1. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, “Vospominaniya o M. P. Musorgskom,” in Gordeyeva, M. P. Musorgsky, 149. Stasov gave a detailed account of the intended content of “Nettle Mountain” in his letter of 1 July 1874 to Rimsky-Korsakov, who expressed sharp disapproval. See MDW, 420, 422.
2. Letter of 23 July 1874, in MR 278; see also A. N. Rimsky-Korsakov (ed.), M. P. Musorgskiy: pis’ma i dokumentï, 306.
3. LMMZ, 130; MML, 147.
4. LMMZ, 132; MML, 149.
5. Letter of 15 April 1875, in PB2, 88–9.
6. Ibid.
7. See Dianin, Borodin, 85.
8. The gudok was a three-stringed lute played, however, with a bow in the manner of the medieval rebec.
9. See chapter 20, note 7.
10. Letter of 26 September 1875, in PB2, 101. As we shall see, Borodin later used some of the ideas in the scene of the solar eclipse in the opera’s prologue. The monologue itself has been reinstated in the opera as staged at the Maryinsky Theatre, and is included in the recording conducted by Valery Gergiev.
11. Letter of 15 April 1875.
12. Letter of 7 August 1875, in MLN, 196; MR, 300 (Musorgsky’s emphasis).
13. Letter of 15/27 August 1873, Stasov to Musorgsky (from Vienna), in Rimsky-Korsakov, M. P. Musorgskiy: pis’ma i dokumentï, 479; see also MR, 244–5; letter of 6 August 1873, Musorgsky to Stasov, in MLN, 164–5; MR, 239.
14. Letter of 6 September 1873, in MLN, 166; MR, 247.
15. Musorgsky had described his new work as “a people’s musical drama” (“Narodnaya muzïkal’naya drama”) in a letter of 13 July 1872 to Stasov (MR, 189), and it retains that subtitle in the published score.
16. Letter of 15/27 August.
17. Letter of 20 April 1875, in MR, 296 (translation slightly modified).
18. Letter of 18 May 1876, in Rimsky-Korsakov, M. P. Musorgskiy: pis’ma i dokumentï, 483–5; MR, 333–7.
19. Letter of 15 June 1876, in MLN, 219; MR, 338.
20. LMMZ, 226–7; MML, 259.
21. Letter of 25 December 1876, in MLN, 227; MR, 353. Musorgsky wrote the words “intelligent” and “justified” (“osmïslennoyu” “opravdannoyu”) one above the other, like an arithmetical fraction.
22. See Taruskin, Musorgsky: Eight Essays, 361, on the question of identification.
CHAPTER 24 Dances of Death
1. Letter of 7 August 1875 in MLN, 197; MR, 302. The couplet is quoted direct from MR, but Musorgsky’s version does not rhyme.
2. Letter of 6 September 1875, in MLN, 200 (dated 3 October); MR, 308.
3. Letter of 19–20 October 1875, in MLN, 202–3; MR, 312.
4. Letter to Kutuzov, 6 September 1875, in MLN (“3 October”), 199–200; MR, 307–9. Letter to Stasov, 7 August 1875, in MLN, 197; MR, 303.
5. Letter of 19 October 1875, in MLN, 202–3; MR, 311–12.
6. Gordeyeva, M. P. Musorgsky, 154.
7. Letter of 17 December 1875 to Shestakova, in MR, 321.
8. Letter of 17 August 1875, in MR, 303–4.
9. Letter of 9 August 1878, in MR, 371.
10. Letter of 5 September 1875, quoted in Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 30.
11. MML, 157.
12. Letter of 23 November 1875 to Stasov, in MR, 319.
13. Graham Johnson, “German Song,” in entry Ballad, “The 19th- and 20th-century art form,” in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 2001), 2:549.
14. Quoted in Fischer-Dieskau, Schubert: A Biographical Study, 139.
15. MBO, 120.
16. Apart from Musorgsky himself (a baritone), one of the first singers of any of these songs was the tenor Pyotr Lodi. Musorgsky praised his singing of “The Commander” in a letter of 15 August 1877 to Kutuzov, and added: “You can’t possibly clearly imagine, dear friend, the amazing distinction of your scene when it is rendered by a tenor!” See MR, 361.
17. LMMZ, 144–5; MML, 164–5.
18. See, for instance, chapter 2, note 4. Not long afterward, however, Rimsky-Korsakov would compose music that he later claimed had preceded Melgunov’s description of this technique. See below, chapter 26, note 29 and related text.
19. LMMZ, 138; MML, 156.
CHAPTER 25 A Chaos of Operas
1. See his letter to his sister Nadezhda, 7 February 1876, in SPR, 279–80.
2. Letter of 28–9 February 1876, in MLN, 213–4; MR, 328.
3. Ibid.
4. Letter to Karmalina, 1 June 1876, in PB2, 107–10.
5. Ibid.
6. See Dianin, Borodin (1963), 96. The chorus was first performed at an FMS concert in February 1879.
7. Dianin, Borodin (1960), 110; Borodin (1963), 95.
8. According to Bobéth, this text originally figures in Yaroslavna’s arioso, no. 3. See Bobéth, Borodin und seine Oper, 110.
9. Quoted in Dianin, Borodin (1960), 111; Borodin (1963), 97.
10. “Reminiscences of Mariya Vasil’evna Dobroslavina,” in Dianin, Borodin (1960), 345.
11. Dianin, Borodin (1960), 116; Borodin (1963), 102.
12. Letter of 9, 17 June 1876, in SPR, 285.
13. Letter of 3 January 1872, in MLN, 126; MR, 176.
14. Letter of 23 July 1874, in MR, 278; also Rimsky-Korsakov, M. P. Musorgskiy: pis’ma i dokumentï, 306.
15. Taruskin, Musorgsky: Eight Essays, 367.
16. Letter of 7 November 1877, in MR, 362.
17. As reported by Stasov to Kutuzov in a letter of 22 August 1877, in ibid.
18. Letter of 10 November 1877 to Kutuzov, MR, 362–3.
19. As told to Ilya Tyumenev. Quoted in Taruskin, Musorgsky: Eight Essays, 357 (see also MDW, 622–3).
20. Three operas, if we include another project to which there is tantalizing reference in Stasov’s Musorgsky biography. This was a project for an opera based on Pushkin’s novella about the Pugachev rebellion of 1774, The Captain’s Daughter. Stasov claims that the subject was discussed at some length, and there is an echo of it in a letter of 14 November 1878 (or possibly 1879) to Kutuzov, where Musorgsky suggests a play—to be turned into an opera—about the so-called “life campaigners,” a company of the Preobrazhensky Guards that had helped put down the Pugachevshchina. But apart from a single notation of a folk tune marked “for the last opera, Pugachev’s Men” in Musorgsky’s hand, no music seems to have been composed, and indeed it’s hard to see how any could have been. See MR, 354 and 372–3.
CHAPTER 26 Drowning in the Waters
1. Golos, 9 June 1876, in TDM, 467; MDW, 495.
2. Letter of 15/27 March 1872, in MDW, 260–1.
3. Letter of 3 June 1874 (NS), in Zviguilsky, Ivan Tourgénev: Nouvelle Corréspondance inédite, 211–12.
4. Letter to M. A. Milyutina, 22 February/6 March 1875, in Turgenev, Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy i pisem, 31.
5. Borodin was forty-four.
6. Letter of 24 December/5 January, from San Remo, in Chaikovskiy i Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck: Perepsika (Moscow: Zakharov, 2004), 160–5. See also MR, 364–7.
7. Letter of 30 March 1876, in Dianin, Borodin (1960), 203.
8. Letter of 1 June 1876, in PB2, 108.
9. Letter of 19 January 1877, in PBII, 123.
10. Letter of 3 January 1878, in BSP1, 288–9.
11. Letter of 6 January 1878, in BSP1, 289–90.
12. Letter of 23 February 1878, in BSP1, 291–2.
13. Letter of 4 July 1878, in BSP1, 299–300.
14. Letter of 18/30 August, from Paris, in BSP1, 307–9.
15. Letter of 8 October 1878, in BSP1, 315–6.
16. As reported by Stasov to Kutuzov, letter of 1 April 1878, in MR, 368.
17. Contribution to joint letter of 28 July 1878 from Musorgsky, Balakirev, and Shestakova to Stasov in Paris. See MR, 369–70; BSP1, 301–2.
18. Letter of 9 August 1878 to Stasov, in MR, 371.
19. Letter of 18/30 August.
20. Letter of 13 October 1878, in BSP1, 317.
21. Letter of 3 July
1877, Borodin to his wife, in PB2, 133.
22. Balakirev would have nothing to do with the project; Musorgsky composed “a galop or something of the kind,” but missed the point by changing the cantus firmus at whim, then declined to modify what he had written. His attempt is apparently lost. See LMMZ, 179; MML, 204.
23. LMMZ, 152; MML, 175.
24. LMMZ, 153; MML, 175.
25. LMMZ, 156; MML, 179.
26. The original prologue consisted of the overture, the lullaby, Vera’s narration, and the return of the prince. For the separate work, Rimsky-Korsakov composed the opening scene for Nadezhda and the nurse, Vlasyevna, and the conversation of Vera and Nadezhda leading up to the narration. See the introduction to volume 8 of the Collected Edition.
27. Gogol, “A Night in May,” trans. Christopher English, Village Evenings near Dikanka and Mirgorod (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 57.
28. Taruskin calls it “an opera in search of a composer.” Taruskin, Musorgsky: Eight Essays, 331.
29. Ibid., 332.
30. Yastrebtsev, Reminiscences of Rimsky-Korsakov, 69.
31. As Taruskin remarks, “Rimsky’s ‘podgoloski,’ it hardly needs to be added, follow conservatory rules of voice leading.” Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 725, note 136.
32. Yastrebtsev, Reminiscences of Rimsky-Korsakov, 118.
33. LMMZ, 194; MML, 222–3.
CHAPTER 27 The Chemist in His Laboratory
1. Letter of 24 January 1879, in BSP1, 320.
2. Letter of 26 January 1879, in RKP, 125.
3. LMMZ, 185; MML, 211.
4. Nikolay Solovyev, quoted in TDM, 525; MDW, 557.
5. Quoted in TDM, 526; MDW, 558–9. The program, on 16 January, had included Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony and Weber’s Polonaise brillante (arr. Liszt) for piano and orchestra.
6. Letter of late December 1879 to Kutuzov, in MR, 400. See below, note 15.
7. Letter of 8 August 1879, in Dianin, Borodin (1960), 230–1.
8. LMMZ, 199; MML, 227–8.
9. Karl Baedeker, La Russie (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1902), 364. The correspondence and repertoire are set out in detail in MR, 376–95.
10. Gordeyeva, M. P. Musorgsky v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, 181.
11. Ibid.
12. Letter of 19 October 1879 to Sofia Fortunato, in SPR, 352–3. Sofia’s letter has not surfaced.
13. As David Brown, for instance does, when he calls the poem a “satire on royal favoritism.” See D. Brown, Musorgsky, 307.
14. Dianin, Borodin (1963), 108.
15. See Alec Robertson (ed.), Chamber Music (London: Penguin, 1957), 133–4.
16. Dianin, Borodin (1963), 237–41.
17. Letter of December 1879, MLN, 241; MR, 398–400. The letter is undated, and MLN and other sources give December 1878. The later dating is, however, supported by references to the publication of Kutuzov’s play Shuisky, which was only passed by the censor in January 1879.
18. Orlova, Musorgsky Remembered, 116 (reminiscences of Nikolay Lavrov).
19. Letter of 3 January 1880, in BSP1, 332; excerpt in MR, 401.
20. Letter of 16 January 1880, in MLN, 259; MR, 401–2.
21. MML, 223.
22. Letter of 27–28 August 1880, in MLN, 261–2; MR, 406.
CHAPTER 28 Death by Sunlight
1. Dianin, Borodin (1960), 180, 185; Borodin (1963), 114, note 1, 129, note 3.
2. The approach-and-recede pattern of the well-known orchestral version is Ravel’s idea. The first published edition of 1886, edited by Rimsky-Korsakov, has no dynamic marking of any kind at the start of the movement.
3. Dianin, Borodin (1960), 125; Borodin (1963), 115. See also letter of 19 May 1880 to Balakirev, in S. A. Dianin (ed.), Pis’ma A. P. Borodina, vol. 3 (Moscow and Leningrad: GMI, 1949), 100.
4. LMMZ, 196; MML, 224–5.
5. Letter of 22 January 1879, in RKP, 123–4.
6. LMMZ, 202; MML, 231.
7. Letter of 9 November 1880, quoted in MML, 242, note 7.
8. Letter of 6 October 1879, quoted in MML, 216, note 22.
9. LMMZ, 203–4; MML, 233.
10. Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Commentaries, 55.
11. Letter to Balakirev, 13 February 1861, in BSP1, 121–4. See chapter 5.
12. LMMZ, 225; MML, 257.
13. See, for instance, Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 698, for a “correction” of one of his usages in The Snow Maiden.
14. It will be recalled that Rimsky-Korsakov had been away on his naval cruise at the time of Wagner’s St. Petersburg concerts in 1863, the only time any of The Ring had yet been heard there. The vocal scores, of course, had long been available.
15. Reminiscence of S. V. Rozhdestvensky, as recorded by Ivan Lapshin, in Orlova, Musorgsky Remembered, 119.
16. Gordeyeva, M. P. Musorgsky v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, 183; LMMZ, 196; MML, 225.
17. Gordeyeva, M. P. Musorgsky v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, 184.
18. Ibid., 126.
19. Letter of 15 February 1881, in BSPII, 10; excerpt in MR, 411.
20. Quoted in MR, 412–3.
21. A. A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, “Vospominaniya o M. P. Musorgskom,” in Gordeyeva, M. P. Musorgsky v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, 151.
22. M. M. Ivanov, “Iz nekrologa,” in ibid., 195.
CHAPTER 29 Heirs and Rebels
1. “Nekrolog M. P. Musorgskogo,” Golos, 17 March 1881; in SSMII, 45–7.
2. “Zametka o pokhoronakh Musorgskogo,” Golos, 19 March 1881; in ibid., 47–8.
3. “Modest Petrovich Musorgskiy: Biographicheskiy ocherk,” Vestnik Evropï, May 1881, 285–316; June 1881, 506–45; reprinted in SSMII, 51–113. References in the present volume are to MBO.
4. “Nasha muzïka za posledniye 25 let,” SSMII, 143–97.
5. Translated direct from SSMII, 193–4. Jonas, Vladimir Stasov: Selected Essays gives a later text that takes account of the death of Borodin in 1887.
6. The big C-major symphony, begun in 1864 and shelved in 1866 with its first movement half-written and a scherzo and finale only sketched, was eventually taken up again in the 1890s, and completed only in 1897. By this time, alas, its Russianisms (chromatic devices, Oriental colorings, harp flourishes, tarantella rhythms, etc.) have the slightly uncomfortable flavor of self-parody.
7. “Nasha muzïka za posledniye 25 let,” in SSMIII, 177.
8. Dianin, Borodin (1963), 250, note 1.
9. Marya Dobroslavina’s memoirs, quoted in Dianin, Borodin (1960), 153; Borodin (1963), 150–1.
10. Ibid., 145, 142.
11. “Poslednyaya kontsertnaya nedelya,” in Gusin, Ts. A. Cui: Izbrannïye stat’i, 306–9.
12. Dianin, Borodin (1963), 130. For much of the information in this and the following two paragraphs I am indebted to Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 41–71.
13. Fay, Shostakovich: A Life, 24.
14. “Nasha muzïka za posledniye 25 let,” in SSMIII, 146–7.
15. Ibid., 149.
16. Ibid., 150.
17. Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Commentaries, 57. Craft’s wording in fact accidentally reverses the paradox, but the point is clear enough.
18. Stravinsky and Craft, Expositions and Developments, 121.
19. It is instructive to compare Musorgsky’s score with the Rimsky-Korsakov edition in this passage. Rimsky smooths out all the irregular meters, even in one or two places accepting false verbal accentuations and generally destroying the fluidity of the original.
20. For more on this subject see Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, 117 et seq., and Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 669 and 923.
21. La Revue blanche, 15 April 1901; English translation in R. Langham-Smith (ed.), Debussy on Music (London: Secker & Warburg, 1977), 20–21.
22. The complete conversation in English is in Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind, vol. 1 (London: Cassell, 1962), 204–8.
24. “Nasha muzïka za posledniye 25 let,” in SSMIII, 197.
EPILOGUE The Survivors
1. Letter of 5 August 1900, quoted in Olkhovsky, Vladimir Stasov and Russian National Culture, 128.
2. Quoted in Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 28.
3. As reported by Stasov in a letter of 27 February 1904 to his brother Dmitry, quoted in ibid., 70–1.
4. Yastrebtsev, Reminiscences of Rimsky-Korsakov, 445, entry of 6 March 1908.
5. 18 May 1910, in Gusin, Ts. A. Cui: Izbrannïye stat’i, 548–50.
Bibliography
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BSPI A. S. Lyapunova (ed.). M. A. Balakirev–V. V. Stasov: Perepiska, vol. 1, 1858–1880 (Moscow: Muzïka, 1969).
BSPII A. S. Lyapunova (ed.). M. A. Balakirev-V. V. Stasov: Perepiska, vol. 2, 1881–1906 (Moscow: Muzïka, 1971).
LMMZ N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. Letopis’ moey muzïkal’noy zhizni 1844–1906 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiya Glazunova, 1909). English translation as My Musical Life, trans. Judah A. Joffe (London: Eulenburg, 1974) [MML].
MBO V. V. Stasov. Modest Petrovich Musorgskiy: Biographicheskiy ocherk, in A. S. Ogolevets (ed.). V. V. Stasov: Izbrannïye stat’i o Musorgskom (Moscow: GMI, 1952).
MDW A. Orlova (ed.). Musorgsky’s Days and Works, trans. R. J. Guenther (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983).
MLN A. A. Orlova (ed.). Modest Petrovich Musorgskiy: Literaturnoye naslediye: pis’ma, biograficheskiye materialï i dokumentï (Moscow: Muzïka, 1971).
MML N. Rimsky-Korsakov. My Musical Life, trans. Judah A. Joffe (London: Eulenburg, 1974).
MR J. Leyda and Sergei Bertensson (eds. and trans.). The Musorgsky Reader (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970).
ODR R. Taruskin. Opera and Drama in Russia as Preached and Practiced in the 1860s (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1981).
PBI S. A. Dianin (ed.). Pis’ma A. P. Borodina, vol. 1 (Moscow: GMI, 1927–8).
PBII S. A. Dianin (ed.). Pis’ma A. P. Borodina, vol. 2 (Moscow: GMI, 1936); also vol. 3 (1949).
RKP A. S. Lyapunova (ed.). N. Rimskiy-Korsakov: Polnoye sobrianiye sochinenniy, vol. 5: Literaturnïye proizvedeniya i perepiska (Moscow: GMI, 1963).
Musorgsky and His Circle: A Russian Musical Adventure Page 60