the time, composers longed to break established composition rules Folk Songs in Classical Music Composers’ uses for folk song Composers used folk themes to characterize lower-class characters in operas Other composers believed folk melodies made music sound more “national” Philosophers like Herder reinforced this belief Glinka chose Russian folk songs to differentiate his work from Italian operas The use of familiar folk melodies also garnered sympathy and acclaim from audiences Folk music also contained new techniques For instance, Mikhail Glinka used folk songs to designate peasants in A Life for the Tsar Glinka and other composers drew inspiration for technical innovations Composers often included folk melodies for several of the above reasons Folk Songs in Classical Music cont’d Myths and exaggerations Many “national” composers exaggerated their knowledge of folk traditions Often, their biographers published gross overstatements In truth, most 19th-century composers came from privileged backgrounds They did not grow up listening to folk music Most composers consciously studied folk music in their adult years Rimsky-Korsakov himself denied rumors of his familiarity with folk songs He did not experience folk music until his twenties Rimsky-Korsakov studied Balakirev’s collection of transcriptions Contemporary critics often exaggerated the authenticity of quoted folk songs Composers rewrote folk melodies to suit their own works The songs themselves transformed en route from the village to the city Rimsky-Korsakov presented a folk song melody simply He often used a solo woodwind instrument The accompaniment consisted of subtle string pizzicato Rimsky-Korsakov kept harmony to a minimum, using long pedal notes A pedal note refers to a long sustained note, often found in the bass line. Usually, a pedal note contains the root of the harmony. Audiences frequently believed all folk songs sounded like this However, the style was all Rimsky-Korsakov’s creation Most importantly, scholars overplayed the national spirit imparted by folk songs Only peasants from a certain region would recognize a folk song Yet composers came to associate folk song with the entire population of Russia In other words, a tiny little-known part represents the vast whole Folk music does not possess noticeable “Russianness” A foreign audience unfamiliar with Russian music would not recognize it as such Russian Music of the 19th century Westernization and Russian National Identity Westernization under Peter the Great In the early modern period, Russians set themselves apart from “The West” Ivan the Terrible (r. 1547-1584) allegedly sent several dozens of scholars abroad Unfortunately, none of these students ever returned to share their learning Before Peter the Great, Russia rarely contacted Europe Russia occasionally sent diplomats overseas But, the country did not engage in extended interaction with the West Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725) began a largescale Westernization program During his reign, the educated elite increasingly realized Russia’s isolation from the West This epiphany also spread throughout the general population European civilization fascinated Peter He traveled throughout Europe in disguise At one point, the tsar worked as a shipbuilder on a Dutch wharf Peter the Great aimed to recreate Russia as a major European power He intended to establish an irreversible, largescale program of Westernization St. Petersburg • St. Petersburg became the thriving center of Peter’s “new and improved” Russia • Engineers and laborers drained a strategically located marsh to build the city • The tsar based the city on Venice and Amsterdam • St. Petersburg featured its own harbor and canals • It contained towering modern buildings • The Europeanized city did not look like any other Russian town Peter Westernized every aspect of city life The well-organized grid of streets and identical houses emphasized his power He renamed and remodeled all state institutions to fit Western models He forced the aristocracy to adopt European dress and shave their beards Nobles discarded their long robes in favor of European breeches and coats Those who refused to shave were forcibly coerced Peter also hosted assamblei (fashionable balls) and introduced the minuet (slow and graceful ballroom dance for two, the minuet first appeared in the French royal court during the 17th century. Its name derives from the small (menu means “small”) steps required to perform the dance. 18th-century composers often included a minuet-style piece in triple time as a movement in a larger composition.) Despite heavy resistance, Peter the Great successfully implemented his reforms In part, he triumphed due to sheer ruthlessness His alterations, however, did benefit some segments of the population Still, controversies over Westernization remained for two centuries Communism later declared itself the supreme Westernizing force However, the Soviet Communist movement still diverged from Western ideals The emergence of Russian nationalism : Nationalism only gained major momentum in the late 18th century German nationalist philosophers influenced the educated Russian elite Both nations worked to collect folk songs Russians also began to take interest in their native Slavic language At the time, the urbanized nobility mostly spoke French The Russian elite viewed nationalism in completely cultural terms at this time Napoleon Invades Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 truly launched Russian nationalistic fervor Authorities realized that the army required the support of the entire population Political nationalism first appeared in mass produced patriotic posters and leaflets These advertisements urged all Russians to unite as a single nation They asked individuals to pledge their main loyalty to their nation The pamphlets succeeded in uniting the Russian population • Russian peasants fought French invaders with axes and sticks • Citizens set fire to Moscow rather than relinquish it to French forces • The defeat of Napoleon gave rise to Russian national awareness • Outcomes of the Napoleonic Wars Though their victory united Russian citizens, the 1812 Patriotic War also fostered dissent Russian military officers and soldiers realized their country’s backwardness These men fought Napoleon back to Paris En route, they noticed the superior infrastructure and greater equality in Europe They also realized that serfdom was incredibly outdated (Serfdom refers to exploitation of rural peasants by the landowning nobility. The peasants, called serfs, worked for the wealthy landowners in exchange for legal protection and certain other rights. In essence, serfs lived in a condition of modified slavery, as they received no pay and depended on their landlords for all manner of legal, economic, and social welfare.) Most European nations had outlawed serfdom centuries prior Another Outcome: The Decembrist Uprising, 1825 Dissatisfied soldiers revolted against the new tsar Nicholas I in December 1825 • The “Decembrists” aimed to incite social reform • Unfortunately, their revolution failed • The tsar hanged five of the rebel leaders • He also exiled many other participants to Siberia • Thus, Napoleon’s invasion also revealed growing frustration within Tsarist Russia • Establishment of Russian Nationalism In 1833, the Russian government established Official Nationalism All Russian schools would teach students this new state ideology Minister of Education Sergei Uvarov introduced the doctrine He described it with a slogan: “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality” Orthodoxy referred to the dominant Russian religion, the Orthodox Church Autocracy embodied the unquestionable absolute sovereignty of the tsar However, even Uvarov did not truly understand “Nationality” (narodnost’) At this point, dissatisfied intellectuals developed the concept of nationalism The Russian government did not yet see nationalism as a weapon they could employ Pyotr Chaadayev Chaadayev’s concerns Pyotr Chaadayev (1794-1856) expressed concern about Russia’s cultural backwardness His “Philosophical Letter” of 1829 addressed this issue Chaadayev noted that European nations shared common history and traditions Their societies held similar views on justice, law, order, and duty By contrast, Russia never participated in this community Thus, Russia lacked these basic European principles The authorities refused to publish Chaadayev’s “Philosophical Letter” They thought his ideas too controversial Instead, they declared him insane and treated him as such Regardless, manuscript copies spread throughout the nation (USAD made this corrections in June.) ‘‘In his land, Peter the Great found only a blank sheet of paper, and he wrote on it: ‘Europe and the West’; since then we have belonged to Europe and the West” Chaadayev’s work inspired two different ideological groups in the mid-19th century Westernizers believed Russians was part of Europe They supported continued imitation of Western traditions Slavophiles focused on Russia’s “blind, superficial and awkward imitation” of the West This group advocated the reversal of Peter the Great’s Westernizing reforms Slavophiles also wanted to firmly distinguish Russian Orthodoxy (Eastern Christianity) from Western Christianity (especially Catholicism) They called to reinstate communal law and other abolished practices They claimed Eastern Christians favored authority and faith over logic and reason Slavophiles also spoke of a new world order led by Russia, not Europe Like Chaadayev, many other 19th-century intellectuals compared Russians to Westerners Most comparisons were to the French and Germans The French were old enemies from 1812 Meanwhile, the Germans made up a large part of St. Petersburg’s high society Comparison and contrast formed the basis for defining Russian “national character” However, this method of analysis also resulted in national stereotypes The French were brilliant but the Russians were profound The Germans were industrious but the Russians were humane and empathetic “Russian character” proved nothing but a philosophical construct Philosophical Influence on Music 19th-century Russian composers sought to differentiate themselves from the West Glinka attempted to create a new style of opera He believed Russia displayed greater melancholy than sunny Italy Thus, Russian opera should be more sorrowful than widespread Italian opera The Mighty Handful would adopt similar ideas in the 1860s National stereotypes played a major role in the creation of “Russian style” From the beginning, composers defined Russian music as non-German German stereotypes thus became a major factor in Russian musical development Class Divisions A great divide existed between the educated elite and the lower classes Late 18th-century writers claimed national character stemmed from the lower classes Upper-class Russians spoke French and tended toward the cosmopolitan “The people” (lower-class peasants) made up the majority of the population Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796) descended from Germans However, she occasionally wore Russian national garb to tease courtiers The gentry and the peasantry rarely interacted on a regular basis Even servants in noble households did not maintain ties to their rural backgrounds Despite their claims, the elite knew little about the general population Catherine the Great Abolition of Serfdom The abolition of serfdom in 1861 sparked renewed interest in the peasantry The Peredvizhniki (Russian Realist school) did not idealize peasant life in paintings The Narodnik (populist) movement inspired intellectuals to move to the countryside Most narodniks were students who left their city homes to join the peasantry The narodniks provided education and medical assistance to rural peasants Peasants often treated the narodniks with indifference or even resentment Author Leo Tolstoy worked with peasants on his land Interestingly, the peasants placed more stock in social hierarchy than the wealthy The appearance of their superiors seemed unnatural He wore a collarless peasant shirt However, he still lived off the rent from said peasants Nikolai Palchikov moved to a village to collect folk song melodies In the village, he worked as a country judge The peasants ultimately accepted him and helped him in his transcriptions • Composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839- 1881) revealed the greatest narodnik influence in art music • He originally hailed from the landowning gentry • However, he lost his wealth after the emancipation of the serfs • Despite his reversal of fortune, Mussorgsky maintained sympathy for the poor • He wrote songs presenting different peasant characters • For instance, his song “Trepak” features a drunk and depressed peasant • This miserable character falls to the snow to awaits his death East and West Even as they defined the West, Russians also explored the East The Russian empire spanned a huge continuous stretch of land Finland and Poland formed the Western boundaries The Black and Caspian Seas lay to the South Eventually, the empire stretched from the Baltic to the Pacific “The East” covered many different nationalities and cultures Still, Russians considered a few regions stereotypically “Eastern” These included the Caucasus region, Central Asia, and the Far East Russian soldiers constantly fought tribes in the Caucasus Mountains and Transcaucasia These tribes waged war on their conquerors hoping to reassert their independence Russians stereotyped “the East” just as they did the West Russians viewed the East as exotic The East, however, was under Russian control These stereotypes affected musical Orientalism80 Expansion into Central Asia also influenced Orientalism to a lesser extent The Russian Far East did not influence 19th-century music as much This region was too distant and relatively unpopulated Thus, it received little scholarly attention Perspectives on the role of the East differed Westernizers dismissed the East entirely Slavophiles, by contrast, gladly emphasized the role of the East They claimed the region would not contribute to Russian cultural growth They claimed the East influenced Russian fatalism, mysticism, and autocracy The elite emphasized both the similarities and differences between Russia and the East They often juxtaposed Russia’s simplicity with the East’s exotic extravagance However, Russians also “Orientalized” themselves They emphasized their differences from the West and similarities to the East They depicted themselves as “Barbarians” who opposed Western corruption Track 3: “The Glory Chorus” from A Life for the Tsar Background “The Glory Chorus” comes from the finale of Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar This opera as a whole exemplifies Official Nationalism Different elements in this work illustrate “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" Featured excerpt In the score, Glinka identifies “The Glory Chorus” as a “hymnmarch” The onstage military band emphasizes the martial aspect of the march rhythm Glinka also uses harmonies unusual for an opera The rhythm imitates a Russian Orthodox chant This rhythm consists of a half-note followed by two quarter notes Outer voices move in parallel thirds Such harmonies frequently appear in Orthodox hymns Glinka’s score thus indicates religious and nationalist influences Like the rest of the opera, “The Glory Chorus” embodies Official Nationalism In addition to the “hymn” aspects above, Glinka uses church bells to show Orthodoxy The church bells also reflect Nationality The lyrics glorify the first Romanov tsar in keeping with the principle of Autocracy Glinka: The Father of Russian Music Most Russian music histories begin with Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857) Virtually all historians agree that true Russian classical music started with Glinka’s work Many consider his first opera, A Life for the Tsar (1836), the first Russian national opera Of course, opera existed in Russia before Glinka Peter the Great began the development of Russian art music He hoped to prove Russia’s status as an international power His assamblei featured dance music byWestern musicians Peter hoped to recreate Western-style music as part of his Westernization campaign Actual opera first appeared in Russia during Tsaritsa Anna’s reign It began as a foreign import from Italy In 1731, an Italian company performed Calandro by Giovanni Ristori in Moscow In 1736, Russian musicians collaborated with an Italian troupe in St. Petersburg They performed The Power of Love and Hate by Francesco Araja Glinka continued From then on, opera flourished in Russia The Russian Imperial Court welcomed Italian and French troupes Private opera houses opened in St. Petersburg The first Russian-language libretto appeared in 1755 This development allowed opera to reach wider audiences The story centered on the myth of Cephalus and Procris Italian instructors trained Russian opera singers Glinka’s predecessors set the stage for Russian opera composition Maxim Berezovsky (1745-1777) was the first Russian opera composer to achieve fame These Italian-trained composers conformed to accepted Western genres Audiences in Russia and abroad recognized his name Other opera composers included Yevstigenei Fomin (1761-1800) and Dmitri Bortnyansky (1751-1825) While studying in Italy, they wrote opera seria (“serious opera”) These works used mythology as their subject matter One could not differentiate between the Russian and Italian opera seria In Russia, these composers created comic operas based on French archetypes However, the librettos featured Russian language The composers included distinctly Russian plots and characters Audiences reacted favorably to the familiar elements Russian comic operas thus enjoyed considerable popularity Glinka’s Innovations Many of Glinka’s “innovations” actually existed in the works of his predecessors Glinka’s works often incorporated folk melodies Fomin’s Coachmen at the Relay Station (1787) also reflected folk influence The opera’s opening chorus imitates a protyazhnaya folk song The solo singer is eventually joined by the chorus Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar (1836) focused on a historical, not mythological, subject The story centers on peasant Ivan Susanin He gave his own life to save the future Tsar Mikhail Romanov In 1815, Catarino Cavos premiered an opera based on the same tale A Venetian by birth, Cavos lived and worked in St. Petersburg His version of the story remained immensely popular It took time for Glinka’s opera to step out of Cavos’ shadow Glinka’s great ambition set him apart from his peers and predecessors His skilled originality put him on par with his European contemporaries These peers included Vincenzo Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Hector Berlioz A Life for the Tsar featured no spoken dialogue Every line was sung It was the first Russian-language opera to attempt such a feat Cavos’ version featured long sections of spoken text between arias and songs Glinka’s ambition proves surprising given his upbringing He lacked any formal composition training86 In fact, Glinka regarded himself as a student even in his late years Born to landowners, Glinka participated in his uncle’s private orchestra This ensemble mostly played fashionable overtures Based on this experience, Glinka might have become a composer of light, elegant songs and dances for aristocratic salons In his apprenticeship, he did create such works However, they did not satisfy his lofty aspirations Glinka honed his skills abroad before returning to dominate Russian opera In Italy, Glinka studied vocal composition He could have settled for writing Italian-style arias and operas However, he dared to dream of a purely Russian operatic form This Russian opera would draw subject matter from Russian history It would prove more serious and musically demanding than Italian opera Glinka learned more difficult compositional techniques in Germany There he studied with theorist Siegfried Dehn In 1834, Glinka returned to Russia after hearing of his father’s death In Glinka’s last year of life, however, he would return to Germany to visit Dehn A Life for the Tsar Glinka’s first opera, A Life for the Tsar, premiered at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre in 1836 The opera featured a clearly monarchist message The storyline implied the divine authority of the Romanov dynasty Russia successfully fought off a Polish invasion in 1613 Afterward, the first Romanov tsar took the throne The peasant Ivan Susanin fooled the Poles to allow the tsar time to escape When they discovered the deception, the Poles killed Susanin At the end of the opera, Susanin dies in a forest The epilogue concludes with a somber march Afterward, the chorus cries, “Glory to the Tsar!” Naturally, Tsar Nicholas I supported the performance87 Besides the imperialist storyline, the libretto came from the court itself Following the premiere, Nicholas I showered Glinka with recognition Baron Rosen, secretary to Nicholas’ heir Alexander II, wrote the libretto He offered the composer a royal ring as a token of favor Furthermore, he offered Glinka the highest musical position in his court Despite imperial recognition, Glinka did not write A Life for the Tsar on commission He actually composed quite a bit of the music before Rosen completed the libretto As Glinka intended, A Life for the Tsar sounds distinctly Russian Glinka first created musical contrast between the Russians and the Poles He characterized the Poles using two Polish ballroom dances Russians were familiar with both the polonaise and the mazurka Both dances involved 3/4 time and dotted rhythms Glinka used more songlike pieces in 2/4 and 4/4 to illustrate the Russians In Act III, Glinka dramatically juxtaposed both styles The Poles demand Susanin’s compliance in a mazurka rhythm Susanin defies them in a protyazhnaya style Glinka favored the imitation of folk themes rather than direct quotation The overture mimics a protyazhnaya The opera’s “Rowers’ Chorus” also features a protyazhnaya-like melody Glinka set this melody over a pizzicato string accompaniment The strings represent the balalaika, a plucked string instrument In the entire opera, Glinka only quotes two actual folk tunes The intelligentsia admired Glinka’s technique and the opera’s apparent Russianness Glinka’s compositions alluded to Russian folk and popular song They also reflected “Romance” influence These musical aspects made the fresh compositions seem familiar to Russian audiences Non-Russian audiences, by contrast, noticed the Italianate elements of the opera Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842) Glinka based his second opera on a narrative poem by Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) Many considered Pushkin Russia’s greatest 19th-century poet Unfortunately, he died before he could create a libretto for Glinka The resulting libretto received a great deal of criticism The fairy-tale opera emphasizes musical color over drama Thus, the five acts pass very slowly In this work, Glinka continued to experiment with the use of color to depict nationality A quoted Finnish song characterized Finn, a kindhearted sorcerer Glinka used many Orientalist devices to represent Ratmir, Lyudmila’s Eastern suitor Remember, Glinka composed this opera before Orientalist clichés developed The evil dwarf Chernomor received special musical treatment This supernatural creature possessed a beard seven times his height Glinka invented the whole-tone scale to depict Chernomor’s magical existence This scale divides the octave into six equal parts instead of eight It moves in whole steps only Glinka also called this scale his “chemical” scale The whole-tone scale put off conventional rules of tonal harmony This effect evoked a sense of the supernatural Use of this scale indicated that human laws did not apply to the magical creature The public did not react enthusiastically to the 1842 premiere of Ruslan and Lyudmila Performances discontinued shortly after the premiere Glinka considered this failure his greatest disappointment As a result of his letdown, Glinka traveled abroad extensively In Spain, Glinka took folk dancing lessons Glinka’s popularity plummeted from the high point reached with A Life for the Tsar His experiences inspired the orchestral pieces Jota Aragonesa (1845) and Night in Madrid (1848) In the end, Glinka returned to Russian styles in Kamarinskaya (1848) This orchestral work almost reconceived variation form Glinka’s legacy and musical contributions Russian composers mythologized Glinka and his contributions after his death They took his example as the foundation for a new markedly Russian compositional style His uncommon musical devices became part of Russian national heritage Some of these techniques came from Russian folk music Others, however, simply arose from Glinka’s own creativity Glinka championed the creation of folk-like musical idioms He believed art music could benefit from elements of folk songs and dances Only some of his folk melodies appeared as direct quotations Glinka imitated folk music in his original material He reproduced protyazhnayas and dance songs alike Glinka also cleverly reproduced folk heterophony He never lived with peasants or used audio technology Thus, he worked with limited understanding of the texture A Life for the Tsar demonstrates the composer’s affinity for folk-like sounds The introductory chorus switches between a solo singer and the chorus Glinka varied the number of individual voices present in the choral texture Like folk music, he wrote two or three parts that converged to a unison Glinka also employed the folk device peremennost’ This technique involved shifting between several equally important modal centers Unlike most Western music at the time, folk tunes did not center on one tonic Glinka’s chord progressions reflected this influence However, he still used standard harmonies Usually, Glinka moved between pairs of relative major and minor scales The widespread use of 5/4 meter began with Glinka This unusual meter appears in the wedding choruses of both A Life and Ruslan Indirectly, this device reflects folk influence Russian folk song typically uses five notes of different length for the five syllables Russian folk poetry featured five-syllable lines that accented the third syllable This characteristic frequently appeared in wedding songs Glinka, however, used five equal quarter notes Glinka’s disciples treated 5/4 as an authentic Russian meter They also experimented with other uncommon meters Borodin employed 7/4 Rimsky-Korsakov used 11/4 The whole-tone scale from Ruslan inspired other innovative scales Rimsky-Korsakov created the octatonic scale This scale alternates whole steps and half steps It spans eight notes, hence the term “octatonic” Rimsky-Korsakov’s invention proved more useful than the whole-tone scale 20th-century classical and jazz music incorporated the octatonic scale Glinka’s fans also divided their works into sections with different musical rules The composer also popularized “changing-background variations” In fact, Russian scholars refer to this technique as “Glinka variations” Typical variation form changes the melody while the accompaniment remains constant Glinka variations do the exact opposite The melody remains unchanged All other elements (harmony, instrumentation, etc.) vary Despite the deceptive name, Glinka did not originate the Glinka variations Beethoven uses this technique in “Ode to Joy” from his Ninth Symphony Movement 3 from Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 59 No. 2 also features this device In fact, it centers on a Russian melody Possibly, this earlier work inspired Glinka Regardless of the technique’s origin, Glinka created important examples For instance, he used folk themes with changing-background variations This musical technique honored the folk melody Glinka’s use of different musical colors for different nationalities in opera inspired others This same principle also appeared in the West There, composers referred to the technique as couleur locale Glinka’s supporters focused on two operatic genres They wrote heroic national dramas like A Life for the Tsar Also, they composed fairytales like Ruslan and Lyudmila Glinka’s orchestral works also influenced subsequent composers He never wrote any symphonies, only singlemovement overtures and fantasies Other composers wrote on Russian and non-Russian folk themes Balakirev composed the Czech Overture Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the Serbian Fantasy Glinka’s Kamarinskaya served as a model for future composers This piece features Glinka variations on two themes Similarly, Balakirev wrote Overture on Three Russian Themes Balakirev also composed the piano piece Islamey The composer Lyapunov created the virtuosic Lezghinka Etude for piano Track 4: Kamarinskaya Background The single-movement Kamarinskaya involves a slow theme and a fast theme Glinka alternates between variations on the slow and fast themes The Russian wedding song “From behind Tall Hills” forms the slow theme This theme occurs four times in different registers Each repetition features different texture The fourth statement appears in the bass line “Kamarinskaya” refers to the sprightly dance tune that makes up the fast theme This melody also lends its name to the piece as a whole Folk tradition repeated this theme in “dancetill-you drop” variations The piece’s form defies any previously established musical form Instead, Glinka reinvents the variation form His techniques elevate the folk melodies and variations The excerpt on the USAD CD begins with the first fast section The first violin section presents the opening statement of the theme Glinka then adds other instrumental voices to the mix Throughout the variations, Glinka barely alters the melody When he does, the alterations suggest virtuosic fiddling Each phrase sounds like an ostinato pattern The 11th statement modulates from major to minor Glinka emphasizes the opening notes of the slow theme The slow theme reappears for two-and-ahalf statements Then, the kamarinskaya dance tune resumes At one point, Glinka drops the melody altogether, leaving only the accompaniment The tempo slows down slightly as Glinka explores truly innovative variations A C-natural in the horn produces dissonance against a D-major harmony In the end, the tempo quickens triumphantly The Mighty Handful and “National” Style The birth of Russian music conservatories The Rubinstein brothers vastly enhanced musical education in Russia Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein rose to fame as one of the world’s top virtuoso pianists He also worked as a conductor and composer Anton’s younger brother Nikolai also performed as a pianist and conductor A Russian border-guard stopped Anton as he returned from a European concert tour Asked for his occupation, Anton replied that he was a “selfemployed artist” The guard did not recognize this profession Anton only received entry for being “the son of a merchant of the second rank” This incident inspired Anton to work to improve the status of Russian musicians Between 1859 and 1860, the Rubinstein brothers formed the Russian Music Society This institution organized a series of public concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow Anton worked in St. Petersburg while his brother lived in Moscow The repertoire featured major works by the likes of Beethoven, Schumann, and Mendelssohn For the first time in Russian history, the general population could access art music Previously, a handful of aristocratic enthusiasts shaped most Russian musical life The Rubinsteins also founded music conservatories in the two major cities The St. Petersburg Conservatory opened in 1862 and the Moscow Conservatory in 1866 Musicians and composers no longer needed to enroll in private classes Instead, these conservatories offered comprehensive five-year courses Most professors came from abroad, especially from Germany The conservatories increased the social prestige of musical careers in Russia Russia now entered the wider world of international art music Conservatories Vs. Mighty Handful The Mighty Handful led an anticonservatory movement in Russia These composers argued against conservatoriesdue to nationalistic concerns They feared the institutions would overly Westernize Russian music Conservatories, they claimed, revealed too much foreign influence Formation of the Mighty Handful Vladimir Stasov (1824-1906) and Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) became friends in the mid-1850s Both men loved the music world Balakirev performed as a pianist He also composed his own pieces Glinka personally encouraged Balakirev to continue composing Stasov worked as a prominent music critic Both dreamed of a distinctive Russian style of music This style should appeal to both domestic and international listeners Stasov and Balakirev hoped it would sound original and progressive Balakirev and Stasov assembled four other musicians who shared this goal Stasov first referred to the group as the moguchaya kuchka Literally, this name translates to “the mighty little heap” “Handful” sounds more elegant than the original Russian term In English, some refer to the group as “The Five” in reference to the five composers However, this term overlooks the sixth important member, Stasov Stasov alone of the Mighty Handful did not compose his own works Nonetheless, he helped establish the group’s nationalist ideology As a critic, he also promoted the group’s music and discredited rivals Balakirev served as the Mighty Handful’s musical mentor He was the only full-time musician in the group At the time, composers struggled to maintain a living Balakirev earned the majority of his income by teaching piano lessons He still lived in relative poverty The opera-loving Cesar Cui worked as an engineer building military fortifications Army officer Modest Mussorgsky played the piano skillfully However, he only composed polkas for aristocratic ladies Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed between tours of duty as a naval officer Alexander Borodin served as an internationally acclaimed chemistry professor He played the cello in his spare time Despite their talent, the four lacked knowledge of technique and important repertory Balakirev taught them the devices needed for large-scale works He also introduced them to the masterworks of famous composers Balakirev approached teaching differently than the conservatories Of course, Balakirev stood firmly opposed to the conservatories He favored a demanding but informal approach Unlike conservatories, he did not assign exercises or “pastiche” composition Instead, Balakirev played arrangements of symphonies on the piano Mussorgsky, the skilled pianist, often joined him in duets Balakirev then pointed out interesting forms, features and techniques Balakirev sometimes created his own terms to explain music theory Balakirev did assign ambitious homework projects, though Despite his stringent expectations, Balakirev also proved incredibly kindhearted He himself composed passages that seemed beyond the skill of his students He instructed Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov to write a symphony The task required a good amount of help and advice, according to letters Mussorgsky and Cui attempted to write operas When the scores were published, Balakirev did not claim credit In the end, Balakirev’s pupils surpassed him in terms of fame He selflessly devoted his attention to cultivating the group’s skill and creativity Thus, he did not spend enough time on his own works Completed late in his career, his works did not receive great recognition Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade features arabesque100 patterns in solo violin A similar device appears in the solo clarinet from Balakirev’s Tamara Balakirev’s work probably inspired RimskyKorsakov’s However, Scheherazade’s greater popularity leads listeners to believe the opposite Creating “Russian style” Balakirev and Stasov aimed to create the image of a unified “musical party” Cui also proved instrumental in molding the Handful’s public image His writings saw publication in both Russia and France The group worked in close cooperation in the 1860s The composers wrote their first large-scale works collectively Balakirev believed the compositional process should involve the entire group’s input At first, the composers all pursued similar ideals In later years, however, their ideas diverged considerably To create “Russianness,” Balakirev mainly advocated avoidance of Western clichés Balakirev used pieces by some Western composers as negative examples for his pupils Felix Mendelssohn’s works allegedly represented Germanic “routine” Balakirev hated the smooth musical periods characteristic of these pieces Balakirev also disparaged the overly sentimental compositions of Frederic Chopin However, Balakirev did approve of “progressive,” original Western composers Balakirev championed the works of Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann He admired these composers’ use of strong rhythmic motives Moreover, he liked their compelling experiments with form Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz also met with Balakirev’s approval These composers skillfully wrote “program music” Their compositions used musical colors to depict characters and events In addition to these Western composers, Balakirev also promoted Glinka’s works Above all else, Balakirev stressed the importance of originality in composition “Russianness” would result from avoidance of Western devices For instance, he instructed his students to avoid common harmonic progressions He considered the IV-V-I cadence too clichéd Instead, he suggested skipping the dominant (V), creating a IV-I cadence Otherwise, the composers might disguise the dominant chord Balakirev also taught his students to incorporate folk and Oriental idioms The Mighty Handful turned to folk song for non-Western material Balakirev alone traveled through Russia to collect folk melodies Most of the songs came from educated individuals, not the peasants themselves106 Still, Balakirev published 40 of these tunes in 1866 His collection included his own original piano accompaniments The Mighty Handful seized this material for their own compositions These accompaniment devices reflected Balakirev’s tastes, not the original tunes However, due to the Handful’s widespread use, many listeners mistakenly The Caucasus region inspired the Handful to develop the Oriental style Balakirev absorbed Georgian, Armenian, and Turkic musical elements ¨ New melodic and instrumentation ideas shaped the Handful’s works ¨ These foreign devices helped distance the Handful from Western composers ¨ Oriental music sounded instantly non-Western ¨ It proved more difficult to make folk music sound non-Western o Audiences reacted favorably to the Oriental style o Western listeners began to notice the Handful o For various reasons, they identified all Handful compositions as distinctly “Russian” Many Russian composers incorporated the new Oriental style in some of their works Balakirev began the movement in the 1860s with his piece Islamey Finished in 1869, this piano piece centers on a Caucasian-inspired folk dance Balakirev applied Glinka variations to the theme Liszt’s virtuosic compositions also influenced Balakirev’s piece Rimsky-Korsakov wrote Antar (1868), a symphonic suite The music depicted an Eastern fairy tale in Oriental style Borodin’s opera Prince Igor featured the Orientalist Polovtsian Dances Mussorgsky and Cui also experimented with Oriental themes in opera The Handful also turned to Glinka’s oeuvre (composer’s lifetime works) for inspiration Thanks to the Handful, listeners considered Glinka’s innovations innately “Russian” In particular, these composers favored the changing-background variations form This device proved especially useful for pieces based on folk themes Rimsky-Korsakov expanded on Glinka’s approach to the supernatural His fairytale and supernatural works featured Glinka’s whole-tone scale Rimsky-Korsakov also invented the octatonic scale This scale alternates half steps and whole steps It contains eight pitches in an octave rather than the typical seven Russian scholars call this device the “RimskyKorsakov scale” Today, jazz composers still use the scale Like Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov used his unique scale to suspend tonal rules This effect resulted in an unearthly, exotic sound In Sadko, this scale represents the Underwater Kingdom Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Kashchei the Deathless also features this scale The Mighty Handful also embraced Glinka’s use of unusual meters They realized folk melodies did not easily conform to regular meters Thus, they switched between measures of 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 Besides Glinka’s trademark 5/4, his followers used 7/4 and 11/4 Second Symphony, Opening Alexander Borodin composed this symphony Russian musicians nicknamed the piece Bogatyrskaya o Borodin did not intend to create a truly programmatic piece However, he thought the opening theme represented bogatyri, ancient Russian warriors The striking opening begins with a unison line carried by the entire orchestra The first movement repeats this first phrase several times Each repetition sounds more grand Borodin employs augmentation, lengthening the note values of the phrase Two keys shape the opening section It starts out in B minor, though the first phrase contains two chromatic pitches The repetition of the phrase modulates to D major The piece continues to hover between these two closely related keys Unlike German symphonic allegros, the symphony does not establish one main key The uncertainty of the key vaguely reflects the folk technique of peremennost’ In peremennost’, a piece shifts between two modal centers Unlike Western music, no single tonic defines the key of the piece Mussorgsky’s Experiments in Operatic Realism Modest Mussorgsky Historians typically present Mussorgsky as the only significant Handful composer They celebrate his opera Boris Godunov His piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition also receives lavish praise Modern critics applaud him as a genius who foresaw modernist harmonies and forms Mussorgsky’s contemporaries hardly shared such complimentary views Even the Mighty Handful considered him half competent His ideas seemed insane to his peers Some believed Mussorgsky suffered from mental instability Like the rest of the Handful, Mussorgsky strove to avoid Western clichés in his operas Mussorgsky particularly sought to differentiate his work from Italian opera Germany dominated most other musical genres However, Italy led the operatic world The Russian court favored Italian opera and overpaid Italian singers Meanwhile, the Russian opera company failed due to neglect Mussorgsky disapproved of sweet Italian melodies and complicated plots He and the Handful preferred to stage realistic events and characters To this end, they dispensed with the formal clichés of Italian opera Dargomyzhsky’s influence The Handful admired the operatic work of Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813-69) Dargomyzhsky and the Handful interacted on good terms in the late 1860s At that time, Dargomyzhsky began The Stone Guest This opera centered on Pushkin’s “little tragedy” of the same name Mozart’s famous opera Don Giovanni revolves around a similar plot Dargomyzhsky felt words were more important than music in an opera Thus, he decided to preserve Pushkin’s text exactly In other words, he opted not to create a different libretto Only two short songs appeared in Pushkin’s original As a result, Dargomyzhsky replaced the standard arias with declamatory pieces These passages proved taxing for both audiences and singers Listeners struggled to follow the unconventional operatic form Meanwhile, the singers found the music more difficult to memorize Fortunately for the listeners and singers, Dargomyzhsky died before completing The Stone Guest The Marriage Mussorgsky took Dargomyzhsky’s approach a step further He decided to write an opera based on The Marriage by Nikolai Gogol The play focuses on a commitment-shy bachelor In the end, he does not appear at his own wedding Gogol’s comedy was written in prose, not verse like Pushkin’s The Stone Guest This difference complicated Mussorgsky’s task Unlike Dargomyzhsky, he could not use the poetic rhythms to aid his compositions Mussorgsky painstakingly imitated the inflections of spoken dialogue To notate the intonations, Mussorgsky read each line out like an actor He aimed to add another level of realism to the characters through their music Furthermore, Mussorgsky rejected typical harmonic progressions He also used musical themes to represent stage action For instance, a light and elegant theme indicates the buttonholes in a frock-coat After finishing the first act, Mussorgsky discontinued work The work had become too long Regardless, he considered the experiment useful as important practice in realism THE MARRIAGE The Marriage, though incomplete, alarmed the rest of the Mighty Handful Mussorgsky presented the first act to his friends At the piano, he performed the parts with gusto His fellow composers realized that audiences would not accept such a composition The music proved incredibly challenging for soloists Besides that, audiences would struggle to find coherent melodies The disjointed harmonies increased doubts of Mussorgsky’s abilities The Marriage Mussorgsky Stasov dedicated the first act to Stasov accepted the score but hid it away for years ¨ He believed it would damage Mussorgsky’s reputation as a composer The score reappeared after Mussorgsky’s death ¨ At this point, music had progressed considerably ¨Stasov believed that the public would receive the performance more sympathetically Boris Godunov After abandoning The Marriage, Mussorgsky began a new project He created an opera based on Pushkin’s tragic play Boris Godunov Boris Godunov takes place during the time period after Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar The events occur immediately preceding the dawn of the Romanov dynasty During this “Time of Troubles,” Russia experienced political instability Unlike Glinka, Mussorgsky does not unquestioningly venerate the Tsar Rather than spew propaganda, the opera requires its audience to think critically Boris Godunov The opera questions the legitimacy of Tsar Boris Godunov’s regime Godunov takes the throne after the murder of a child who stood in his way Most likely, Godunov himself ordered the killing Boris’ rule seems benevolent, but a monk records the truth Meanwhile, a rival challenges Boris’ authority The Russian people, however, will live in poverty regardless of who rules Boris Godunov Mussorgsky produced two separate versions of Boris Godunov The first version (1869) more closely adheres to Pushkin’s original and operatic realism This adaptation does not strictly conform to standard conventions Mussorgsky does not divide the action into separate musical numbers The score contains no arias It does, however, include a few “ariosos,” or “monologues” Boris Godunov Most shockingly, Mussorgsky does not include a role for a prima donna This lead female singer often served as the central attraction of an opera Without a prima donna, Boris Godunov lacks a love story A dark, serious mood prevails in Boris Godunov Some comic relief appears in the Inn Scene The Imperial Theatres demanded that Mussorgsky revise the manuscript Boris Godunov Thus, in 1872, Mussorgsky unveiled a second, more widely acceptable version He added a vivid Polish Act that allowed him to include a prima donna Western music characterized the Polish Marina Mniszek Thus, Mussorgsky could afford to give her a typical love duet By contrast, Mussorgsky used experimental techniques for Russian characters Mussorgsky also wrote some songs for a scene between Boris and his children These tunes did not drive the plot However, they allowed the audience a break from declamatory songs Boris Godunov Finally, Mussorgsky created a whole new closing scene Unlike the first version, the revision did not end with Boris’ death Instead, the conclusion featured a peasant revolt This addition added political overtones to a previously psychological work The opera now concerned the whole nation, not just Boris’ conscience The second version of Boris served as an effective compromise The extravagant effects and vocal virtuosity suited the Imperial Theatres However, the music still fits Mussorgsky’s realist and nationalist ideals Boris Godunov features progressive realism and sounds distinctly Russian Realism manifests in the characters’ speech and conversation Different characters speak in unique ways The monk Pimen sounds noble and stately The Innkeeper sings in a folk style Her music echoes that of the Matchmaker in The Marriage Moreover, naturally Mussorgsky presents the music The Innkeeper sings a song to herself rather than the audience Boris’ coronation does not feature a fulllength aria, only a few brief thoughts Boris Godunov To create national color, Mussorgsky imitated folk themes He represented folk choral singing more accurately than Glinka ever did Mussorgsky also used bell-like sounds reminiscent of the Russian Orthodox Church In the Coronation Scene, the entire orchestra imitated the bells Lower instruments represented large bells Smaller instruments symbolized the more frequent medium bells Rimsky-Korsakov this idea helped Mussorgsky orchestrate Boris Godunov Mussorgsky alternates two dissonant chords Both chords share the same tritone interval This technique reflects the lack of precise tuning in bells Unfortunately, many of Mussorgsky’s complex harmonies went unrecognized His contemporaries dismissed them as evidence of incompetence Only later did critics and audiences appreciate his innovations Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov While he wrote Boris Godunov, Mussorgsky shared an apartment with RimskyKorsakov At the time, Mussorgsky worked as a civil servant, copying documents The two men took turns composing at the piano When Mussorgsky was working, RimskyKorsakov wrote The Maid of Pskov Like Boris Godunov, this tragic opera also focused on Russian history Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov Rimsky-Korsakov later became a Conservatory professor Thus, he rejected many of the Handful’s key ideas After Mussorgsky’s death, Rimsky-Korsakov revised Boris Godunov Obviously, he no longer opposed the Eurocentric conservatories In the process, he changed 80% of Mussorgsky’s original score He also provided more acceptable harmonies Rimsky-Korsakov re-orchestrated the opera in a more grand style For decades, Rimsky-Korsakov’s version dominated the international scene However present-day opera houses perform Mussorgsky’s original instead Track 6: Boris’ Death Scene from Boris Godunov Background This piece appears in Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov125 In the first version, this scene serves as the conclusion The second version includes an additional scene following this one In this selection, a dying Boris Godunov gives his son a few final commands Featured Excerpt The excerpt begins with Boris’ prayer He sings in a solemn monotone, accompanied by a lyrical melody in the orchestra A bell rings out, signaling the beginning of Boris’ funeral rites Boris’ impatient rival, the boyar Shuisky, ordered the service Of course, Boris still lives, if only for a moment Featured Excerpt The orchestra imitates the tolling of the bells A dissonant chord in the middle register follows a bass note and gong An actual bell sounds as well Offstage, the chorus sings a chant Mussorgsky uses a diatonic melody Thus, he attempts to evoke music older than that of the Orthodox Church Against the sound of the ceremony, Boris delivers his final thoughts Mussorgsky notates this music in speech-like declamation However, the singer does not necessarily follow the exact pitches in the score Mussorgsky wanted a naturalistic scene Thus, he allows the performer to decide his style of delivery At the climax, a sudden harmonic change pauses on a brilliant chord Boris cries “Wait! I am still the Tsar!” and dies Mussorgsky’s beautiful score allows the audience to sympathize with Boris Russian Orientalism in Music Ruslan Glinka In and Lyudmila by Mikhail the 19th century, Russia comprised an expanding multinational empire Russian culture revealed great interest in the exotic Occasionally, this fascination involved political underpinnings Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka Ruslan and Lyudmila illustrates the Russian obsession with the East Glinka uses exotic-sounding devices to characterize Lyudmila’s suitor Ratmir Ratmir, a Khan of Khazaria, comes from the Orient Glinka scored the male role for a contralto female voice The English horn accompanies Ratmir’s relaxed musical phrases It imitates the zurna, an instrument popular in the Caucasus and Central Asia Both woodwind instruments require a double reed Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka A Russian woman, Gorislava, attempts to woo Ratmir as he searches for Lyudmila In the end, Ratmir and Gorislava become a couple, joining the reunited titular pair The finale features a Turkish dance theme Glinka envisioned Ruslan as a political representation of the Russian empire He originally planned to stage several tableaux vivants of the empire during the finale However, this idea did not come to fruition In the Steppes of Central Asia by Alexander Borodin Alexander II commissioned this orchestral piece for his silver jubilee in 1880 Borodin intended In the Steppes of Central Asia to celebrate the Russian empire The piece focused on the empire’s recent territorial acquisitions He offered a programmatic image of a caravan moving through the Asian desert The piece centers on two themes One reflects Oriental character The other sounds like a Russian folk song Though stated separately, Borodin eventually unites them with counterpoint Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin Borodin’s only opera, Prince Igor, juxtaposes the Russians and the Polovtsians Also called the Cumans, these nomads wandered between Southeastern Europe and Central Asia They frequently raided Russia in the 11th century Though he never finished the opera, Borodin seemed to respect both forces equally The Polovtsian Act features a wide variety of Orientalist ideas Borodin borrowed some devices from Glinka and Balakirev However, he also invented some of his own Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin In Act II, the first female chorus involves a long pedal note In Western tradition, pedal notes usually created tension and anticipation The melody moves slowly above the pedal note, with barely shifting harmonies Russian music, on the other hand, uses pedal notes to circumvent tension altogether It features a great deal of ornamentation135 The dance of the boys featured rapid triplet ostinato This technique captured the fiery and wild nature of the Polovtsians Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin Russian Orientalism typically featured certain elements The augmented second interval reflected Turkic influence Orientalist pieces also frequently used chromatic harmonies Unfortunately, this device became clichéd in the 20th century For instance, chords might move in half steps over a pedal note Composers also typically featured solo woodwinds They favored double-reed instruments like the oboe, bassoon, and English horn Orientalist compositions also called for a good deal of percussion Many Orientalist works used compound meters like 3/8 and 6/8 Track 7: Scheherazade, First Movement Background Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov premiered his symphonic suite Scheherazade in 1888 He drew inspiration from the Persian stories in Thousand and One Nights Scheherazade must entertain the king with a new story every night If she fails, he will order her execution Track 7: Scheherazade, First Movement The piece comprises four movements Originally, Rimsky-Korsakov assigned each movement a programmatic title However, he later removed them He felt they inhibited true appreciation of his music Track 7: Scheherazade, First Movement: Featured excerpt The first movement opens with musical representations of the king and Scheherazade An imposing unison figure in the lower register illustrates the king Meanwhile, a solo violin represents Scheherazade The solo line features an expressive arabesque line of triplets Rimsky-Korsakov allows the soloist to vary tempo freely This melody symbolizes Scheherazade preparing to tell a story Track 7: Scheherazade, First Movement The tale in question centers on Sinbad and his ship Rimsky-Korsakov opens this section with music representing the sea Like the waves, the music rises and falls Long pedal notes and slow-moving harmony emphasize the sea’s perpetual motion Former naval officer Rimsky-Korsakov often depicted the sea in his music Germanic music typically directed harmonic phrases toward cadences By contrast, Russian music features more wandering phrases with great freedom Orientalist music especially emphasized this sense of aimlessness Mr. Cosmopolitan: Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky vs. the Mighty Handful Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) began his career differently than the Mighty Handful He was one of the first graduates of the St. Petersburg Conservatory There, Tchaikovsky studied composition under Anton Rubinstein After graduating, Tchaikovsky accepted a professorship at the Moscow Conservatory Tchaikovsky vs. the Mighty Handful Unlike the Handful, Tchaikovsky did not adhere to strict nationalist guidelines He received criticism for producing overly cosmopolitan works Stasov and Cui claimed Tchaikovsky did not qualify as a Russian musician Tchaikovsky disagreed with the Handful’s narrow concept of Russianness Rather, he was a Germanic composer living in Russia He thought himself equally Russian The Handful convinced the world of their position However, Tchaikovsky’s music still proved immensely popular Tchaikovsky vs. the Mighty Handful Tchaikovsky vs. the Mighty Handful However, in the 1860s, Tchaikovsky actually associated closely with the Handful He especially respected Balakirev’s compositional style Tchaikovsky incorporated some of Balakirev’s ideas in his own works His Second Symphony centered on a Ukrainian folk song Tchaikovsky then developed this theme with changing-background variations Tchaikovsky vs. the Mighty Handful Romeo and Juliet, a concert overture, uses Balakirev’s two favorite keys The sonata allegro revolves around B minor and D-flat major The two keys lie far apart on the circle of fifths B minor features two sharps and D-flat major contains five flats Tchaikovsky modulates abruptly between the two in true Balakirev style Romeo and Juliet Tchaikovsky achieved his first major success with the Romeo and Juliet overture The beautiful love theme reflects influence from Italian opera He first states this theme modestly with transparent orchestration At the piece’s climax, the theme returns full-force with grand instrumentation A countermelody and other layers also contribute to the lush texture Romeo and Juliet Tchaikovsky proved especially adept at composing powerful musical climaxes Typically, he raises the piece to its highest point and slowly winds it down However, in Romeo and Juliet, he interrupts the glorious climax The warring families theme overpowers the love theme Tchaikovsky and psychorealism Tchaikovsky also revealed a knack for accurately portraying sequences of intense emotions Scholars termed this illusion psychorealism Tchaikovsky achieved this effect primarily through use of harmony Listeners associate standard progressions with emotional tension and resolution For instance, the dominant creates tension The expected tonic allows resolution of this tension Delaying resolution increased the sense of emotional tension Moving from the dominant to a non-tonic harmony creates a sense of unease Tchaikovsky and psychorealism 19th-century composers mastered the complexities of harmonic psychorealism Tchaikovsky and Richard Wagner both excelled at this emotional manipulation Tchaikovsky’s psychorealist techniques appeared in his programmatic instrumental pieces He wrote pieces based on the tragedies Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Manfred He also incorporated emotions in his nonprogrammatic symphonies Listeners easily associate emotions to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony Listeners recognize the opening fanfare as a “Fate theme” This theme returns several times to wreak havoc against the human protagonist Note that said protagonist is not necessarily Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony Tchaikovsky based the Fourth Symphony’s finale on a recognizable folk theme This tune is titled “In the field there stood a birch tree” Tchaikovsky develops the theme with Glinka variations However, unlike the Handful, Tchaikovsky only uses it as a component of the drama The Handful would use the theme as a piece of national heritage Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony The Mighty Handful took issue with Tchaikovsky’s treatment of the folk song First, Tchaikovsky did not exalt the folk song Worse yet, Tchaikovsky did not preserve the original three-measure phrases Instead, he reconfigured the piece to more Western four-measure phrases Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony Nadezhda von Meck requested a programmatic explanation of the finale According to Tchaikovsky, the hero mingles with a joyous crowd However, he cannot forget his own troubles In the middle of the folk celebration, the Fate theme reappears Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin Tchaikovsky achieved his greatest fame as a composer of symphonies However, he also composed ten operas and three ballets Tchaikovsky believed opera was the most democratic art genre Unlike the Handful, he aimed to create popular “grand operas” However, he did write a few more “realist” operas His most famous opera, Eugene Onegin, does not fit either of these categories This opera was one of few Russian works to enjoy international fame Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin Eugene Onegin draws its plot from Pushkin’s eponymous verse novel Tchaikovsky found the characters more relatable than distant royal figures His psychorealist approach required him to empathize with his characters The story involves unhappy love among the rural elite Social circumstances restrict the characters As a result, their love seems doomed to failure Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin This opera takes place in a domestic setting Thus, Tchaikovsky does not feature excessive stage effects or virtuosic vocal passages Even decent amateur singers can perform most of the music The music imitates parlor songs (“romances”) popular during Pushkin’s time Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin The Mighty Handful did not recognize the music as Russian After all, it did not include folk-like melodies However, Tchaikovsky’s contemporaries would easily recognize the Russian aspects Eugene Onegin fits a broader definition of Russianness Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin Instead of reflecting peasant culture, Tchaikovsky uses material he better understands In other words, he uses Russian music popular in his own social class The upper and middle classes enjoyed the parlor songs that influenced Onegin Track 8: Beginning of the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony Background The Sixth Symphony was Tchaikovsky’s last To remain true to the tragic subject, Tchaikovsky broke conventions of symphonic form Most Western finales ended with loud, positive-sounding fanfare Instead, Tchaikovsky wrote a short, somber movement Many scholars consider this piece one of the best musical depictions of grief Track 8: Beginning of the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony: featured excerpt A descending conjunct theme in the violins opens the movement This theme seems to end in a question The reply always sounds terse and unsympathetic Regardless, the inquisitive theme becomes increasingly insistent Track 8: Beginning of the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony: featured excerpt The second theme contrasts starkly with the first The range broadens and the whole orchestra enters The second theme sounds more majestic and chorale-like Unlike the first theme, the second theme is in a major key Track 8: Beginning of the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony: featured excerpt As usual, the themes appear more grandly later in the piece At the climax, a pulsating rhythm suddenly halts the forward movement The music falls through the entire orchestral range Afterward, the speech-like phrases recreate the original grief-stricken mood Track 9: Beginning of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto Background Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) produced five piano concertos He worked as a composer, conductor, and virtuoso pianist146147 The Second Piano Concerto enjoys considerable popularity even today Rachmaninoff also composed the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Track 9: Beginning of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto Rachmaninoff compromised between the ideals of Tchaikovsky and the Handful He included the “Russian” folk idioms of the Handful However, like Tchaikovsky, he also favored psychorealism and emotional drama Track 9: Beginning of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto – featured excerpt The selection opens with a dramatic piano solo The pianist plays a sequence of chords The same bass note sounds after each chord Each successive chord builds the tension Scholars compare this texture with musical depictions of bells in Russian music Track 9: Beginning of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto – featured excerpt After the introduction, the orchestra presents the main theme The solo pianist plays a tempestuous accompaniment The relatively conjunct melody frequently doubles back on itself Track 9: Beginning of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto – featured excerpt Rachmaninoff often uses stepwise motion in his melodies The melodies derive from vocal songs Scholars relate these melodies to Russian Orthodox chants However, this particular melody involves a marchlike rhythm Overall, the piece reflects a mood of severe concentration Track 9: Beginning of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto – featured excerpt The piano adopts the melody The melody becomes more lyrical and melancholic However, the music builds to an intense climax in Tchaikovskian style In a momentary calm, a contrasting major theme appears in solo piano 149 Some features recall the Handful’s Orientalist style Track 9: Beginning of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto – featured excerpt However, scholars typically attribute these harmonies to Rachmaninoff’s general style As with Tchaikovsky’s works, the main theme reappears in a more lavish style Rachmaninoff adds rich orchestral accompaniment Diaghilev and Russian Music Abroad Western audiences discover Tchaikovsky Russian music only achieved international recognition near the end of the 19th century By this time, Glinka’s music had fallen from favor Glinka worked in the 1830s and 1840s In Milan, a late 19th-century show of A Life for the Tsar received little attention Diaghilev and Russian Music Abroad Western audiences discover Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky was the first Russian composer to attain great fame abroad He became an international celebrity His reputation as a conductor also helped spread awareness of his works New York’s Carnegie Hall invited Tchaikovsky to conduct its inaugural performance During Tchaikovsky’s lifetime, several European opera houses staged Eugene Onegin In 1892, Gustav Mahler conducted a performance in Hamburg, Germany The Mighty Handful abroad The Handful’s music took longer to reach international audiences than Tchaikovsky’s France most enthusiastically welcomed the Mighty Handful’s music Some pieces premiered at the Paris Expositions in 1878 and 1889 Other composers received the Handful’s scores through private means Claude Debussy first heard Boris Godunov in the early 1890s Mussorgsky’s declamatory style influenced Debussy’s own operas Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929) introduced the Saisons Russes in 1907 Sergei Diaghilev: Saisons Russes This concert series almost exclusively included compositions by the Mighty Handful Thus, Parisian society became acquainted with Handful’s “Russianness” Diaghilev felt Parisian critics would find Tchaikovsky’s work too Western Cui contributed to this perception by publishing articles in the French press Between 1878 and 1880, Cui wrote that the Handful alone created nationalist works French critics thus viewed Tchaikovsky’s works as Germanic French audiences wanted a unique sound like the Handful’s The success of Saisons Russes convinced Diaghilev to stage other Handful works In 1908, Diaghilev produced a performance of Boris Godunov He used Rimsky-Korsakov’s revised orchestration Fyodor Chaliapin performed the title role to great acclaim Audiences considered him the perfect Boris Diaghilev spared no expense on the production The elaborately ornate sets and costumes dazzled the Parisian audience Boris Godunov’s enduring international success stems in part from this performance Diaghilev staged other Handful works posthumously He produced the Polovtsian Act from Prince Igor He reimagined Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade into a ballet Also, he transformed Rimsky-Korsakov’s final opera The Golden Cockerel into an operaballet The singers sang in the background Meanwhile, the dancers performed the action in the forefront Sadly, Mussorgsky, Borodin, and RimskyKorsakov died before seeing their fame French composers embraced the Handful’s influence They, like the Handful, sought to create a distinct nationalist style The French also hoped to avoid Germanic clichés They particularly abhorred Wagner’s style These composers admired the Handful’s originality and non-Western sound French composers embraced the Handful’s influence Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel integrated Russian elements in their works They studied Mussorgsky’s declamatory operatic realist style Debussy subsequently produced the opera Pelleas et Mélisande Ravel wrote L’heure espagnole These French composers also assimilated Russian Orientalism and exoticism Ravel’s Spanish-style music sounds like RimskyKorsakov’s Spanish Capriccio The Oriental style appeared in Ravel’s song cycle Scheherazade French composers embraced the Handful’s influence Ravel also produced an arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition Mussorgsky originally envisioned the piece as a piano cycle Today, however, most listeners only recognize Ravel’s orchestral arrangement
