Chapter I: Introduction

It would be idle to enter upon a consideration of the life and work of Moussorgsky without first making some attempt to expound his æsthetic outlook. Fortunately this does not involve reference to a library of volumes such as that left by Wagner. The German composer was at considerable pains that the public should know something of his artistic aims, and also, be it said, of his social and political views, and those who approach his music knowing nothing either of its import or of the personality of its composer have only themselves to blame.

With Moussorgsky it is a different matter, especially as regards the British public, who until two or three years ago had no means of obtaining any detailed information about either the man or his work. He leaves nothing behind him in the shape of an artistic confession of faith beyond the few scattered utterances that were delivered in letters to his friends, and even these are for the most part inaccessible to all who have no acquaintance with the Russian tongue. This is the more unfortunate since in England the great Russian composer first became known through one or two entirely uncharacteristic works, examples which either had no artistic significance whatever, or which represented his views only by their text and not through its musical setting.

In the first category is the “Song of the Flea,” which was accorded the quite unmerited honour of being among the first of his works to be brought to England; in the second is “The Peepshow,” which consists of a commentary upon, and an exposure of, the prejudices of lesser composers, but which tells us nothing of Moussorgsky’s genius, his musical style, or his manner of applying his æsthetic principles in his own compositions.

There must still be a considerable number of British music-lovers to whom Moussorgsky is known as the composer of one or two operas which they have not yet had an opportunity of hearing, of a few songs, and of some examples of symphonic music, such as the popular “Gopak.”

It is this section of the public that one addresses when pronouncing Moussorgsky to be one of the very greatest figures in the annals of Music--apart altogether from his creative output. In the world of Art it does not very often happen that a man who formulates principles has a sufficiently commanding creative power to provide his own convincing examples of the application of those principles. As a rule the artist who talks of reforms has not himself been highly endowed with the gift of artistic creation.

In Moussorgsky’s art we have the reflection of his own convictions and, what is more, their vindication. But since his works have an appeal which does not depend upon a knowledge of the principles they embody, there seems sufficient reason for supposing that the creative qualities of the composer are at least equal in value to his æsthetic preconceptions.

The art of Moussorgsky is based upon three fundamental principles: (1) That Art is an expression of humanity, and, like humanity, is in a constant state of evolution; (2) that Art, as such, can therefore have no arbitrary formalistic boundaries; (3) that as the expression of humanity is an office which ought to be carried out with a full sense of the responsibility attaching to those entrusted with it, the artist is called upon to be sincere in any art-work he may undertake.

Anyone who had lived in an artistic environment of his own making, who had never been in touch with an outside world that looks upon Art as a means of whiling away a superfluous hour, who had never known of that problem with which the public artist is continuously being confronted--the problem of how suitably to compromise with the dull-witted section of humanity--would wonder why it should have seemed necessary to Moussorgsky, or anyone else, to propound as his confession of faith a series of such platitudinous axioms. Moreover, in perusing the bare narrative of Moussorgsky’s life, one would not discover on the surface anything entitling one to suppose that he in particular should have been able to recognize the need for dwelling upon matters that are to be clearly understood only by those who have never been contaminated by close contact with the World.

It is only between the lines of that narrative that one can discover the key to this mystery. In other walks of life than Art one hears of the “conversion” of individuals who have hitherto followed the moral line of least resistance. At a certain moment in their lives there has come a sudden awakening, a realization that honesty and decent behaviour as a whole should not be reckoned a policy, but an obligation towards oneself.

A thief may arrive at such a psychological crisis through being brought face to face with a circumstance revealing to him for the first time that it is pleasant to be able to look his neighbour in the eyes. A drunkard, surveying in a sober interval the ruin brought upon his family, may resolve that there must surely be a happy medium of temperance between the states of drunkenness with wine and what Baudelaire called drunkenness with virtue. A great national crisis may open the eyes of a politician so that he will henceforth consider the party principle and his acquiescence in it as the betrayal of a trust.

Such specimens of erring humanity, when awakened to a sense of duty towards themselves and their fellows, are reckoned “converted.”

Moussorgsky, in his early days a musical “rake,” became a converted musician.

He saw that Music was the sick man of Art, and that his past attitude towards it was not likely to improve its condition. He saw that music is given to man that he may give utterance to emotions inexpressible by words. From this starting-point he was not slow in reaching the conclusion that a nation which is satisfied to depend upon foreign art-products has not yet become worthy to be reckoned in the full sense a nation; that in conveying ideas which are too subtle for verbal expression, music is ministering not to the mind but to the temperament; and consequently that it would be absurd arbitrarily to confine the expression of the subconscious emotions of one generation within the forms employed by a previous generation. Finally he perceived that, if Art was to be taken seriously as an expression of humanity, it must no longer remain in a condition in which no earnest human being could look upon it other than as a frivolous pastime.

Moussorgsky, once “converted,” began to urge the necessity of expressing national aspirations by means of Art, of abolishing the laws that were a mental product of a previous generation and could therefore have no bearing upon the temperamental needs of the present, of emancipating Music from a condition in which its relation towards the other arts was that either of a brutal master, or a lying, though nicely-mannered servant.

There are conventional terms which contain the essence of the qualities considered by Moussorgsky to be indispensable conditions to the welfare of his art. They are Truth, Freedom, and Progress.

The presence of the word Truth upon his banner did not cause a great deal of concern among his contemporaries. They did not recognize that artistic truth was a rarity. But the remainder of the legend seemed to them to aim at the very foundations of the art of Music.

The attitude of musicians towards music in Moussorgsky’s day was not strikingly dissimilar from that observable in the twentieth century. There was a reverence for tradition that was little short of a mania. The older a masterpiece became, the more they venerated it. The best music of the immediately previous generation was tolerated apparently on the ground that it might one day become a classic. Music of the present generation was by common consent ignored. To such as these, therefore, the word Progress seemed to contain a very impertinent challenge. But what of Freedom? Moussorgsky refused to observe the laws that, according to him, had been formulated for the benefit of those who wished merely to imitate the composers of the past. It is generally assumed that he was too impatient of technique to trouble himself about acquiring any considerable knowledge of it. His complaint that, while he could discuss art with painters and sculptors, he found that musicians never got as far as Art, but confined themselves to questions of technique, explains in some measure his attitude. “Is it,” he asks, “because it is my weak point that I hate it?” This inquiry is not directly answered, but is followed by a justification couched in metaphor. He likens the exploitation of technique to the behaviour of your host who persists in making known to you the ingredients of the delicious pudding he offers you.

It would seem as though Moussorgsky found, in the technical training prescribed for musicians, something which caused the student to contract an ineradicable habit of looking backward. This he considered inimical to the progress of the art. Naturally, it is urged against him that, as a great deal of his work had to be revised by Rimsky-Korsakof, he himself would have profited had he attained a greater technical proficiency. As to this it is impossible to judge fairly without comparing the originals with Rimsky-Korsakof’s versions. When that is done one begins to perceive that a great deal of the so-called “incorrect” or “crude” is music that did not receive the sanction of his contemporaries, or of the immediately succeeding generation, for the simple reason that he was at least three generations ahead of his contemporaries. The advanced musician of the present day is, therefore, protesting against the emendations, because he finds in the original version something that he would himself be proud of having invented.[1]

But apart altogether from this aspect of the question, if we compare the creative work of the emendator and the emendated, we discover that while Rimsky-Korsakof’s most recent music is beginning to sound old-fashioned, Moussorgsky’s music of forty years ago is not. From which we are entitled to infer that the music of a composer who happens to be a great genius, though technically deficient, has a greater vitality than the music of one who is a great artist and technically proficient.

If that be a correct inference, it would seem to be in the interests of musical progress that a few partnerships should be arranged between geniuses who are hampered by a want of technique, and artists whose training has destroyed or marred their prophetic vision.

This would perhaps prove a fruitful means of bringing into the world a store of living music, of music that would not remind us at intervals of some dead and gone composer.

The consideration of Moussorgsky’s opinions cannot in any case lessen one’s appreciation of his music.

It will be found that whereas many will vehemently contest the validity of Moussorgsky’s artistic principles, exceedingly few will hear his music without supreme enjoyment. The acceptation of these principles has been forced upon the musical world on every occasion on which a genius has arisen. But the musical world has apparently never become conscious of having accepted them. It prefers to go on denying the existence of the mountain range in which the stream of great music has its source.

The study of Moussorgsky’s life and work affords a rare opportunity of observing that a composer who is frankly a futurist is not necessarily either a fool, a wag, or a knave. For in listening to his music, we of the present generation cannot imagine for the life of us what all the pother was about. It is all quite acceptable. But the principles--which are new to us, and, unlike the music, will always be new to a wicked world--those we cannot ever bring ourselves to uphold!

“When our efforts to put the actual living man in our music are appreciated, ...” wrote Moussorgsky to his friend Stassof, “then shall we have begun to make progress....”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Yastrebtsef’s “Recollections of Rimsky-Korsakof” (now
in course of serial publication by the _Russian Musical
Gazette_), many of the latter’s utterances on this subject
are recorded.