Undercurrents in Mussorgsky's "Sunless" Author(S): Simon Perry Source: 19Th-Century Music, Vol

A Voice Unknown: Undercurrents in Mussorgsky's "Sunless" Author(s): Simon Perry Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Summer, 2004), pp. 15-49 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1555167 Accessed: 02/06/2009 21:55

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to 19th- Century Music.

http://www.jstor.org A Voice Unknown: Undercurrents in Mussorgsky's Sunless

SIMON PERRY

The only element I have here is feeling, and the result isn't half bad. -Mussorgsky

I Sunless (Bez solntsa), the cycle of six short far from unusual for Mussorgsky to put some- songs set in 1874 to poems of Count Arseny thing of himself into his songs and other works, Arkad'evich Golenishchev-Kutuzov (1848- his common practice was to mediate and "ob- 1913), is unique in Mussorgsky's slim output. jectify" such personal injections by the adop- Composed between 7 May and 25 August 1874,1 tion of an alternative persona, as that, for ex- it is perhaps his single most intimate and di- ample, of the young "village idiot" in the early rectly personal artistic utterance. While it was song "Darling Savishna" (Svetik Savishna). In Sunless Mussorgsky adopted a far more un- 1Alldates are given in Old Style. The exact chronology of masked, "subjective" approach; in crude terms its composition, according to the completion dates on the the cycle represents a turn from realism to autographscore, is as follows: 7 May, no. 1, "Within Four Romanticism. This fundamental change in aes- Walls" (V chetyrekh stenakh); 19 May, no. 2, "You Did Not Know Me in the Crowd"(Ty menia v tolpe ne uznala); thetic orientation has spawned much specula- 19-20 May (i.e., ovemight), no. 3, "The Idle, Noisy Day is tion on its motivation. A common explanation Over" (Okonchen prazdnyi, shumnyi den'); 2 June, no. 4, is that Sunless represents Mussorgsky's reac- "Ennui"(Skuchai); 19 August, no. 5, "Elegy"(Elegiia); and 25 August, no. 6, "On the River" (Nad rekoi). Mussorgsky tion to a number of problems in his life and did not work solely on Sunless during these months. Be- tween nos. 1 and 2, he completed the ballad "Forgotten" (Zabytyi), also to a text by Golenishchev-Kutuzov, written after Vasily Vereshchagin's famously censored, anti- completed Pictures at an Exhibition (dated 22 June) and war painting.According to Orlova,Mussorgsky at one point began work on a satirical vocal work to be called "The seriously considered including this song in the Sunless Hill of Nettles" (Krapivnaiagora), but never completed it. cycle, but later changed his mind. See Alexandra Orlova, The epigraphabove is attributedto Mussorgsky,in Arsenii Musorgsky'sDays and Works:A Biographyin Documents, [Arkad'evich]Golenishchev-Kutuzov, "Reminiscences of ed. and trans. Roy J. Guenther, Russian Music Studies 4, Musorgsky," in Musorgsky Remembered, ed. Alexandra ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown (Ann Arbor:UMI Research Orlova, trans. Veronique Zaytzeff and FrederickMorrison Press, 1983), p. 16. Between nos. 4 and 5, Mussorgsky (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 96.

19th-CenturyMusic, XXVllI/1, pp. 15-49. ISSN:0148-2076, electronic ISSN 1533-8606.? 2004 by the Regentsof the University 15 of California.All rightsreserved. Please direct all requestsfor permission to photocopyor reproducearticle content throughthe Universityof CaliforniaPress's Rights and Permissionswebsite, at http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm. 19TH career in the period leading up to its composi- served, in fact, as an explanation for what CENTURY MUSIC tion.2 Pavel Lamm, for example, suggested that Keldysh saw, or had to see, as a general decline Sunless was an "answer" to the vicissitudes in Mussorgsky'swork afterBoris Godunov. This Mussorgsky had met in early 1874 in relation line was continued by V. A. Vasina-Grossman to the staging of Boris Godunov, its subsequent in the immediate post-Stalin period. She found harsh critical appraisal(by friend and foe alike), in Sunless the first open expression of the and, ultimately, the break-upof the moguchaia composer's personal feelings, for which, again, kuchka itself.3More recently, AlexandraOrlova the "darkand mean" 1870s were to blame.6 has cited personal difficulties, including the Although orthodox Soviet views like those deaths of his friends Viktor Gartmann, on 23 of Keldysh and Grossman now seem overly July 1873, and Nadezhda Opochinina, on 30 tendentious, it is certainly possible to give more June 1874, as backgroundfactors to the notably than a little credence to those of Lamm and gloomy disposition of the cycle.4 Between Orlova. These, however, largely, or indeed com- Lamm and Orlova,Soviet writers of the Stalinist pletely, ignore the author of the cycle's texts. and immediate post-Stalinist period were re- Golenishchev-Kutuzovremains today not much quired to search for a greater-than-personal more than a footnote to the history of Russian motivation to justify the Sunless cycle's de- letters, and it is difficult to assess precisely scent into pessimism. Thus, lury Keldysh sub- what sort of aesthetic influence he may have mitted that the cycle reflects the malaise of the had over Mussorgsky. Richard Taruskin notes liberal, mixed-class intelligentsia, the so-called that Golenishchev-Kutuzov's aristocratic "aes- raznochintsy, in the depressing social condi- theticism" was strongly at odds with the popu- tions of the 1870s.5This supposed class malady list and realist strains in art that, as espoused by polemicists like Stasov, temporarily held sway in the 1860s and 1870s. It was Mussorgsky, 2Foran overview of the reception of Sunless in Russia in the of course, that Stasov held to be the prime nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see James Walker, "Mussorgsky'sSunless Cycle in Russian Music Criticism: exemplar of these strains in music. Thus, in Focusfor Controversy, " Musical Quarterly67 (1981),382-91. stark contrast to the commonly received artist- 3PavelLamm, preface [Ot redaktoral, Bez solntsa: Al'bom image of Mussorgsky, sponsored M. of-the-people stikhotvorenii A. A. Golenishcheva-Kutuzova, by Golenishchev-Kutuzovwas Musorgskii, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 5, no. 7 primarilyby Stasov, (Moscow: Muzgiz; Vienna: Universal [1928-39], rpt. New far, aesthetically, from being a man of his times York:Kalmus [19691,vol. 8), p. iii. (although he would come into his own much 4Orlova,Musorgsky's Days, pp. 23-24. Death can certainly be interpretedas a theme in Sunless, but it is hard to see later in his career, during the so-called Silver the cycle as a specific response to the death of individuals. Age).7Late in the 1880s Golenishchev-Kutuzov In the case of Gartmann's death, this had already been completed a memoir of Mussorgsky, which was memorialized,in a style very differentfrom that of Sunless, in Pictures at an Exhibition. In the case of Opochinina, not published until after the poet's death.8His Mussorgsky had already completed the first four numbers intention in it, quite explicitly stated, was to of Sunless before her death. Orlova notes that Mussorgsky attempted to memorialize Opochinina in a work titled "The Epitaph" (Nadgrabnoe pis'mo) but was unable to complete it, and that he eventually "returnedto Sunless, 6V. A. Vasina-Grossman,Russkii klassicheskii romans XIX the completion of which was a more natural response to veka (The Russian Classical Romance of the 19th Cen- the loss of his dear friend" (Musorgsky'sDays, p. 24). The tury) (Moscow: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1956), pp. title of the fifth number, "Elegy," does loosely suggest 199-200, cited in Walker, "Mussorgsky'sSunless Cycle," that the song may have a memorializing intent, but it is p. 389. difficult to draw a specific conclusion concerning this. 7SeeTaruskin, Musorgsky,pp. 15-17. 5Iurii Keldysh, Romansovaia lirika Musorgskogo 8"Vospominaniiao M. P. Musorgskom"(Reminiscences of (Musorgsky'sLyric Romances) (Moscow: Gos. muzykal'noe M. P. Mussorgsky), in Muzykal'noe nasledstvo. Sbornik izd-vo, 1933), p. 7, cited in Walker, "Mussorgsky'sSunless materialov po istorii muzykal'noi kul'tury v Rossii (Musi- Cycle," p. 387. After the decade of the "Great Reforms," cal Heritage:A Collection of Materials on the History of the 1870s were a period tinged with mixed progress of Musical Culture in Russia), ed. Mikhail Vladimirovich continuing reform and increasing reaction. Views such as Ivanov-Boretskii,vol. I (Moscow: Ogiz/Muzgiz, 1935). The Keldysh's should be compared with the position of Rich- memoir was first translatedinto English in 1991, in Orlova, ard Taruskin, who argues that Mussorgsky never fully, if, Musorgsky Remembered,pp. 81-99. This is the source re- indeed, at all, identified as a raznochinets. See Musorgsky: ferredto here. Fora discussion of its problematicreception Eight Essays and an Epilogue (Princeton:Princeton Uni- in Soviet scholarship, see Taruskin, Musorgsky,pp. 25-33, versity Press, 1993), pp. 383-90. and Walker, "Mussorgsky'sSunless Cycle," pp. 384-85. deconstruct the very image of Mussorgsky care- lack the self-conscious stylization, pictorialism, SIMON PERRY fully crafted by Stasov. As Taruskin points out, and "commentary" of many of Mussorgsky's Mussorgsky's Golenishchev-Kutuzov's account of Mussorg- other songs.12More so than in any other of his Sunless sky's artistic significance is every bit as ten- songs, in these it is the harmony alone that dentious as Stasov's, but it does perform the bears the burden of expression and sympathetic service of a valuable corrective, even if it is as connection with the texts. Kuchkist recitative suspect as the portrait it sought to revise.9 has largely been supplanted by a more mea- Golenishchev-Kutuzov himself does not claim sured rhythmic delivery, with the voice occa- to have exerted an influence, aesthetically, over sionally partakingof lyrical cantilena, foreshad- Mussorgsky. Rather, the line that emerges from owing the "intelligently justified melody" he the memoir is that Golenishchev-Kutuzov later described to Stasov in connection with merely provided a necessary outlet for a power- his ongoing work on Khovanshchina.B3In sum, ful, and pent up, "aesthetic" streak that was this music is, for Mussorgsky, one that is dras- alreadyintrinsic to Mussorgsky's artistic make- tically reduced in terms of its reliance on exter- up, disposition, and, indeed, social class. nal elements and references;indeed, it is one of If this be accepted, then Sunless can cer- the most introspective, interior pieces he wrote. tainly be explained as one of the most distinc- Naturally enough, his former kuchkist as- tive products of Mussorgsky's supposedly sup- sociates decried Sunless implicitly, if not expressed pure-art vein. The literary tone of plicitly, on these terms. They uniformly wrote Golenishchev-Kutuzov's texts for Sunless- it off as a feeble work, the product of a fading which, their author later stressed, Mussorgsky artist. As Walker points out, Stasov could find chose himself-is deeply melancholic and nar- little praise for Sunless in his biographical cissistic.10 In his memoir, Golenishchev- sketch of Mussorgsky, written in 188.14 For Kutuzov notes that the "five [sic] poems in the Rimsky-Korsakov, the year of the creation of [Sunless] collection are purely lyrical . .. their Sunless (1874) marked the beginning of subjects are fleeting, emotional moods in Fet's Mussorgsky's creative decline.15For Cesar Cui, vein.""IIn keeping with this more autonomous Mussorgsky's former ally, Sunless was "form- aesthetic streak, Mussorgsky'smusic in Sunless lessness carried out to the illogical, to the ab- largely eschews the stylistic traits of kuchkism sence of musical sense."'6 Published reviews of (assuming there to be a homogeneous set of the cycle, which was printed in 1876, were these in the first place). Gone are the sharp predictably scathing.17With the great benefit of characterizationsof Mussorgsky's earlier songs. With a couple of exceptions, the piano accom- paniments in Sunless are highly effaced and '2MichaelRuss describes the first two songs, in particular, as "acts of compositional withdrawal" ("Modeste Musorgskyand Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov,"Irish Mu- 9Taruskin,Musorgsky, p. 18. Orlova is especially skeptical sical Studies 5 [1996], 247). of the memoir. The readeris directed to the editor's pref- 13Seehis letter to Stasov of 25 December 1876, quoted in ace in Orlova, MusorgskyRemembered. Compare Orlova's Orlova, Musorgsky'sDays, p. 515. sympathetic sketch of Stasov, accompanied by a mild re- '4Walker,"Mussorgsky's Sunless Cycle," p. 384. buke for his honestly intentioned bias (p. x), with her 15M.-D.Calvocoressi, Modest Mussorgsky: His Life and grudging admittance of Golenishchev-Kutuzov's "eyewit- Works(London: Rockliff, 1956), p. 184. ness" status followed by her strident denunciation of the 16Tsezar' Kiui, Russkii romans: Ocherk ego rasvitiia (The memoir as "almost totally deceitful" (p. xi). Russian Romance: An Essay on Its Development) (St. Pe- l?Taruskin, presumably referring to both the music and tersburg:N. F. Findeizen, 1896), p. 82, quoted in Walker, text, suggests that "the voice that speaks from the Sunless "Mussorgsky'sSunless Cycle," p. 386. cycle is that of a neurotically self-absorbed,broken-down '7See,for example, those of Konstantin Galler and Herman aristocrat"(Musorgsky, pp. 384-85). Laroche. Galler's review appeared on 24 March 1875 in "lGolenishchev-Kutuzov,"Reminiscences of Musorgsky," Birzhevye vedomosti (The Stock-Exchange Gazette), no. p. 95. His referenceto the lyrical poet AfanasyAfanas'evich 81, Laroche'son 9 June 1876 in Golos (The Voice), no. 158. Fet (1822-92) is a pointed one. Fet, whose career spanned So unremittingly harsh was Laroche's appraisal that the end of Lermontov's life to the beginnings of the Sym- Golenishchev-Kutuzov was moved to pen a defense. His bolist movement in the 1890s, maintained a lofty distance essay, extant in several incomplete versions, was never from the realist ructions of the 1860s and continued to published. Significant parts from all the above are quoted write "post-Pushkinist" poetry of refined, formalist, aes- in Orlova, Musorgsky'sDays, pp. 452, 494-95, and 496-97 thetic sensibility. respectively.

17 19TH hindsight, Golenishchev-Kutuzov saw all this relationship in its most intimate phase. CENTURY MUSIC coming: Taruskin suggests that, if not sexual, it was at least "homoerotic."20 It was Golenishchev- "Manysay," he [Mussorgsky]told me once, "that Kutuzov's decision to marry,taken in late 1875, my only qualitiesare fluid form and humor.Well, that marked the clear and abrupt cessation of we shall see what they say when I show them your this phase of their friendship.21 The decision poems [Sunless].The only element I have here is provoked a strong emotional reaction from andthe resultisn't halfbad." feeling, Mussorgsky. Survivingletters to Golenishchev- The result was indeed but not to the taste good, Kutuzov of December 1875 a tone of of the who demandeda continuation betray "worshippers," For anda repetitionof "Peepshows,"and "Seminarians," desperation. example, but Musorgskywas no longercapable of that style.18 10-11 December-night again To this brief sketch of Sunless as one of the ... I entreatyou: understand,and if you can, with the heart could are the chosen fruits of (how you not!)-you ripest Mussorgsky's "aestheticism," one, one can't help loving you-what is this that we may now add a little further color. Mussorg- you're doing?This week has a Friday-we await sky had first met Golenishchev-Kutuzov some you, friend. time in the early 1870s. By the time of writing Yours,forever, without doubt, your Sunless Mussorgskywas on intimate terms with Modeste22 him, and at some point they shared an apart- ment. It is not known exactly how long the By the end of December Mussorgskywas clearly two cohabited, but if Richard Taruskin's esti- resigned, though not yet in any way reconciled, mate that it was around "fourteen months, be- to his friend's decision: ginning at the end of March 1874"19is correct, then this time included the composition of My friendArseni, it is quietin the warm,cozy home, Sunless. The close friendship that Golenish- at the writing-table-onlythe fireplacesputters. Sleep chev-Kutuzov claims was shared by the two, is a greatwonder-worker for those who have tasted and the nature and tone of several of the afflictionof this earth,thus sleepreigns-power- In this in the of Mussorgsky's later letters to him have raised ful, tranquil,loving. silence, peace all minds,all consciencesand all desires-I, adoring some questions on the exact nature of their you, I alonethreaten you. My threathas no anger:it is as calmas sleepwithout nightmares. Neither gob- lin, nor ghost, I stood beforeyou. I should like to stay a simple,artless, unfortunate friend to you. You havechosen your path-go! Youdisdain all; an empty "8Golenishchev-Kutuzov,"Reminiscences of Musorgsky," intimation,the jokingsorrow of friendship,the as- p. 96. "Worshippers"refers to Stasov and his adherents. surance in you and in your thoughts-in your cre- "9Taruskin,Musorgsky, p. 14. Taruskin cites Orlova, Trudy ations, you disdained the cry of the heart-and you i dni M. P. Musorgskogo:letopis' zhizni i tvorchestva (Mos- do disdainit! It's not forme to judge;I am no augur, cow: Gos. muzykal'noe izd-vo, 1963), p. 390 in support of this time period.The referenceto March 1874 is also found no oracle.But, at leisurefrom the anxietiesthat are in the later English translation and revision of Orlova's work; see Musorgsky'sDays, p. 411. Golenishchev-Kutuzov himself more vaguely recollected that it was in the au- tumn of 1874 that he and Mussorgsky "decided to share rooms" (Golenishchev-Kutuzov, "Reminiscences of Musorgsky," p. 95). More recently, however, Orlova has expressed reservations about the length of time Golenishchev-Kutuzov claimed that the two shared quar- ters, suggesting that it was only for "a very short time" 20Taruskin,Musorgsky, p. 30. and not before 7 March 1874. She details documentary 21They were nonetheless eventually reconciled, and evidence, mainly in the form of correspondencebetween Golenishchev-Kutuzov was one of those who tended the two, in orderto prove that they lived apartfor much of Mussorgskyin his final days (ibid., p. 14). 1874-75 (MusorgskyRemembered, p. 174, n.20). She also 22Mussorgsky,letter to Golenishchev-Kutuzov, 10-11 De- claims that Golenishchev-Kutuzovfalsely augmented the cember 1875, quoted in The Musorgsky Reader:A Life of time he and Mussorgsky lived together in order to Modeste Petrovich Musorgskyin Letters and Documents, strengthen the claim to intimacy between them presented ed. Jay Leyda and Sergei Bertensson (New York:Da Capo, in his "Reminiscences" (MusorgskyRemembered, p. xii). 1970), p. 321.

18 coming for you alone, do not forget Mussorgsky's part toward Rimsky-Korsakov's SIMON "The narrow, tranquil, peaceful room, PERRY marriage as support for this and overall dis- Mussorgsky's And me, my friend, misses the possibility of a sexual or even Sunless do not curse." homoerotic link between Mussorgsky and Foreveryour Golenishchev-Kutuzov.261leave it for the reader Modeste to follow and consider these on 23-24 December, '75. up arguments their merits. what I am inclined to At night, "sunless."23 (In follows, accept Taruskin's view in these matters.) It is at this point that one must assess what lay If a homoerotic dimension to their relation- at the heart of Mussorgsky's distress. There are ship is accepted-even, indeed, if it was only two views here. One is clearly that Mussorgsky, ever a one-sided infatuation-Sunless emerges a colored at the very least, held on to some sort of infatu- as work almost certainly by some- ation with Golenishchev-Kutuzov and was thing of this relationship. Quite apart from the obvious fact that it is a collaborative naturally wounded by his decision to marry. effort, there is reason to consider not that it There being little significant evidence at all only contains some level of about Mussorgsky's sexuality, it would be un- interior, covert, private but also that it deal in some reasonable to discount this position on the significance, may with the homoerotic as a theme. In his grounds of lack of positive evidence of his ho- way memoir of Golenishchev-Kutuzov mosexuality.24 Taruskin is of this view and finds Mussorgsky, relates how it was who decided on that the language of those final letters of 1875 Mussorgsky the contents of the gives, at the very least, cause to "wonder about poetic cycle by choosing from the notebook. the nature of their 'most intimate friendship'."25 pre-existing poems poet's Golenishchev-Kutuzov The other position holds that Mussorgsky's re- Going further, added, "I must that chose the action to Golenishchev-Kutuzov's impending emphasize Musorgsky and his choice was not without marriage was purely an artistic one. This posi- poems himself, a In the aftermath of tion is maintained by Orlova and amplified by special significance."27 Golenishchev-Kutuzov'sdecision to two Michael Russ, who notes that Mussorgsky marry, tended to ladle his communications to friends references to the cycle made in written ex- between the two collaborators with an excess of sentiment (declarations of changes betrays of the special significance that love, hugs, and kisses, etc.), which is prone to something Sunless held for both of them. The first of these misreading by contemporary, Western readers. occurs in the second letter in He also maintains that marriage was held by quoted above, which Mussorgsky beseeches Golenishchev- Mussorgsky (and Stasov) to be a "barrier to Kutuzov not to "the artistic creation." He cites disappointment on forget narrow, tranquil, peaceful room." This is a very pointed reference to the first line of the first poem in the cycle, a reference to the fruits, the child, of 23Mussorgsky,letter to Golenishchev-Kutuzov,23-24 De- cember 1875, quoted in Leyda and Bertensson, The their first collaboration. In dating the letter, MusorgskyReader, p. 322. See also Mussorgsky's letter to Mussorgsky writes "at night," a common addi- Stasovof 29-30 December1875, quoted on pp.322-23. tion made to letters he wrote but in 24Taruskindetails a host or "oft-notedif seldominterre- overnight, lated"circumstances that could conceivablyconspire to this instance adds, "'sunless'," thus linking his substantiateMussorgsky's homosexuality, but he is reluc- current nocturnal solitude to that of the pro- tant to drivethe pointvery far. See Musorgsky,p. 30n. To tagonist in the cycle. In its rumination on ear- date,the only dedicated investigation of Mussorgsky's sexual proclivities is JuneTurner, "Musorgsky," Music Review 47 (1986-87), 153-75. Turner expounds an elaborate thesis to substantiateMussorgsky's not only homosexual,but mas- 26SeeRuss, "Musorgsky and Golenishchev-Kutuzov," pp. ochistic,make up, based on the interpretationof lettersand 243-44. other texts foundmainly (andin translation)throughout 27Golenishchev-Kutuzov,"Reminiscences of Musorgsky," Leydaand Bertensson. While there does seem to be grounds p. 95. This precedes the line conceming the poems' "lyri- to assert that Mussorgsky'ssexual being was complex cal" nature, quoted above. The context does not make (whoseisn't?), some aspects of Turner'spathological exege- clear, however, if it was simply the "Fet-like"character of sis tend,for me at least,to stretchcredulity. the poems that was especially significant, or something 25Taruskin,Musorgsky, p. 14. else, undisclosed.

19 19TH lier intimacy now lost to unending gloom and Lines 19-27 surely describe the writing of CENTURY MUSIC solitude, Sunless had surely come to seem at Sunless.31Interestingly, they suggest a slightly least a little prophetic for Mussorgsky. In this differentapproach to the collaborationthan that sense, the cycle may be understood to be, for recollected by Golenishchev-Kutuzov in his Mussorgsky at least, emblematic of his former memoir-not only different,but more intimate. intimacy with the poet. On the face of it, there- This is obviously a romanticized version of fore, it seems reasonable to propose that at the events, but what we find here is the impression, time of its composition it spoke, perhaps even or ideal, of a continuity of flow of inspiration in some fatalistic way, to Mussorgsky's then throughthe vessel of the poet, thence seamlessly attachment to Golenishchev-Kutuzov. On through that of the musician. It is also worth Golenishchev-Kutuzov's part, we have the ref- noticing the value placed on the cycle, irrespec- erence to Sunless in the context of an undated tive of the "unwholesome" relationship that poem entitled "To M. P. Musorgsky" (M. P. may have given birth to it. The lines are, indeed, Musorgskomu).Orlova dates the text, or at least "truthful,"and the songs themselves "sparkled sketches for it, at "early 1876";28Taruskin, who in undreamtof beauty." Thus, the poet is careful considers the poem of sufficient significance to to quarantine Sunless itself from the personal quote it in its entirety, concurs and proposes renunciation alluded to later in the verse. It is that the poem can be construed as a "maxi- those very "mysterious references to secret mally flattering peace offering . . . after re- wishes, narcissism, and dementia in lines 31- nouncing their unwholesome intimacy in fa- 32" that Taruskin quite plausibly suggests may vor of marriage."29The crucial lines for consid- contain "a clue to the homoerotic nature of the eration of Sunless are 19-38. formerrelationship. "32 These arethen renounced, "put away," in the second half of the quatrain It used to be that, late in evening'squiet, (lines 33-34), revealing the new horizons thus Visionsand dreams came flying to me, "opened up." This theme of folly and renuncia- Somefull of woe, doubtand torment, tion is then rehearsedin the following quatrain, Othersbright-eyed, with smilinglips ... in which Sunless is invoked as emblematic of I pouredout in truthful my thoughts lines, that time of "magicreveries," " secret Andyou wouldclothe them in mysterious strivings," sounds, and "mad "out As if in wondrouspriestly vestments-and, sung youth," following which, now, by you, has come the sun." Sunless then, may be They sparkledin undreamtof beauty! understood to have been entwined, no less It used to be.... But why arousethese recollec- in Golenishchev-Kutuzov's mind than in tions, Mussorgsky's, with their former shared inti- Whenthe warmlight of hopebums in my soul? macy, whatever exact form it took. Letmy songnot be a songof parting, Betterlet it ringwith futuregreeting. II The mist of magicreveries, of secretstrivings, The circumstances surrounding the cycle's The narcissisticfolly of madyouth composition, as we can understand them, I have of pro- put away-and new inspirations vide as much reason to consider the an An untoldvastness has beforeme. cycle openedup of the most covert feel- "Sunless,"I hadto gropeabout me clumsyin the expression intimate, world, Theonly tongue I heardamid the darkwas death's; But the morninghour has come, and out has 31It is unlikely to refer to the Songs and Dances of Death, come the sun, Golenishchev-Kutuzov'sand Mussorgsky'sonly other ma- Anda brightface of beautynew now stoodbefore jor collaboration. This later project also involved Stasov, me.30 who made certain suggestions to Golenishchev-Kutuzov about the contents of the texts. See Orlova, Musorgsky's Days, pp. 446, 448. As Russ notes, Golenishchev-Kutuzov may have thought of these texts as "somethingconstructed 28Orlova, Musorgsky's Days, p. 482. to order"("Musorgsky and Golenishchev-Kutuzov,"p. 249). 29Taruskin,Musorgsky, p. 30. As such, these would emphatically not be the "Visions 30Quoted and translated in Taruskin, Musorgsky, pp. 28- and dreams[which] came flying," as describedin the poem. 29. 32Taruskin,Musorgsky, p. 30.

20 ings and ideas of its composer, as they do to pre-existingreferential system often associated SIMON PERRY consider it an expression of wider personal vi- with symmetricalusage in nineteenth-century Mussorgsky's cissitudes or, less plausibly, some sort of class Russianmusic. The specificallyRussian sym- Sunless reaction to the increasingly conservative flavor bolism of the whole-tonescale extendsback, at of the 1870s. (Of course, one should keep in least, to Glinka and Ruslan and Ludmilla,in mind that these options are not mutually ex- which it is directlyassociated with the powers clusive.) Given both this possibility and the of evil magic, personified in the dwarf much more introverted nature of the cycle, Chernomor,whose appearanceit underlines.33 compared to the bulk of Mussorgsky's previous Fromhere grew the Russiantradition of using output, there seems a need to consider its mu- "synthetic" chromaticism,generally born of sical technique and style from a more octavesymmetry, to signifythe worldof magic interiorized vantage point than might be the and fairy tale (evil or benign),opposed to the case in a repertoire whose references are more worldly and human, as signifiedby means of overt and whose level of communication is "natural"diatonicism, or, at least, more nor- somewhat less abstract and withdrawn. The mative harmonicpractice.34 Although this tra- remaining parts of this article investigate the dition was still in its adolescencein the 1870s, music of select numbers of Sunless-specifi- no one in progressiveRussian musical circles cally songs 1, 2, 3, and 6-with the cycle's was unawareof it. Rimsky-Korsakov'stwo early interior orientation as a critical perspective. orchestralworks, Sadko (1867) and Antar (1868), The analysis advanced will suggest evidence in both utilized symmetricalprocedures at dra- these songs of both an immediate, intuitive, matically appropriatemoments. Mussorgsky emotional response to the "moods" of the text himself made use of such procedures,notably that complements, indeed, dovetails remark- in BorisGodunov, where we findhim adapting ably with, a more intellectual, symbolic sys- the symbolism of symmetrical structuresto tem of reference and textual reading. his own dramaticends. The Ruslanesquefairy- The harmonic language of Sunless, especially tale domain was clearly inappropriateto this in the songs considered in detail here, is exten- context, but the significationof evil remained sively reliant on modal mixture. Indeed, mix- a vital componentin the drama,and synthetic ture predominates in Sunless to the extent that chromaticismplays an importantpart in con- other forms of chromaticism, for example, that noting the complex of ideas aroundmurder, produced by temporary tonicization at various guilt, paranoia,and so on. A furtherfacet of the levels, are largely absent. The expressive harmonic world of Sunless thus achieves much of its uniformity of tone through this singularity 33For an account of whole-tone usage in Ruslan and of chromatic procedure. As noted above, this Ludmilla, see Mary S. Woodside, "Leitmotiv in Russia: harmonic element carries much of the weight Glinka's Use of the Whole-Tone Scale," this journal 14 in "clothing" the shifting, expressive moods of (1990), 67-74. 34Thedevelopment of symmetrical chromaticism in Rus- Golenishchev-Kutuzov's text. This fluctuating sian music of the nineteenth century has been exhaus- modal fabric of the music is a readily perceived tively charted in Richard Taruskin, "Chernomor to phenomenon, of course, lying very much on Kashchei:Harmonic Sorcery; or, Stravinsky's'Angle'," Jour- nal of the American Musicological Society 38 (1985), 72- the surface. A second, more specific, feature of 142. As Taruskin demonstrates, the later nineteenth-cen- harmonic organization in Sunless is the use of tury Russian penchant for symmetrical chromaticism grew pitch symmetry, in particular:the use of tritone very much out of an interest in the novel harmonic procedures of progressive Western composers, especially Liszt, juxtaposition and fleeting, but suggestive, ref- and especially cyclic rotations of harmonic structuresbased erences to the whole-tone scale. This aspect on partitioning of the octave by thirds. While Glinka's introduces into the cycle another potential layer occasional experiments themselves were, as Woodside suggests, unlikely to have been borrowedfrom Western mod- of meaning, one that is at once more symbolic els of his day, the techniques associated with octave sym- and "knowing,"and one that suggests a planned, metry in later nineteenth-century Russian music seem, or preconceived, approach to composition, thanks to Balakirev, largely to have been adopted from Western models. Glinka's bequest to later nineteenth-cen- rather than an intuitive one. In this aspect of tury Russian octave symmetry lies probably more in the its form, Sunless clearly modifies and adapts a particularsemantic associations he established with it.

21 19TH symmetrical usage in Boris Godunov is its em- concept may be expanded, not unpredictably, CENTURY MUSIC phasis on tritonal oppositions, revealed most to embrace other dichotomies, including love famously at the beginning of the Coronation and loss of love, company and solitude, rapture scene with its famous "dominant sevenths a and oblivion. At a further extent of interpreta- tritone apart." Although Mussorgsky was not tion, we might even propose juxtapositions be- the originatorof this harmonic device,35his use tween decadence and wholesomeness, between of it here and elsewhere in symmetrically based unwholesome homoeroticism and upright, but passage work in the opera-see, for example, stifling, "normality." It is up to the readerhow the scene with the chiming clock and final far to pursue these readings, but the possible hallucinatory monologue in act II-shows that viability of such interpretations is not to be tritone opposition was integral to his thinking dismissed outright.37 in symmetrical structures. Extending this con- One of Mussorgsky's special achievements cept, tritone polarity also plays an important in Sunless is the way he managed to blend the part in key signification in the opera, as dem- two means of harmonic organization discussed onstrated by Robert Oldani. In the scheme that in broad terms above and, thus, blend the ex- Oldani proposes, tritonal key relationships can pressive and symbolic aspects of the cycle's be found that express referential dichotomies meaning. Unlike the gaudy necessities of oper- intrinsic to the drama.36 atic presentation, in these salon romances ref- This backgroundis important to the consid- erential juxtapositions are softened and "nu- eration of Sunless despite the very different anced" in a way entirely appropriate to the generic and aesthetic nature of the work. The "subjective lyricism" of the poetry. In order to important aspect about symmetry is less the achieve this, Mussorgsky draws on the poten- specific significance attributable to individual tial of modal mixture to incorporate aspects of cases than its general potential to signify a symmetrical organization. His means of doing dichotomy, whether through juxtaposition of so is varied in each of the songs, but some very symmetrical against normative harmonic pro- basic principles (of which he was clearly, in cedures, or through the related concept of some sense, aware) are worth reviewing briefly tritone juxtapositionof pitches, chords,and keys (particularlyI and 1V).It is this general referential capacity that Mussorgsky draws on, not infrequently, in Sunless. It will be seen in more 37Tritonalharmonic dichotomies as signifiers of homo/ heterosexuality may recall, to those familiar with them, detail below how parts of the text (especially in Timothy Jackson'sarguments about the symphonic works the first three poems) make important distinc- of Tchaikovsky. See Timothy Jackson,"Aspects of Sexual- tions, for instance, between past and present. ity and Structurein the LaterSymphonies of Tchaikovsky," Music Analysis 14 (1995), 3-25, and Tchaikovsky: Sym- The present, in Golenishchev-Kutuzov's poems phony No. 6 (Pathetique), Cambridge Music Handbooks for Sunless, is unremittingly gloomy while ref- (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). The erences to the past hint at happier, although present analysis is cautious of Jackson'sbolder assertions, but a parallel reading reveals some superficial compari- perhaps misspent, times. This past-and-present sons, which I somewhat defensively acknowledge. For instance, Jackson's "reading of the Fourth Symphony [of Tchaikovsky] proposes that fated homosexuality is represented by an 'unorthodox' k5/#4chromatic-enharmonic de- 3SSeeTaruskin, "Chernomor,"p. 110. formation of the dominant and subdominantscale degrees" 36SeeCaryl Emerson and Robert William Oldani, Modest ("Aspects of Sexuality," p. 11). This might find a parallel Musorgsky and Boris Godunov: Myths, Realities, Recon- in the salient, and clearly referential, use of k5 in the first siderations (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1994), three numbers of Sunless. The differenceswith the present pp. 239-76. On p. 240, in figure 9.1, a number of referen- offering are that my analysis does not attempt to specify tial tritone juxtapositions are schematicized, including: D, symbolic meaning to quite such a degree and that Jackson "retribution"/ Al "Desire for peace"; A, "Release from argues for these references at deep levels of structure (em- Dmitry" / ES,"Dmitry." An alternative scheme has been ploying Schenkerian apparatus to reveal it). This latter proposedby Allen Forte, who denotes a series of tritonally aspect to his argument is both his most intriguing and, opposed, referentialpitch classes (all derived from a single unfortunately,controversial point. Fora review of Jackson's octatonic scale), which may function as roots of referential analysis of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, see Marina chords, or tonics of significant keys, but which also retain Frolova-Walker,review of Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 referentialsignificance in their own right. See "Musorgsky (Pathetique), by Timothy Jackson, Music & Letters 82 as Modernist,"Music Analysis 9 (1990), 6ff. (2001), 128-31.

22 a. First degree of mixture, C as tonic. b. First degree, C as axis. SIMON PERRY major natural minor " Mussorgsky's I---J--J------J--oI Sunless -j7] TT 0 6J 1 c. Second degree of mixture ("authentic"),C as tonic. d. Second degree ("authentic"),C as axis. Lydian natural minor S . Jc J #J o i711YI iii o mJ J . e. Second degree of mixture ("plagal"),C as tonic. f. Second degree ("plagal"),C as axis. major Locrian Iiiiii m ~ m~~~~~ ;gmm h. ThrdegreJ , J o i g. Third degree of mixture, C as tonic. h. Thirddegree, C as axis. Lydian Locrian

j J J II ~~J J~~ J ^.L 11 4J J WJ

Example 1: Models for modal mixture and whole-tone interaction. in the abstract. One direct path to this nexus of the whole-tone pentachord is expressed as a modal mixture and (specifically whole-tone) single, contiguous scale segment balanced on pitch symmetry exists in the combination of the tonic/axis. generically major and minor scale forms in the In the second stage of this model, further lower and upper tetrachords, respectively, of a mixture to either tetrachord-altering the lower "standard"seven-note scale structure.38In terms one to Lydian, or the upper one to Locrian, as of the mixture/symmetry nexus, this combina- in ex. lc and e-produces a complete whole- tion can be considered a first degree of mixture, tone hexachord bounded, in the inside-out ver- producing the form given in ex. la, which re- sion, by either 16 and #4, or b5 and 3, in ex. ld tains the other two "structural"pitches of sub- and f, respectively. In these cases, the whole- dominant and dominant in unaltered form. tone presence notwithstanding, the role of the Present in this seven-note collection is a whole- tonic is not truly axial because the positioning tone pentachord (beamed). The rearrangement of the whole-tone hexachord tends to suggest of the form shown in ex. lb, a sort of turning either a quasi-authentic (ex. I c and d) or quasi- "inside out," reveals the symmetrical aspect of plagal (ex. le and f) structure-that is, preserv- this stage of mixture more clearly, where the ing either the natural dominant or natural sub- tonic, C, becomes an axis with a mirror-image dominant, but not both. This stage presents, interval series (2-2-1 etc.) radiating outward therefore, a midway point between uncompro- from it. In this latter arrangementof the model, mised functionality and total symmetry. In the third and final stage of mixture in this model, a combined presence of Lydianlower and Locrian upper tetrachords produces a "seven-note" 38Relatedto this derivation, of course, is the "Lisztian" rotation of triads through a cycle of major thirds (for ex- whole-tone scale, ex. lg, with a notational ample, I4VI-III-I),which also invokes the principle of mix- "overlap"at the tritone from the tonic (whose ture. As acknowledgedabove (see n. 34), such progressions, traditional sense must now be considered se- typical of progressive mid-nineteenth-century music, certainly form a backdropto the investigation of symmetrical verely denuded). Turning this inside out (ex. routines (both whole-tone and octatonic) in Russia. lh) provides a contiguous whole-tone series

23 19TH Flattened T-T-S tetrachord CENTURY MUSIC 7 1 2 3 4 b5 16 67 68 Whole-tone scale ({V: 7 1 2 3 4) A ~IIII I

4 4 1 1 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~6 6,- tvw wI S T T S S T T S

D D of V

Example 2: Major scale with semitone "slippage"of upper tetrachord.

spanning an augmented seventh, poised on an relation in lieu of a structural fourth or fifth axial tonic whose status is now defined solely one. If we keep the discussion in the scalar by its symmetrical positioning. The doubly context for the moment (allowing that the de- spelled tritone might, in this model, even be grees altered or otherwise can form roots, or considered to take on an abstract role of substi- even other chordal factors), it can be seen, for tute subdominant and dominant.39In summary, instance, that a flattening of the upper these examples suggest how the path traveled, tetrachord of a diatonic major scale produces a from the conventional functionality implicit model in which there is, again, a strong whole- in ex. la to the symmetrical, nonfunctional tone presence (ex. 2). Two contiguous, three- environment of ex. lh, is not a matter of differ- step whole-tone segments are "divided" by ent techniques but, rather, of the degree of ap- pitches a tritone apart. These dividers are the plication of a single technique. subdominant and the enharmonic leading-note/ Another model that relates modality to sym- flat tonic. This pair, as a tritone, has a strong metry is what might be called "slippage." In- dominant functional tendency (labeled "D" in stances of individual chords and even progres- ex. 2), pointing simultaneously in two direc- sions that seem to have slid down, or up, a tions (as indicated by the dual notation 7/8) to semitone, are not infrequent in Mussorgsky's tonal centers that are themselves a tritone music. (Slid, that is, from a position that would apart.40The lower tetrachordsand leading notes produce a more normative sounding progres- of both of these centers are represented in the sion.) There are several instances of this type of structure. This is, therefore, another signifi- progression in Sunless, especially in the third cant model for symmetrical/functional inter- song. The result of this phenomenon often invokes the substitution of a structural tritone

40This functional duality will strike a chord in readers aware of the concepts of the early-twentieth-century Rus- 39A harmonized variant of this final model is found explic- sian theorist, Boleslav Iavorsky. In his theory of "modal itly in act II of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov (in the 1872 rhythm" (which extends far beyond the mere concerns of version), accompanying Shuisky's first mention of the Pre- pitch structure, being intended as a universal theory of tender to Boris. Each note of a contiguous whole-tone se- music) the tritone is the fundamental source of harmonic ries from Gb to F# (an octave higher) is harmonized by a "gravitation." The theory allows for a particular set of major triad in root position. The bass line moves in con- phenomena called the "duplex modes" in which the am- trary motion, outlining an octatonic hexachord (GK-FK-E-- biguous resolution potential of the tritone, to resolve "in- C-BK-A-F#). Allen Forte has pointed out this remarkable wards" or "outwards," is integral. For further discussion, passage in the context of his discussion of incipient mod- see Gordon D. McQuere, "The Theories of Boleslav ernism in Boris Godunov. See Forte, "Musorgsky as Mod- Yavorsky," Russian Theoretical Thought in Music, ed. Gor- ernist," pp. 11-12. Although he acknowledges the whole- don D. McQuere, Russian Music Series 10 (Ann Arbor: tone element, Forte's commentary is more concerned with UMI Research Press, 1983), pp. 109-64; for an application the passage as an octatonic outgrowth of the famous tritone- of the theory to music of Mussorgsky, see Gordon D. related dominant-seventh chords of the Coronation scene McQuere, "Analyzing Musorgsky's 'Gnome'," Indiana (Prologue, scene 2). Theory Review 13 (1989), 21-40.

24 action.41 Straightforward though the foregoing cific sense the poem suggests a surrender to SIMON PERRY discussion may be, it provides the necessary impulse, which may lead to alternative inter- Mussorgsky's conceptual apparatus by which the symmetri- pretations. Sunless cal aspects of the selected numbers of Sunless may be approached. Mesiats zadumchivyi, zvezdy dalekie S sinego neba vodami liubuiutsia. III Molcha smotriu ia na vody glubokie; In the final number, "On the River," the Tainy volshebnye serdtsem v nikh chuiutsia. relationship between the text and referential Pleshchut, taiatsia, laskatel'no nezhnye; symmetry in the musical organization is most Mnogo v ikh ropote sily charuiushchei: overtly realized, and on this basis it provides a Slyshatsia dumy i strasti bezbrezhnye ... good starting point for the present analysis. Golos nevedomyi, dushu volnuiushchii. The more or less overt theme of the text is one Nezhit, pugaet, navodit somnenie. of increasing suicidal obsession. In a less spe- Slushat' velit li on? S mesta-b ne sdvinulsia; Gonit li proch'? Ubezhal by v smiatenii; V glub' li zovet? Bez ogliadki-b ia kinulsia! 41Itis also worth noting that this slippage effect is a phenomenon relatable to octatonicism in early-twentieth-century music; that of Stravinsky and Bart6k springs to mind (The pensive moon, the distant stars in particular. In the case of Bart6k, the phenomenon has Admire the waters from the dark blue heavens. been referred to by Janos Karpiti under the rubric of In silence I watch the deep waters; in the context of his discussion of "mistuning" "tonality In them I sense secrets of the heart. and polytonality." See Bart6k's Chamber Music, trans. magical Paul trans. rev. Fred Macnicol and Maria Steiner Merrick, They splash, conceal, are soothingly tender; (Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, pp. 197-217. 1994), There are in their murmur: "Mistuning" as a concept developed by Kirpati can relate bewitching powers to individual notes, but he also extends it to larger struc- Thoughts and reckless passions may be heard... tures. He specifically links it to modal structures, consid- A voice unknown, which disturbs my soul. ering, for instance, the "scale . . . of alternating whole tones and semitones" (that is, the octatonic) to be a It caresses, frightens, raises doubts. "mistuned form" of Dorian origin (p. 199). Interesting, Does it demand my attention? I would not move in the context of the discussion is also, above, Karpati's away; observation that the phenomenon is linked "mistuning" Does it drive me off? I would flee in to bitonality in Bart6k'smusic (p. 218). Many authors, of disarray; course, have pointed out the octatonic usage in Stravinsky, Does it call me to the depths? I would cast myself especially in The Rite of Spring. In terms of the relation- in without a glance!)42 ship of octatonicism to modal structures, especially tetrachordal segments, in The Rite of Spring, Richard Taruskin's consideration is probablythe most penetrating The text begins with the expansive, luminous in terms of its demonstration of the context out of which imagery of "pensive moon," "distant stars," this nexus grew. See Stravinsky and the Russian Tradi- "dark blue heavens,"43 and "deep waters." By tions: A Biography of the Works Through Mavra, 2 vols. (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1996), I, 934-50. In par- the end of the first quatrain, the subtle rhythms ticular, Taruskin demonstrates how a significant propor- of the river have begun to cast their spell over tion of the folk materials used by Stravinsky in this work the protagonist. The waters' "bewitching pow- provided him with the basis for a "brilliantly original and thorough synthesis of the folkloristic and modernistic tra- ers" are elaborated in the second quatrain be- ditions of Russian art music" (p. 937). In other words, fore the emergence, in its final line, of a "voice what had previously existed as antitheses in Russian art music, especially opera, since Glinka-the modal diatonic world of human character(s)as opposed to the evocation of the supernatural through (especially symmetrical) chro- 42Theprosaic translations of the song texts given in this maticism-were fused in The Rite. "Having drawn much article are my own; I take pleasure in thanking Dr. John of his material [for The Rite] from the most archaic stra- McNair of the School of Languagesand ComparativeCul- tum of surviving Slavic folk music-that of ceremonial tural Studies, Faculty of Arts, The University of Queens- and 'calendar' songs-and having therefore adopted or in- land, for his perusal of and helpful advice on these transla- vented a fund of themes and motives that were more or tions. less restricted in their melodic compass to the tones of the 43/"S sinego neba" (From the dark blue heavens) is given minor tetrachord (T-S-T), Stravinsky was led to base the alternatively as "S dal'nego neba" (Fromthe distant heav- harmonic idiom of the ballet with remarkableconsistency ens) in the manuscript, while Golenishchev-Kutuzov ap- on the hitherto very rare partition of the octatonic collec- pears originally to have written "S temnogo neba" (From tion into two such tetrachords pitched a tritone apart" the dark heavens). See Lamm's note in Musorgskii, Bez (ibid.). solntsa, p. 19.

25 19TH unknown,"beckoning from the depths.In the obsessive, but strangely trancelike, emotionally ef- CENTURY faced affect of the then it is the MUSIC third quatrain,all focus shifts to this mysteri- text, largely aspects ous voice as the protagonistattempts to under- of thematic design and distribution that support its standits meaning.The final question,"Does it process. This is realized by Mussorgsky's increas- call me to the depths?"is resolvedunequivo- ingly restrictive thematic usage, one that parallels cally:"I would cast myself in withouta glance!" the text's shift from expansive water imagery to It is not certainwhether this voice concentration on the mysterious "voice" that calls represents the protagonist to his suicidal plunge. As the poetic some "real,"external force, or some innercom- concentration narrows, two distinctive and related pulsion of the protagonist.Ultimately this dis- figures, or motives, come increasingly to dominate tinctionmay remain a matterfor the individual the musical material. These are shown, in the form reader,although, given the "subjective"orien- in which they each first appear, in ex. 3 (labeled x tation of the verse, the latter may be the pre- and y). They comprise the only recurring thematic ferredreading. What remains central to any materials of the piece and receive only small, but readingof the text is its "process"-specifi- not insignificant, degrees of variation in subsequent cally its narrowingof focus and increasingob- appearances. Something of the way in which these sessionwith a singularity(the "voice"),accom- motives come to dominate the thematic material a of the back- can be gauged statistically. Of the fifty-two mea- paniedby correspondingfading just less than at the And it sures comprising the piece,45 half, groundimagery present opening. twenty-six, are given over to these two motives in is precisely this process, more than any par- some form or another, leaving twenty-nine for "free" ticularmeanings or images,which is reflected material. Their specific appearances, moreover, show in the musical setting. marked concentration toward the end of the song. In Much could be written about the rhythmic the first quatrain (mm. 2-17), only two out of six- aspectof this song alone. Sufficeit to say here teen measures are given over to this material (in the that qualitiesof repetitiveness,periodicity, and form of x), in the second quatrain (mm. 18-33) six of smoothnessat variouslevels are calculatedto sixteen measures contain x or y material, while in underliethe protagonist'sself-absorbed, almost the final quatrain (mm. 34-49), twelve measures do hypnotic,state. Similarly,too, pitch organiza- so, leaving only four for free material. The postlude to these characteris- is dominated by motive y to the exclusion of all tion is exploited underlie material.46 It can also be seen in is the other thematic by tics. The most overtfeature this regard their distribution that x and y gradually come to continuously oscillating C# pedal, which not share a close relationship. Tonality in this song, as only supportsthe sense of stasis and inner ab- suggested above, is articulated chiefly by the sa- sorption,but also determinesthe song'stonal- lience of C#, rather than by its functional definition. ity, establishedhere by salience rather than In the absence of such means, x takes on the role of a function.44Over this point of stasis, an unfold- cadential gesture, as evidenced by its terminating ing series of modally mixed harmonies sup- role in each of the three quatrains. With the emer- ports the subtly shifting images and "moods" gence of y in the second and third quatrains, a kind of the text. This sinuous threadof harmonies of antecedent-consequent structure is set up between largelycharacterizes the song's"tone." y and x. This structure is first evident in the pairing of these motives in mm. 30-33 (where x closes the second it is then in If the factorsof organizationand quatrain); strongly exploited general rhythmic relation to the constructions in the tonalitymay be understoodto supportaspects of the question-answer last three lines of the text-that is, the three pair- ings of y and x that occupy mm. 38-49 (see ex. 6). Significantly, both y and x relate to the tonic C# 44Theview that the C# supports an unresolved dominant This prolongationseems untenable,despite the major-minorsev- not functionally but symmetrically. symmetry enth on C#being an oft-used sonority in this song. Michael Russ tends slightly to this view of its tonality, but is somewhat equivocal about it. See "'Be Bored':Reading a Mussorgsky Song," this journal 20 (1996), 30. Arguments 4sThatis, a single introductory measure, forty-eight mea- against F# as a tonal center would have to include the sures for each of the sixteen-measure quatrains, and six seven-sharps key signature that Mussorgsky himself sup- measures of piano postlude. plied and the fact that the bare C#-majortriad (sans sev- 46Thespecific distribution is as follows: mm. 16-17, x; 24- enth) is used at key points of intemal termination-not 25, x; 30-31, y; 32-33, x; 38-39, y; 40-41, x; 42-43, y; 44- least at the end of each quatrain. 45, x; 46-47, y; 48-49, x; 50-51, y; 52-55, y.

26 a. Motive x. SIMON PERRY 16 pp Mussorgsky's Sunless

serd - tsem v nikh chu iut - sia.

b. Motive y. 30 sordo-misterioso

Go los ne - ve - do - myi,

(S#### (S#### mmjj}jj;;jj

Example 3: "On the River," motives x and y.

a. Linear components of motives x and y. y x I. I I ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I (p# 4)##.#(,_- IV' IN L 11 2 -- 3 -- 3 (4) 3 < 3< 2 4 (4) 4

b. Axial arrangementof pitch contents of part (a), motives x and y. y

i_____ ' .va ____4_4__44_r

Example 4: "On the River," symmetrical properties of motives x and y.

is quite easily shown in relation to the linear aspect motives, there is a mirror dividing the first and sec- of each motive (see ex. 4a). Motive y consists of two ond half of the motive so that the interval series diminished triads a whole tone apart,symmetrically traced from the originating C# in the first half is re- positioned within the compass of an octave C#,which flected in the interval series approachingthe termi- they fill in an ascending motion. Motive x then par- nating C #in the second half. Motive y can, indeed, be titions the same octave in the reverse direction by considered a variant of x by inversion and "filling major thirds. Because of their clear relatedness, the in," such that the descending majorthirds in x, C -A two motives together, as "antecedent/consequent," and E#-C#,become filled-in ascending minor sixths might also be considered usefully as a higher unity, in y. The pitch content of ex. 4a is easily rearranged y-x. The notation of both motives confers a central to show C# more clearly as an axis (ex. 4b). role on C# as articulated through the division be- Both x and y as realized, however, have added tween A~and E#in each case. In other words, in both components that contaminate the symmetry around

27 19TH E# Mm7 CENTURY A Mm7 I~~~~~~~~~I ~III I II I I I I I I I I I I I1[II, I MUSIC A l I

- (X-) xi ff##,l.#,I# - 2 J i #r 2 1 w I I i I 1 1 2 1 1

C# Mm7 Example 5: "On the River," scalar array of chordal elements of motive x.

C# outlined in ex. 4. In the case of y, there is an the whole-tone scale does not replicate in spelling at occasional counterpoint, which appearsin mm. 38- the octave. Instead,octave equivalence is represented 39 as a simple augmentation of the C#-B.-C#neigh- by doubly augmented sevenths. The result is a scale bor figure and later as a descending line (C$-B$-AM- whose notation grows increasingly sharp in ascent, G#)in mm. 42-43 and 50-51. In the case of x, in its and correspondingly flat in descent, a sort of con- most often used form, the corruptions are brought tinuum that radiates outward in both directions: DV- on by the use of the three linear pitch elements (C#, Ek-F-G-A-B-C-D,-Eb-Fx-G-Ax-Bx. Example 5 A, and E#) as "roots" for incomplete major-minor shows how the full pitch-complement of motive x seventh chords. Both the A and E#-major-minorsev- balances itself more or less aroundthe axial C#,with enth chords are renderedcomplete by fortuitous met- members of the E#-major-minorseventh tending to rical placing of C#and its lower neighbor B#,respec- fall on the sharp side of the whole-tone continuum tively, in the pedal figuration (see ex. 3a above). The and members of the A-major-minorseventh tending initial C#-major-minorseventh is without its fifth, to fall on its flat side. but G#is subsequently supplied in the C#-majortriad The symbolism invoked in all this is clearly re- that terminates x. The vertical elements these chords lated to the mysterious "voice." Its whole-tone as- impose result in a much richer pitch collection, of pect certainly draws on the usual referencesto magic course, than the linear elements of x alone. The and evil, but transforms these meanings. This is not thirds and sevenths of these three major-minorsev- the magic of fairy tale, but the beguiling power of enth chords complete the whole-tone scale already inner compulsion, narcissism, fascinationwith death, suggested by the pitch classes (C#, A, E#)of x, by or an irrationalimpulse to total surrender.The asso- adding B, D#, and G (not to mention Gx, already ciative link between these concepts and the open- present as At). The fifths of these chords, however, ended symmetry exploited in the figures themselves contaminate the whole-tone structure by adding the is entirely apt. Unlike the protagonist's immediate non-whole-tone related pitch classes G#, E, and B#. state and surrounds,these things are infinite, bound- These relationships are shown in ex. 5, which places less, unknowable. Similarly so, in a sense, is the all the pitch elements of x around the axial C#, axial symmetry invoked-it has no limits, no finite showing whole-tone scale members in open note boundary. Although it replicates in pitch class, in heads, nonmembers in filled note heads.47The main- representationof pitch it does not; rather,it lies on a tenance of the intervallic structure of the chords in continuum that spills out in an endless conceptual motive x accounts for Mussorgsky's unusual nota- enharmonicism in either direction, sharp and flat.49 tion (see ex. 3a), which includes G, G#, and Gx in close proximity.48The array produced is not abso- lutely symmetrical in relation to C#, but it displays 49Mussorgsky'sknowledge of andadmiration for Schubert's an interesting, if well-known, notational phenom- songscould be considereda significantfactor here. A num- enon based on its relation to the whole-tone scale. berof these employenharmonicism structurally and sym- one is re- When as a contiguous series of "degrees," bolically to great effect. In the presentcase, spelled mindedof "Wegweiser,"which Mussorgsky may well have known,with its famousomnibus progression based on a centricG tonic and pointedtritone enharmonic simulta- 47Altogether,the resultantcollection can be thoughtof neity on Db/C#,beneath the lines "EinenWeiser seh' ich (thoughMussorgsky would hardly have done so) as a mode stehen/ Unverriicktvor meinemBlick, / EineStrage muB of limitedtransposition, one categorizedby Messiaen,for ich gehen, / Die noch keiner ging zuriick."Another of example,as mode3 (transposition1) of his modesof lim- Schubert'ssongs to use enharmonicismdistinctively is, of ited transposition.See OlivierMessiaen, The Technique course,"Der Doppelganger." For an analysisof the signifi- of My Musical Language, trans. John Satterfield, 2 vols. cance of this enharmonicism,see EytanAgmon, "Music (Paris:Alphonse Leduc [1956]),I, 60. and Text in SchubertSongs: The Role of Enharmonic 48Thesejuxtaposed inflections of the dominant pitch are Equivalence," Israel Studies in Musicology 4 (1987), 55- symptomatic of its denuded functional status in this song. 58. "DerDoppelginger," moreover, was highly ratedby

28 38 SIMON ,: PERRY Mussorgsky's Sunless Slu - shat' ve - lit li on? S me sta-b ne sdvi nul - sia;

(*"***..*."e 7 7

Go - nit li proch'? U be - zhal by v smia te - ni- i;

ndim.^~~-*11^?^ - Y cresc. p

poco rallent. 46 n sordo a tempo

- V glub' li zo - vet? Bez o gliad ki-b ia ki nul sia! . . .

p E m 8-pp - R4 m <.#####i E xa "Oh 3-

Example 6: "On the River," mm. 38-49.

To get a further idea of how intrinsic is the sym- in each particular case corresponds so convincingly metry found in these motives with regard to the to the varying degrees of commitment shown by the textual process, it is instructive to compare in detail protagonist to the mysterious beckoning of the the final three appearances of y-x as a complex, "voice" as to rule out coincidence. The first ques- those that accompanythe three question-answercon- tion-answer pairing, "Does it demand my attention? structions at the end of the poem (see ex. 6). The I would not move away," is equivocal in that no degree to which the symmetry that lies at the root of specific action is inferred. The line is anticipatory; the y-x complex is explicitly realized in the music the protagonist is committed to listen furtherbut, at this stage, no more than that. The next line, "Does it drive me off? I would flee in disarray,"suggests a rejection of the compelling, yet frightening of panicked Mussorgsky. It was included in a select list of examples invitation. The final "Does it call me to "perfection"in a letter to Rimsky-Korsakovin early Octo- coupling, ber 1867 (Orlova, Musorgsky's Days, p. 154). For another the depths?I would cast myself in without a glance," consideration of enharmonicism as a structural and sym- can mean nothing else than total surrender to its bolic device in Schubert's songs, see the discussion of bewitching enticements. In the first of these three "Nacht und Traume" in Carl Schachter, "Motive and Text lines the formulation of x (mm. 40-41) in Four Schubert Schenkerian Theory, (mm. 38-41), Songs," Aspects of similar to the earlier at ed. David Beach (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), is intrinsically appearances pp. 71-76. mm. 16-17 and 32-33. That is, the pitch-symmetri-

29 19TH Andante molto cantabile, con meditazione CENTURY - MUSIC i###?e jlM j j d j vJ -rJ J d i Me - siats za - dum - chi - vyi, zvez - dy da - Ie - ki- e

,?~ i i XiI.i! hJ; ; J- 4 T 7 ( ##?7ThTh] eW ;7 iW j j

Example 7: "On the River," mm. 1-5.

cal organization is powerfully felt but, as we have tone) symmetry exploited in the music. There is no seen, not uncorruptedby vertical elements. At mm. sharp contrast or clear dichotomy, nor is there in- 42-45, the asymmetrical potential of the motives is tended to be-only a slow, subtle shifting from one most strongly exploited. Motive y receives its fullest state to another. From one world it is but a short counterpoint and x is altered such that its harmonic step to the other. This proximity is evident, for accretions suggest resolution to A# minor, that is, example, even in the opening five measures of the "escape" from the symmetrically defined tonic C#. piece (ex. 7), a phrase that can understandablygive This is clearly reinforced by the asymmetry in the rise to the idea that the tonality of the piece is F#.In notation, as well, which now abandons Ah entirely traditional terms we have here a V7/IVmoving to an in favor of Gx, the leading note to A#.Finally, in mm. auxiliary six-four colored by modal mixture. The 46-49, the most "purely" symmetrical formulation scale used is a mixed one-indeed it corresponds of y-x is found. The counterpoint for y is abandoned. exactly to the first model put forwardin ex. 1-with Abandoned, too, are the major-minorsevenths in x. major lower and minor upper tetrachords:C#-Db-Eb- Its pitch content and its notation are completely FF-Gt-A~-B-C#. This contains within it the pitch symmetrical with regard to a C# axis. The realiza- contents intrinsic to the structuring of x and y-in tion of the symmetry is reinforced by the anacrusis the case of y the pitch content is identical-but figure that is now attached to motive x. This figure these contents work, in the beginning of the song, as is necessitated by the redistribution of syllables in part of a more traditionally defined tonal collection. the final pair of question-answer constructions (lines Thus, the song may be understood to operate on at 11-12, mm. 42-49), where what was initially a bal- least two distinct planes of expression. Most imme- anced 6-6 (question-answer) syllable count in line diately felt is the free, affective plane sustained by 10 becomes, in lines 11 and 12, a 4-8 distribution. In the fluctuating harmony, with its rich modal mix- both cases of this 4-8 distribution, the first pair of tures, that dominates the song's first half. On a more syllables of the answer is set to an upper #7-8 figure. intellectual plane we discover a symbolic system of In the final line (mm. 46-49), this figure is counter- reference associated with symmetrical usage. By the balanced by the motion 2-1 at the lower octave. end of the song it is possible that this symmetrical Also, where the final three syllables in lines set to aspect comes to exert a visceral, albeit subtle, ex- previous appearances of figure x enlist other mem- pressive pressure on the listener as it gradually as- bers of the C#triad, in this final statement, the voice serts itself over, yet simultaneously out of, the mi- exclusively enforces its root. lieu of free mixture. At no juncture is the boundary "On the River" displays a remarkable connec- between these expressive means sharply drawn, and tion between poetic and musical processes. As the it is precisely Mussorgsky's deft and seamless han- text's protagonist moves from morose contempla- dling of their relationship that underpins the elu- tion of his surroundings to a state of total inner sive, but devastating, power of this song. obsession, so does the music move from "free"material with modal mixture as its main chromatic harmonic determinant to "fixed"material with sym- IV metry as its main determinant. It is important to In the first three songs a rather different ap- recognize, as suggested above, the connection be- proach is found with respect to the interactions tween the modal mixture and the (largely whole- of mixture and symmetry. This is demonstra-

30 bly associated with differences in the text to do Manydoubts, much patience. SIMON This is my night,my lonely night.) PERRY with broad concepts of time. "On the River" Mussorgsky's orientates the reader toward the future, albeit Sunless an unknown (indeed, unknowable) one. In the A distinctive, and putatively "Fet-like," qual- first three texts, the reader'sattention is swung ity here is the absence of verbs, the reliance on to the past and its contrast with the present. fragmentary nouns modified by evocative ad- Recollections of the past in these three texts jectives. Accepting Golenishchev-Kutuzov's recall happier times, but are suffused also with version of how Sunless was composed (see the bitterness of the protagonist's present deso- above), it seems likely that Mussorgsky may late state. This theme of past and present is have eventually settled on this poem as the given a rather subtle airing in the first song, but first because of the way in which it so strik- is more explicitly revealed in the second and, ingly sets the mood for the whole cycle. Cen- especially, the third. In connection with this, tral themes of night ("sunlessness") and soli- tritone polarity plays a much more concrete tude are introduced here. Also, in the fifth and role in these songs. In "On the River," the sixth lines, the rupturebetween past and present tritone pole, although certainly lying some- is subtly invoked. The adjective dalekii (far- where on the whole-tone continuum, is never away, remote) in line 6 need not be constricted given a definitive form, is never strongly ar- to denoting geographical remoteness, and the ticulated as an alternative center or focal point, image of time passing in the previous line sug- and is never, indeed, concretized. In the first gests, more than anything, that the "happi- three songs, by contrast, it is materially present, ness" is remote in time. and at crucial moments, in the form of b5 as a chordal root or, even, as a local pitch center. The fragmentaryunfolding of the text is simply, but The flattened dominant is, in these songs, sym- beautifully, reflected in the music (ex. 8). Unlike the bolically tied up with a complex of images and sixth song, where aspects of the piano figuration to some extent be heard as a ideas associated with the past. The choice of may sympathetic "pictorialising"of the river, there is no device in the this particular notational form to (as opposed music to this song that might evoke any sympa- its own as will #4) has, moreover, significance, thetic external image. The overall sense of inhibited, be discussed below. curbed emotional range that may be detected in the In the first song, "Within Four Walls," the verse is conveyed (somewhat similarly to the case of linkage between the lyricism of the poetry and "On the River")in the highly measured regularityof an apparentlytheoretically unfettered approach the vocal rhythm. Also supportingthis sense of emo- to modally mixed harmony is on full display. tional numbness is, of course, the unifying device of Of all Golenishchev-Kutuzov's texts in Sunless, the omnipresent tonic pedal.As for the subtly fleeting this one may without any hesitation be called a "moods," modally mixed harmony here carries the series of "fleeting, emotional moods." primary burden of expressive response to the text. Two-measure phrases set each line. These are heard Komnatkatesnaia, tikhaia, milaia; as fragmentary, discrete entities without obvious Ten' neprogliadnaia,ten' bezotvetnaia; harmonic interconnectedness. Fermatas at the end Dumaglubokaia, pesnia unylaia; of each phrase serve to heighten the effect of discon- V b'iushchemsiaserdtse nadezhda zavetnaia; tinuity. As in the final song, there is virtually a complete absence of traditional functional relations Bystryi za polet, mgnoven'emmgnoveniia; in the harmony-witness, if nothing the ex- Vzornepodvizhnyi na schast'edalekoe; else, traordinaryWVII-I final cadence (mm. 16-17). Mnogosomneniia, mnogo terpeniia. Eachphrase can be thought of as based on a muta- Vot ona,noch' moia, noch' odinokaia. tion of the basic diatonic mode (D major).50 These (A little room,cosy, quiet,dear; An impenetrabledarkness, an unansweringgloom; Deep thoughts,a melancholysong; 50Itwill be useful in this song to make a distinctionbe- A secrethope in a beatingheart; tween types of variationin modalstructure. While each phrasemay be thoughtof as basedon a modeon D, this is The swift flightof momentafter moment; not to say that each of these variousmodal structures is The gazefixed on far-awayhappiness; presentedwithout its own chromaticalterations. There-

31 19TH Andante tranquillo CENTURY I I I MUSIC - ; ; . L ;. (p ^-^.ulrr r J J p;I J 1 J.;.. Kom - nat - ka tes - na - ia, ti - kha - ia, mi - la - ia; Ten' ne - pro - gliad - na - ia, ten' bez- ot - vet - na - ia;

. #rr 6 S r S- rr 4 2 2 2 ! : G .:;' Du -): ma F' f. V - .j j

Du - ma glu - bo ka - ia, pes - nia u - ny - a - ia; V b'iu - shchem - sia serd- tse na - dezh - da za - vet - na - ia;

cresc. dim. r

Bys - tryi po - let, za mgno - ve - n'em mgno - ve -ni - ia; Vzor ne - pod - vizh - nyi na scha - st'e da - le - ko- e;

poco accelerandoe cresc. Meno mosso e tranquillo 13 - r 6 J# jr J J. i 2 <^ Dr d J5 !l Djt p-8; 2! j 7 #j Mno - go som - ne - ni-ia, mno - go ter - pe - ni-ia. Bot o-na noch' mo - ia, noch' o - di no - ka-ia.

rt 't-; r Exar : Example 8: "Within Four Walls."

are set out in ex. 9, in which an inevitable degree of be acknowledged in some cases. In this example, the subjectivity in the allocation of "degree"status must notes "of" the particularmodal variant are stemmed and beamed, so that smaller, stemless note heads represent local embellishment of the mode through fore, the modalform encounteredin each phrasecan be mixture. Occasionally it has been impossible to de- while considereda "mutation"of the basic mode (D major), termine which of a pair of semitonally adjacent corruptions within each phrase can be thought of as elements arising from further mixture. This is a somewhat pitches holds "degree"status, testifying to the exist- artificial, but not unuseful distinction. ence of further mutation through the course of a

32 SIMON mm. 1-2 PERRY Mussorgsky's Sunless

mm. 3-4

mm. 5-6

mm. 7-8

^~- JJ -- -"

mm. 9-10

mm. 11-12

mm. 13-14

mm. 15-17

.1 , +w

Example 9: "Within Four Walls," modal structures. phrase. Especially equivocal in this regardare E; and Thus, at the climax, not only is the emotional tem- E~.Such pairs have been given equal representation perature (measured as a function of degree of modal in ex. 9 by means of a split stem. Note heads in mutation) the highest, as would be expected, but a parentheses are not present in the score, but hypoth- symbolic link is suggested, tenuously at this stage, esized in ex. 9, according to context. Overall, the but nonetheless strikingly, between the polar tritone, varying emotional temperature of each line is heard representedby the flattened dominant, and the idea in the degree of modal variance its phrase estab- of time's passing, or time past-"The swift fight of lishes from the basic mode, D major. Only two moment after moment." phrases can be said to express this basic mode: the Example 9 highlights another important factor in first (mm. 1-2) and fourth (mm. 7-8). In the fourth the modal structure of this song. Of the seven de- phrase is found the only instance of uncorrupted, grees represented, only two remain unvaried, diatonic D major, coinciding with the most optimis- uninflected, throughout the entire song: 1 and 4. tic line of text. This phrase provides a midpoint Overall, the song's modal organization articulates a termination coinciding with the end of the first qua- consistently "plagal" nature, which further points train and establishes a maximal point of reference to to the weakened status of the usual dominant. The heighten the modal/emotional contrast provided by unaltered dominant is really heard in a strong posi- the fifth phrase (mm. 9-10). This next phrase con- tion only once in this song-at the end of the first tains the climax of the song (although this descrip- phrase. Even here its usage, while not remarkable, tion may overstate its subtle effect). At its end, sup- contains a harbingerof more unusual things to come. porting the poetic image of the ephemeral passage of The progression of this opening phrase, over the time, the phrase reaches its harmonic goal of bV. tonic pedal, is functionally quite determinate: tonic

33 19TH mm. 9-10 mm. 16-17 CENTURY MUSIC Whole-tone scale

T T Example 10: "Within Four Walls," whole-tone link between climax and final cadence.

proceeds, via a chromatic passing chord to subdomi- ing "rightness" and aural firmness of this cadence nant, thence to dominant. While not very conspicu- are at least partially explained by the motivic resem- ous, it is worth noting the changing nature of the blance it bears to m. 2, which subtly identifies the linear process after the arrival of the subdominant parallel progression as a cadential marker. (It also triad. The progression over the pedal from the open- underlies a closing semantic link between the "little ing tonic to the subdominant is governed by the room . . . loved" and the "lonely night.") The other expanding wedge by semitones in the outer active key instance of this tenths motive is to be found in a voices (excluding the pedal)-A-Ab/Bb-G/B~. From modified appearanceembedded in the piano accom- the subdominant to the dominant, the same parts paniment of the climactic fifth phrase (mm. 9-10). now move in parallel major tenths by whole step. In this instance, the parallel motion is not direct, This particular tenths progression recurs, as a mo- but occupies the entire phrase and is mediated by tive, in the final cadence of the song (mm. 16-17). the first inversion Ebtriad in the second half of m. 9. The differencebetween the parallel tenths motive in Despite this mediation, the governing tenths struc- m. 2 and in mm. 16-17 is that in the former instance ture, with its whole-tone inference, remains quite it occurs as a quite functional harmonic progression, audible; indeed it governs the linear structure of the whereas in the latter it challenges normal tonal func- accompaniment, although with the direction of mo- tions by the introduction of a lowered leading note tion now inverted. Somewhat separate to this inver- (and this within the final cadence). The COin m. 16 sion of the tenths progression, the vocal line in mm. draws greater attention to the parallelism inherent 9-10 may be understood, if we accept the vocal part in the motive and suggests, still tentatively, a link in m. 9 as a prolongation of BM,to provide an overall to whole-tone thinking. In this cadence-with its shape of Bk-CO-Ab.This is none other than a transpo- characteristic coloring derived from a note of the sition by tritone of the final cadence melody-E-F#- minor upper tetrachord-it becomes possible, in a D. Cumulatively these pitches belong to a single, way that seems unlikely in the IV-V context of m. 2, complete whole-tone series (summarized in ex. 10). to conceive of the pitch-classes in the outer voices- Although the whole-tone aspect is far from explicit C-D-E-F#-as a whole-tone tetrachord (albeit one in this song, it does appear to maintain a degree of contaminated by the perfect fifths above C and D subtle "presence"at key emotional junctures in the supplied in the inner voice). piece. Also significant is the way in which this final Considered in this light, the song presents an cadence, while unusual and distinctive, has a re- interesting and remarkablesynthesis. Generally, the markable assuredness.51It may be that the surpris-

shouldmake for instabilitywill often come as a surprise 51Thisprogression is just the type of thing, surely,that to analysts"(Calvocoressi, Modest Mussorgsky, pp. 256- Calvocoressihad in mind when he wrote of Mussorgsky: 57). The three"Technique and Style"chapters at the end "His tonal and modalschemes may be impossibleto de- of this, Calvocoressi'sfinal (posthumous)and most com- fine safelyin terms of usual theory;but thereis nothing prehensive,monograph on Mussorgsky,edited by Gerald elusive,ambiguous, or shakyabout them. In fact,the tonal Abraham,still warrantclose consideration,despite the basis feels so firm that the discoveryof devices which book'sage, for their pertinent observations.

34 Andante con moto SIMON A IL P -- 3 PERRY t | J Mussorgsky's -", e ^i ! .J ; D D ; pj^L J^2 J'i ^ Sunless Me - nia ty v tol - pe ne uz - na- la; Tvoi vzgliad ne ska - zal ni - che - go. No chud -no i strashno mne stalo, Kog-

pp sf -^V"

r5~~ - 3 cresc.

da u - lo - vil ia e - go. To by - lo od - no lish' mgno - ve - n'e; No, ver' mne, ia v nem pe - re - nes.

pp cresc

8 C 53 Vdim.

Vsei prosh-loi liub-vi na - slazh - de - n'ia, Vsiu go - rech' zab-ve - nia i slz!..

T om3 i -- 3 dim. *-, m_ j. ,r~ r J- j

Example 11: "You Did Not Recognize Me in the Crowd." song retains a strong suggestion of the intuitive har- on the surface of the piece, nonetheless provides the mony that Mussorgsky is so often said to have cre- structural link between the most distant harmonic ated, the harmony, no less, of the "fleeting moods" event in the piece (WV),with its reference to distant of Golenishchev-Kutuzov's text. But there is also times, and its conclusion, with its gloomy affirma- clear evidence of structural and referential planning tion of the present. Unlike the final song, the sym- extending beyond the intuitive. Progressive modal metrical element here lies much less conspicuously mixture results in the climactic phrase's articulat- on the surface, but nonetheless insinuates itself ing the greatest harmonic opposition (literally, the meaningfully on the structure as a whole. tritone, or bV)to the governing tonal center of the piece, a contrast heightened by the continuity of the V tonic pedal beneath the increasinglydistant harmony. The second song, "You Did Not Recognize Although this substitution of 'Vchallenges the then Me in the Crowd" shares the same usual means of large-scale tonal definition (the regu- (ex. 11), lar dominant), on a different organizational level, a tonal center as the first and shows a certain coherent link can be shown to exist between the similarity in its brevity and pared-down tex- final cadence and the midpoint climax. The referen- ture. Despite these affinities, however, there tial whole-tone scale, while hardlyimpinging strongly are several points of distinction, and it is worth

35 19TH recognizing that, in compositional chronology, of difference and un-belonging. This is hardly a CENTURY MUSIC this song is much closer to the third than to novel topos in Romantic literature, of course, the first.52Alongside this proximity must be but it remains nonetheless intrinsic to the un- noted the affinity of theme between the second derstanding of this song and the cycle as a and third texts (see below). Although less than whole. It enriches the basic dichotomy between half the length of the third poem, "You Did past and present alluded to in the text inas- Not Recognize Me" similarly sketches out the much as the past emerges not only as a happier theme of a happier, although perhaps "mis- time, but one of belonging. Thus the protago- spent," past bitterly contrasted against the nist in this cycle finds a certain affinity with lonely present. Thus, something only hinted at the anti-heroes of Schubert's two great cycles, in the first number is now clarified in this song as well as countless other Romantic profusions. (and will be amplified in the next). Unlike the first poem, the second contains a suggestion of The second song is, with one notable exception to be narrative. A person, the object of the prota- discussed below, cast in a recitative style; of all the gonist's affections, is addressed directly, al- numbers in Sunless, this comes closest to the though it is evident that this person does not kuchkist ideal of vocal declamation. Despite its even and the hear (or in anyway acknowledge) the protago- greater brevity apparentfreedom, however, nist.53The narrative consists of the song is in some senses more conventional than the protagonist first. It is rounded the of a his former lover of the effect formally by appearance telling unhearing close variant of the first phrase at the close. on him of song's their brief, one-sided encounter. Both these opening and closing phrases are essen- tially chromatically enriched plagal cadences.54The Menia ty v tolpe ne uznala; main source of variation from the first to the final Tvoi vzgliad ne skazal nichego. phrase is in the form, as might be expected, of modal No chudno i strashno mne stalo, mixture: the final phrase is strongly inflected in the Kogdaulovil ia ego. parallel minor, most noticeably in its substitution To bylo odno lish' mgnoven'e; on the final chord of bVI6for I. This is accompanied No, ver' mne, ia v nem perenes. by a rising minor sixth, D-Bb, in the vocal line, Vsei proshloi liubvi naslazhden'ia, terminatingon the pungentand affectiveword slez Vsiu gorech' zabven'ia i slez! ("tears").55Although these outer phrases once again suggest structural priority of the subdominant over the the latter has a much (You did not recognize me in the crowd; dominant, greater struc- Your glance told me nothing at all. tural role to play in this piece than in the first, a feature that to a more normative But I was overcome with fear and wonder, points aspect of its When I caught sight of you. harmonic idiom. As the reduction of the song in ex. 12 shows, dominant function is clearly felt as the It was but a moment, main harmonic determinant in the middle part of But, believe me, it swept me away. the piece (mm. 3-6), in which role it is elaboratedby All the raptureof former love, the b6 as an upper neighbor, in both the bass and All the bitterness, oblivion and tears!)

This brief text, of course, conveys more than 54Inthe openingphrase this bass progressionrises and in loss of love. It also talks, in that opening refer- the finalphrase it falls, suggestinga framingsymmetry of ence to the "crowd," of alienation, of the sense sorts. 55Hereis a particularlycreative instance of what Russian musicologistshave called sekstovost',a word without a real Englishequivalent but that refersto the qualityof a musical,particularly melodic, style that is saturatedwith 52See n. 1 above. Given the very close proximity of the sixths. It is sometimesclaimed to be a distinct stylistic completion dates of these songs, it seems likely that the featureof the Russianromans of the earliernineteenth third song followed directly from the completion of the century,a genrethat, prerealist as it was,is stronglyevoked second in a more or less single, short burst of creative in this cycle. RichardTaruskin (who translatesthe term activity. as "sixthiness")discusses this qualityat some length in 530ne cannot help but surmise, in light of the relevant referenceto Tchaikovsky'sdeliberate emulation of the ro- biographical elements outlined in the first part of this mans style in Eugene Onegin; see Defining Russia Musi- article, that this particular song may have come to seem cally: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton: especially prescient to Mussorgskylate in 1875. PrincetonUniversity Press, 1997), pp. 55-58.

36 m. 2 5 8 (A) 11 SIMON PERRY Mussorgsky's Sunless

Example 12: "You Did Not Recognize Me," foreground graph. upper lines.56 This suggests a connection between symbolically connected to the idea of the past and to this middle level of structure and the use of b6-5 (or love, intimacy, and rapture. This semantic link is its retrograde)as a motive.57 The song opens, me- also enhanced, as suggested above, by the gestural lodically, with this figure; its retrogradeat the be- and stylistic contrast introduced in this brief, "fleet- ginning of the sixth phrase (m.7 including anacrusis) ing" phrase. The music of mm. 8-9 enacts, as it marks the beginning of the motion away from the were, the "sweeping away" referredto in the previ- tonic to the point of furthest harmonic distance in ous line with its flight supported by a distinctive, the song, at the end of the seventh phrase (mm. 8-9) luxurious, and unique lyrical outpouring. To then where the flattened dominant is, again, tellingly in- drive home the dichotomy, the final phrase returns voked. In this seventh phrase there is a blurring of unequivocally to D, now with the more melancholic polar harmonic complexes, indicated by the upper minor-mode coloring described above. Punctuating and lower beams on ex. 12. The linear design of the this return is a re-reversal of the semitone motive phrase is simply a descending 6-3 sequence over the (b6-5again) accompanied by enharmonic reinterpre- tonic pedal, but it is clear that neither D nor the tation of the b5 as #4, leading tone to the natural tritonal key, Ab, accounts solely for its harmonic dominant. The normative harmonic relation of content. Chords on the strong beats derive from the tritone to tonic thus restored, the unchallenged, yet Abarea, while those on the second and fourth beats dolefully colored, tonic tonality of the final phrase of m. 8-allowing that Bbis suspended from the first underpins the present of "oblivion" and "tears." beat-derive from the D-major region. The phrase not only ends with the tritone juxtaposition; it is VI saturatedwith it throughout, resulting in the luxuri- The third song, "The Idle, Noisy Day is ous blurring of harmony that pours out at this mo- Over," is significantly more extended and in- ment, powerfully underlying the affect of "rapture." ternally varied than either of the first pair. A This move to the flattened dominant of recalls, total of six quatrains generates its episodic struc- course, the fifth phrase of the previous song. But ture, which even vaguely hints at rondo organi- now it is conjoined to a much more concrete seman- zation via references in the fourth tic element in the text: to the "rapture of former significant love." The tritone key/chord is, thus, now clearly and sixth sections to materials of the first two: AA'BA"CA"'. (This labeling will be used for convenience throughout the discussion.) The and on the theme 560f course this reduction is only at a very close-to-surface text continues greatly expands level. No attempt has been made to discover any sort of of contrast between past and present established fundamental structure. Previous efforts to assert in the second song. A particular image evoked Schenkerian readings of Mussorgsky's music seem, at best, in this is that of a "shadow" or equivocal. See, for example, Derrick Puffett, "A Graphic repeatedly song Analysis of Musorgsky's 'Catacombs'," Music Analysis 9 "shade" (ten').58 This refers initially to the lit- (1990), 67-77; and Michael Russ, "The Mysterious Thread in Musorgsky's Nursery," Music Analysis 9 (1990), 45-67. For a response to Puffett's analysis, see Simon Perry, "Rum- maging through the 'Catacombs': Clues in Musorgsky's 58This song was originally to have been titled "Ten'." See Pitch Notations," Music Analysis 14 (1995), 221-55. Orlova, Musorgsky's Days, p. 414. Like its English coun- 57This retrograde, indeed, has already been heard as the terpart "shade," or "shadow," ten' may refer to darkness opening figure of the first song. or to beings no longer among the living.

37 19TH eral fall of darkness-"The shadow of a May But sleep flies from my eyes. CENTURY the dawn of a new MUSIC night"-but later, from the third quatrain on- And, by day, ward, to "shades," personages from the protago- My imagination turns over nist's happier past, now effectively (even if not The pages of years lost. literally) dead to him and "resurrected" in his As if breathing in again the poison imagination. In the third stanza, we learn more Of spring, of passionate dreams, about the past: not only was it happier and In my soul I resurrecta series in it was in spent company, but, again, perhaps Of hopes, impulses, and mistakes ... some way misspent, with its references to "the poison / Of spring" and "a series / Of hopes, Alas, they are but ghosts! impulses, and mistakes. . ." The final transfor- I'm bored with their deathly crowd, mative, perhaps almost transfigurative, event, And the noise of their old chatter which unfolds in the final quatrain, witnesses Has lost its hold on me. the protagonist silently passing the burden of his past happiness, indeed, his soul, to "one But one shadow, of all the shadows, shadow / . . . a faithful friend of days past" Appearedto me, breathing love, through the vessel of a solitary, long cherished And, faithful friend of days past, tear. Bent quietly towards the bed. And bravely I gave to her alone Okonchen shumnyi den'; prazdnyi, All soul in a silent Liudskaiazhizn', umolknuv, dremlet. my tear, Vse tikho. Maiskoi nochi ten' Visible to no one, full of happiness, In a I cherished since long ago!) Stolitsu spiashchuiu ob"emlet. tear, mm. are No son ot moikh bezhit. The first two sections (comprising 1-15) glaz close in musical content and be I, pri luchakh inoi dennitsy, especially may logi- reduc- Voobrazhenievertit cally considered together. Example 13 aligns tions of each for means of Both share a Godov utrachennykh stranitsy. comparison. distinctive approachto their cadences, and there are similar aspects to their opening gestures. Indeed, Kak budto vnov' iad vdykhaia both openings exhibit different realizations of an Vesennikh, strastnykh snovidenii, interaction between symmetry around an axial C V dushe ia voskreshaiu riad and a more traditional definition of C as tonic. In zabluzhdenii... Nadezhd, poryvov, both cases, significant elements of the melody and bass line articulate C as a centric pitch surrounded Uvy, to prizraki odni! by upper and lower major thirds, E and Ab. And in Mne skuchno s mertvoi ikh tolpoiu, both cases, while the E serves as the major third of I shum ikh staroi boltovni tonic harmony, Al can be understood to function as Uzhe ne vlasten nado mnoiu. a borrowed sixth degree participating within iv or viio7. Thus, again, these symmetrical pitch elements Lish' ten', odna iz vsekh tenei, derive from a mixed mode with major lower and lavilas' mne, dysha liubov'iu minor upper tetrachords. Further alteration to this I, vernyi drug minuvshikh dnei, structure in the climax of the song, where the com- Sklonilas' tikho k izgolov'iu. plete whole-tone scale is made explicit for the only time in the cycle, will be shown to provide a deci- I smelo otdal ei odnoi sive link between modal alteration and symmetrical Vsiu dushu ia v sleze bezmolvnoi, usage. Nikem ne zrimoi, schast'ia polnoi, Probably the most distinctive harmonic feature V sleze, davno khranimoi mnoi! of these opening two sections is their striking ar- ticulation of tritonal relations between the tonic (The idle, noisy day is over; and the flattened dominant. This is forced home Human life, fallen silent, is slumbering. without demurby Mussorgskyin the stark semitonal All's quiet. The shadow of a May night sideslips across mm. 6-7 and within m. 14. In both Embracesthe sleeping city. instances, a locally tonicized GV-majortriad moves

38 m. 4 6 SIMON PERRY Mussorgsky's Sunless

m. 9 11 12 13 14 15

Example 13: "The Idle, Noisy Day," foreground graphs of mm. 1-8 and mm. 9-15.

A A A A A A A A A A A C: 2 1 7 6 5 #4 44 (14 63 #3 k2} -QL_J1 1= 1, A A A cb: 4 44A 3 63 2 Example 14: "The Idle, Noisy Day," bass-line "slippage," mm. 11-13.

directly to V7 in the tonic key. This bold harmonic precision, but the minor subdominant in the second slip relates, in the first instance, directly to the first half of m. 12 is probablythe only element that offers appearanceof the poetic theme of the "shadow," in a viable interpretation in either C or Gb.The Fl root this case the shadow of the May night. The tonicized in the bass marks a clear point of overlap, in respect Gb triad in m. 6 coincides precisely with the word of the symptomatic notation with its distinctive ten', thus offering a clear referential relationship triple representation of F (F#,F~, F6), suggesting that between this image in the text, as described above, the descending scale mutates to a flattened version and bVharmony. In the second instance, the Gbchord of itself. As ex. 14 shows, this distinctive bass line is receives the stressed syllable of godov (years),refer- bounded by D and Db an augmented octave lower, ring here to the protagonist's past (see line 8 of the that is by 2 and b2.The triple representation of letter text), which is also, as the song unfolds, found to be name F clearly indicates the point of "stretch" or a realm of shadows of a different kind. "slip" in the scale. Another way of viewing mm. 11- In both instances, the harmonic distortion of- 15 is to see the second half of m. 12 to the first half fered by WVis strongly exposed only in retrospect, by of 14 (inclusive) as a kind of insertion, which dis- a wrenching back to the "correct," diatonic domi- rupts the logical progression of V/V-V. In similar nant. The motion toward the Gl triad is somewhat fashion, m. 6 in the first section can be seen to smoother than that away from it in both cases. Pre- interrupt the otherwise diatonic progression IV-V. dictably enough, the triad is heard each time as an (These "insertions"are shown by means of the square outcome of increasing modal mixture. In the first brackets in ex. 13.) The V/V has moved to first instance, the V7/bVin m. 6 exploits the common inversion by the first half of m. 12 so that the bass F# tone F in relation to the distinctively voiced sub- and the harmony above could resolve quite smoothly dominant chord of m. 5, which it directly follows. In to the V7 in m. 14 without the intervening material. the second instance, the linkage is subtler. The piv- There is a sort of harmonic irony, therefore, in the otal chord is perhaps now harder to determine with way the G6 in m. 14 does move up to G~ but in no

39 19TH way resolves to it as the F#,as leading tone, would be nist. The G6influence for these "pagesof years lost," CENTURY MUSIC understood to do. The written bass progression, GV- the world of a shadowy former life, is now felt in an G~,supports not a resolution but a point of maximal entirely different and much more subversive way. harmonic dislocation within the phrase.s9The point Whereas the tritone influence in the previous sec- of all this, of course, is that G6 is easily arrived at, tions was stated clearly through juxtaposition, al- but jarringly quitted. There is a distinct flavor of beit retrospective, in this passage it is more subtly attraction followed by abrupt denial in this action. felt than stated through a process of blending or G6 is heard as an alluring, although harmonically synthesis. And where the force of G6 had been con- distorting, force, which must be resisted. The past tained, resulting in the clipped, jagged cadence for- that it symbolizes is similarly one that entices (after mulae of mm. 7-8 and 14-15, section B provides a all, it is now known to be one of rapture),but that, lyrical outpouring (at least, of sorts) as a reaction to for whatever reason, must be rejected, although not the emotionally pent-up characteristics of the previ- without discomfort. ous material. G6 is now, indeed, the intoxicating Measures 16-23, setting the third quatrain,usher "poison" that infects C. C remains felt as the under- in a distinctive change in style as the poetic text lying tonality, but the use of mixture is so persistent turns, on cue, to its resurrection of the past and the and extensive that its modality cannot be ascer- "poison / of spring, of passionate dreams."6?With tained with any certainty. Given that the basis of the imposition of triplets uniformly in the piano and the chromaticism here is modal mixture, the nota- voice parts,the meter effectively becomes compound tions employed show that at some point in the pas- duple, although unmarked.The singer's rhythms be- sage every degree save the subdominant, F, is flat- come less angular; the "melody" is an awkward, tened. This includes the tonic, whose flattened form constricted chain of contorted intervals, harmoniz- creates an enharmonicrelation with the leading note. ing opportunistically with the chordal accompani- The collection of pitch-class referents in this entire ment. In the piano the previously solidly grounded passage can be shown as an overlay of C and Gb harmonic support is now abandoned for a literally major (ex. 16). This does not exactly suggest that "bass-less," parallel chordal figuration in the mid- some sort of bitonality is operative, but proposes to-treble register of the instrument (ex. 15).61 These that the extensity of mixture employed leads to a combined textural changes serve as a marker for the degree of undermining of the tonic's local force backward glancing, dreamlike state of the protago- through the intimation of the alluring bV. Section A" (mm. 24-30), re-establishes the recitative-like texture of the opening sections and re-establishes certain of their vocal contours. Har- monically this section retains a degree of modal 59Thisidea that F, in both cases,forms some sort of pivot mixture, but not to the extremity of the previous betweenthe centersof C andG6, based on its combination section. The tonal center of C is affirmed with the tritonespelled as B or C6,recalls Iavorsky's du- strongly, plex modes(see n. 40 above),wherein a single dominant, via the plagal relation of the subdominant (in either which in Iavorsky'ssense of the termis an activetritone, its diatonic or borrowed form). This return to an can point to tritonallyrelated tonics. Forfurther discus- unthreatened C major coincides with the return to a sion, see McQuere,"The Theories of BoleslavYavorsky," clear in the mind between 109-64. separation protagonist's pp. In 60Thepoetic juxtapositionof "poison"(iad) and "spring" the ghosts of the past and his sleepless present. is ratherstriking and certainlyreinforces the idea of the the second half of the fourth quatrain (see mm. 27- past as somehowunwholesome or not entirelyhealthy. 30), the protagonist declares, "And the noise of their (Despitethe unidiomaticflavor of this line in English, old chatter / Has lost its hold on me." This "noise" there is no suitabletranslation of iad other than really is evoked in the setting by a recollection of the "poison.") 6"Thispassage has becomesomewhat famous as the puta- texture of section B, and the following line is set tive inspirationfor the openingfigure of Nuages,the first above the purely diatonic C-major plagal cadence, movementof Debussy'sNocturnes. Argumentshave been which concludes the music for this quatrain(ex. 17). made for and againstDebussy's intended or unintended Even before this resolute cadence, however, the loss borrowingof Mussorgsky'sfigure. EdwardLockspeiser writes, for instance:"As for [LeonlVallas's contention, of "power" of the "ghosts" is reflected in the way repeatedunceasingly in programmenotes, that the indefi- the polar key is now felt to be much less challenging nite, flowingtheme of Debussy'sNuages derives note for to the tonal center of C. The vocal line of mm. 27- note from Moussorgsky'ssong, The noisy day has sped its 28 is less tonally ambiguous than in mm. 16-23, and flight,in the Sunlesscycle, this, if still likely to be upheld, it fills in the fourth with modal inflec- can only be put downto a peculiarinsensitiveness to con- simply C-G, ceptsof melodythat wereutterly opposed" (Debussy: His tion given on Ak. The slippery accompaniment tex- Lifeand Mind, 2 vols. [London:Cassel, 1962], I, 53). ture of mm. 16-23 is restricted to the left hand and

40 16 SIMON A 3 3 - I I I PERRY ft>e ^ rwlU 1 !> J $ j l ;J kJ J , J Mussorgsky's F ^ Sunless Kak bud-to vnov' vdy- kha- ia iad Ve - sen - nikh, strast nykh sno - vi - de - nii, V du -

20 poco ritard.

she ia vos kre - sha - iu riad Na dezhd, po - ry - vov, za - bluzh -de ni ... U- poco ritard.

Example 15: "The Idle, Noisy Day," mm. 16-23.

Example 16: "The Idle, Noisy Day," pitch-class collection for mm. 16-23 as overlay of C and GQ-majorscales.

27 J 3 3 3 I 3 F 62 ,~ I - f' I r j ^ ^ I shum ikh sta - roi bol - tov - ni U - zhe ne vlas - ten na - do mno - iu. Lish'

Example 17 "The Idle, Noisy Day," mm. 27-30.

Example 17: "The Idle, Noisy Day," mm. 27-30.

sandwiched between lower and upper tonic pedals. tered, twelve-note collection for the four measures Further, the notation proves insightful in that, al- concerned: C, D6, D~, Eb,Eq, F, F#,G, A6,A4, Bl, Bq,C. though the first pair of dyads uses exactly the same Thus the "poison" of Gb is neutralized-audibly by pitch classes as those commencing m. 16 (Eb-C,G?- the unequivocal tonic pedals and symbolically by Bb),Gb is now replaced by F#,notably disrupting the the enharmonic substitution of F#.The F#can plausi- intervallic pattern of alternating thirds and sixths bly be taken as an intentional sign of the weakened but yielding a normative representation of a C-cen- status of the flattened dominant at this point.

41 19TH (m. 16) 1 3 CENTURY A , ----- 3 MUSIC 35 mr. r r

(m.35)|--

Example 18: "The Idle, Noisy Day," modal transformation of motive in mm. 16 and 35.

(Whole-tone scale)

------~ '. * r \y1.... __ - -- _ 7y

6 5 4 --Example19: "The Idle, Noisy Day," mm. 35-36, foreground graph. 3 Example 19: "The Idle, Noisy Day," mm. 35-36, foreground graph.

The following section, C, mm. 31-34, brings in sents a synthesis of elements from the previous, an entirely fresh mode, texture, and meaning. There contrasting sections. Measure 35 is also, as befits is a direct shift to Ebmajor supportedby a dominant the idea of apotheosis, the climax of the piece, evi- pedal. Above this Bba new texture is articulated in denced most conspicuously by the voice and piano's the vocal and piano parts. The voice now receives its right hand (in unison) reaching their highest pitch most mellifluous, arioso line of the entire piece (per- on the El set to the strong syllable of dushu (soul), haps of the entire cycle), and the piano shimmers beginning the line "All my soul in a silent tear." In above the low pedal. These changes are prompted by the reduction in ex. 19, this passage can be under- a new departurein the text as the final transforma- stood as an expandedcadential six-four, with a some- tive process of the poem begins with the appearance what equivocal resolution in m. 36. In the middle of of the "one shadow, of all the shadows." As this m. 35, however, two mutations to the diatonic struc- "one shadow" appearsto be, in some sense, a source ture occur that seal the linkage between modal mix- of mediation between the empty present and the ture and symmetrical elements. At the second beat misspent past, it is perhaps not surprising to find of this measure, mixture, or flattening of the upper that its key, or referential pitch, Eb,forms the point tetrachord,results in the line (C)-Bk-Ak-Gb,to which of bisection between the centers standingfor present, is added the minor third, Eb(suggesting the unusual C, and past, Gb. Locrian scale), resulting in the aggregate harmony The final section, A" (mm. 35-40), sets the trans- labeled X in ex. 19. At the third beat, restoration of formative event of the poem, the passing of the the majorthird and introduction of the raised fourth, protagonist's soul through the vessel of the "silent F#,provide the lower tetrachord of the Lydian scale, tear," which prompts a kind of apotheosis in the resulting in the aggregateharmony marked Y, which musical setting. Although the tonality shifts abruptly is nothing but a transposition by tritone of X. Of back to C in m. 35, sections C and A'" have the course, this combination of upper Locrianand lower greatest sense of continuity across their boundaryof Lydian tetrachords produces the whole-tone scale any pair in the piece. The persistent eighth-note (indeed, it is an example of the third degree of mix- triplet rhythm and arioso melodic style of section C ture described in ex. 1 in section II above), which is continue seamlessly into A"'. This melodic line, given its most explicit statement in the piece (in- moreover, in m. 35 explicitly recalls the upper line deed, in the cycle). There could hardly be a better in the piano figuration of m. 16, but now, at least demonstration of Mussorgsky's propensity to mix initially, in unmixed, diatonic form (see ex. 18).Thus, the functional and the nonfunctional than this promi- through a process of direct continuity and thematic nent passage, a cadential six-four that supports a recollection, the opening of this final section repre- descending whole-tone scale in the melody.

42 As ex. 20a shows, the pitch contents of X and Y a. Chords X and Y in scalar arrayon axial C. SIMON form a distinctive around an axial re- PERRY symmetry C, x Mussorgsky's calling the more tentative examples in the first sec- Sunless tions of the piece. The "parsimoniousness" (to bor- row a term from neo-Riemannian theory) of the voice- leading relation of X and Y recalls the famous tritonal Y juxtapositions at the beginning of the "Coronation scene" in Boris Godunov. In both cases we find b. between chords X and Y and the "Coro- an invariant tritone, with one of its members Similarity nation Chords" in Boris Godunov. enharmonically spelled, against semitonal motion in the other parts, which also amount to the same structure transposed by a tritone (ex. 20b). Thus, while the climactic moment of the song is supported by a conventional, tension-laden expansion x Y over the cadential six-four, the magical, transforma- tive nature of this climax is reflected, in the Russian (cf. Boris Godunov, Prologue, sc. 2) musicodramatic custom, by explicit symmetry in the form of the whole-tone scale and harmonic mirror inversion around the axial C. It is a dramatically well-timed revelation of the harmonic/symbolic nexus provided via modal mixture and symmetry. Example 20: "The Idle, Noisy Day," The grapplings of this song dispel-although cer- properties of chords X and Y in m. 35. tainly to no happy end-the powers of the past. The next two songs seem to deal more conspicuously with the present, and the final one, as we have seen, in the first instance that Mussorgsky relied on is oriented to the future. So it is clearly significant to support the shifting moods of the text, al- that at this very point the bs form is for the first time most to the point where "feeling" and "har- in the cycle counterbalanced by the operative presence of the #4 form as a distinctive part of the refer- mony" become, somehow, synonymous. Yet, ential whole-tone collection. it seems to be a task that did not come altogether easily, or consistently, to him. On the evidence of the cycle as a whole, the claim he VII is supposed to have made to Golenishchev- When Mussorgsky reputedly said to Kutuzov is patently impossible to justify, and Golenishchev-Kutuzov "the only element I have it is useful, at this juncture, to refer briefly to here is feeling," it seems clear that he was the two songs not included in the analysis speaking of the means by which his music re- above. Of these two, the fourth, "Ennui,"62 has sponded to the emotional imperatives of the received an impressive formal and contextual text, the means by which it interpreted those analysis by Michael Russ. As Russ reminds us, "fleeting emotional moods" to which the poet "Ennui" was the only song in Sunless that alluded. This is as much a negative as a posi- Stasov found any praise for.63 This, of course, tive description of the music's characteristics. should alert us immediately to its differences. It defines the music as much in terms of what Russ analyses the song on several levels, but it lacks-depiction, caricature, narrative in any one of the aspects of his interpretation that strong sense, humor-as what it has-"feel- seems especially amenable is the concept of ing." And Golenishchev-Kutuzov's Mussorgsky regarded it as a distinctive achievement that the music succeeded on this basis alone and 62Thesong's Russian title, "Skuchai," presents one of the without recourse to the usual battery of props standard conundrums of Russian translation. Skuchai is the imperative form of skuchat', the verb "to be bored." and staging of the realist style, and largely with- Thus, literally translated, the song's title is "Be Bored," out recourse to its typifying "musical speech." which is hopelessly unidiomatic. "Ennui" is a standard Sunless, indeed, is probably about as close as solution, but the perfectly acceptable English imperative "Languish"might representa better compromise between Mussorgsky ever got to writing so-called abso- meaning and grammaticalfunction. lute music. As I have indicated, it is harmony 63Russ,"'Be Bored'," p. 42.

43 19TH the song as a sort of salon genre painting. In the is safe to say, therefore, on the cursory evi- CENTURY MUSIC song's text, the lover addresses the object of his dence of these two songs, that Mussorgsky was affections ironically-she, having spurnedhim, not entirely reliant on "feeling" to the exclu- may now languish in her stultifying social world sion of all other means in this cycle. (Andwithin until "Drop by drop your strength will wane, / the songs examined in the previous sections Then you will die, and good luck to you!" (Po there are also occasional elements that support kaple ty istratish' sily, / Potom umresh', i Bog this conclusion.) s toboi!). As Russ points out, the music of the Various reasons for this lack of stylistic con- piano part acts out different roles to underline tinuity may be proposed. The chronology of the import of the text. A neutral recitative ac- the composition (see n. 1) suggests a less con- companiment style is swapped for an imitation centratedeffort after the completion of the third of the nineteenth-century salon romance genre, number. This might explain the very close caricaturingthe sounds of the young woman of points of stylistic and methodological similar- society playing the piano.64This device alone ity of the opening troika of songs, and the rather puts it on a rather different, and significantly different conception of the final number; it also more kuchkist, stylistic plain to the previous accounts for the distinctive features of the three numbers. fourth and fifth. Orlova's proposal that "Elegy" In the fifth number, "Elegy," we enter a was written, at least partially, as a memorial to different world again. Its text is the longest of Nadezhda Opochinina could also in some way the poems used in Sunless, and the song is account for its more "externalized" elements. correspondingly the broadest, and most dra- Probably most important to acknowledge, matic, in musical conception. It is the only however, is the varied approach found in piece in the set that provides strong internal Golenishchev-Kutuzov's texts themselves. The contrasts in musical style (not to mention it is fourth sets itself outside the others in terms of the only one that relies on internal modulation both tone (its irony) and mode (its consistent to any significant extent). The text finds the appeal to the second person as a literary device, protagonist amid nature, in a tortured state of and the contrivance of its refrain-like injunc- mind. A rapid string of poetic images-a shroud tion, "skuchai"),while the fifth trucks as much of mist, a star glimmering through the cloud, in definite "images" as it does in "fleeting tinkling horse bells, rushing clouds (a not-too- moods." Mussorgsky's final orderingof the po- subtly presented metaphor for the protagonist's ems is also instructive. One would not want to confused thoughts), the beloved's face, the "rau- be too concrete about this, but there seems a cous noise of life," the tolling of death's bell, vague chronological character to the ordering the star again, and, finally, "joyless cloud"- of the six items. The first and third deal with receive distinctive characterizations in the the past as contrasted with the present, while changing stylization of the accompaniment.65 the fourth seems to sit pretty squarely in the In terms of its reliance on external "effect" in present. The fifth contains references to both at least equal measure to internal "affect," this past ("Now, turning into the beloved's features, song seems rather closer in style to the music / They call, giving birth in the soul once more of Songs and Dances of Death than Sunless. It to past dreams" [To, prevratias' v cherty liubimogo litsa, / Zovut, rozhdaia vnov' v dushe bylye grezy]) and future ("The prophetic star, 64Ibid.,pp. 38-40. As Russ notes, the verses for "Ennui" as if full of shame, / Hides its bright face in a were recycled by Golenishchev-Kutuzov in 1877 in the As mute and as context of a larger poem in which the poet-hero is asked joyless cloud, / impenetrable to write something in the album of his host, a fashionable my future" [Predvestnitsa zvezda, kak budto lady. In modified form, he writes the text of "Ennui." polnaia styda, / Skryvaet svetlyi lik v tumane Clearly Golenishchev-Kutuzov, and presumably Kak budushchnost' Mussorgsky as well, understood the text of "Ennui"to be bezotradnom, / moia, something of a "genrepainting," albeit an ironic one. nemom i neprogliadnom]),but sits primarily in 65Thereis a fairly deliberate symmetry in these images- the present, with its reliance on immediately mist, star, bells, tumult, beloved, tumult, bells, star, mist- "On the all of which is reflected in the music, with its roughly felt images. The sixth song, River," concentric arrangement of sections. offers a counterweight to the first three in the

44 way it balances its setting in the immediate speculation (and speculation it remains) about SIMON with its motion the PERRY present impulsive toward an specific circumstances of the cycle's com- Mussorgsky's unknown future, indeed, toward the infinite. position, stimulates a legitimate mode of in- Sunless This chronologicalaspect cannot be conveyed quiry into a level of meaning and interpreta- in an affective sense; instead, it is somehow tion that surpasses, or refines, that of affective bound, if present at all, to the more symbolic generality (or, "feeling"). To quote Kramer layer of meaning that may be detected in the again: songs' symmetrically based elements. Nor need this chronological aspect reside alone in the The generalcharacter of the Liedusually fulfills the symbolic realm of the cycle's meaning. In light traditionalmandate of expressingaffective mean- of the circumstances surrounding the cycle's ings. The results are customarilytreated as emo- composition, it is impossible not to recognize tionaluniversals, on the principlethat primaryfeel- like at least the possibility that the binary of past ings, primarycolors, are everywherethe same. Critical unsettlethat and present may reside within a system of di- reflection,however, may principle by finding,or simply noticing, the historical chotomies that may have increasingly specific, conditions in which certain kinds of feeling and even covert that personal, meanings-meanings expressionbecome possible or important.Singular might extend right down to those of shared, or or arrestingevents offerthese conditionsof feelings wished for, intimacy between poet and com- a concreterealization by inviting,indeed provoking, poser. Thus, the final number has a rather dif- morespecific interpretation.67 ferent role to play to that of the first three. Unlike those songs, it does not wrench from In this spirit, then, it might be inviting to one side to the other, does not play in poetic consider those meanings that penetrate beyond juxtapositions in the same manner. Its poetics the generally affective (the only layer that work through a process of slow, but inevitable, Golenishchev-Kutuzov was prepared to ac- capitulation. It is almost the ultimate expres- knowledge in Sunless) to the particular, culmi- sion of self-absorption. Correspondingly, its nating with a brief consideration of the per- meaning is almost totally dependent on how sonal, potentially homoerotic, milieu out of we might choose to read the previous numbers which Sunless may have sprung. To assist this in the cycle, especially the homogenous first brief discussion, ex. 21 (allowing for transposi- three. tion) summarizes the linkages between interre- Of course, a cautionary note about interpre- lated referential concepts and harmonic ele- tation is necessary at this point. Song is, as ments particularand distinctive to the musical many have pointed out, a site of such complex- language of, specifically, songs 1, 2, and 3 of ity that interpretative pitfalls for the over-eager the cycle, and to some extent no. 6. are all too many; it is not an area for totalizing Acknowledging the risks of trivializing, this efforts. As Lawrence Kramer has written, "In diagram draws in the simple conceptual appa- its own right, the text is open to a wide range of ratus put forwardin section II above. The tonic possible interpretations, the limits of which (and, by extension, its triad)provides the nexus can never be drawn with certainty. To set the between a set of normative harmonic relations text to music is to narrow the range"66-but (in which it functions as tonic) and symmetri- not, of course, to define it to the point of singu- cal organization (in which it is present as an larity. It would not be possible, and much less axis). Underlying the symmetrical aspect is the desirable, to "decode" these songs, or to claim whole-tone scale, which adapts its typical Rus- to have done so, simply on the basis of their sian symbolic references to refer to concepts of latent symbolic elements. Nonetheless, the ex- the mysterious, the unknown, and the infinite; istence of these elements, together with broader it may also stand for death, or surrender to impulse. It partakes of a chronological refer-

66LawrenceKramer, Franz Schubert: Sexuality, Subjectiv- ity, Song, CambridgeStudies in Music Theory and Analy- sis (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 12. 67Ibid.,p. 13.

45 19TH Tritone polarity/referential dichotomy (nos. 1-3) CENTURY MUSIC ~/ \Normative harmonic relations 6v/ VI IV

( (etc.) ; LAJ______I------U ,,,,, Whole-tone continuum (no. 6) ("mystery," "death," "surrender to impulse," "the infinite") "past" "present" "happiness" "melancholy" "intimacy" "loneliness" "rapture" "oblivion" "deviance" "normality"

Example 21: Possible mapping of references and distinctive pitch structural elements in selected numbers of Sunless (nos. 1, 2, 3, and 6).

ence as well. The tonic/axis may stand for the three songs, in particular, the entity that pro- present, sitting on a continuum from "flat/past" vides a challenge to the normative harmonic to "sharp/future." Significantly, the polar range is gV.This element provides the basis for tritone from the tonic/axis only ever receives the main referential dichotomy. It symbolizes, degree-like status or weighting in its bV form by its positioning on the whole-tone scale, the (songs 1 to 3). Thus the past is concretely repre- past and associated concepts of happiness, love, sented, while the future is only elusively sug- intimacy, rapture,and so on, concepts that stand gested simply by means of the existence of the in contrast to those associated with the present, continuum (song 6). There is virtually no point for example, melancholy, loss of love, loneli- in the cycle where #4 holds a status remotely ness, and oblivion. Extending this further, and to the we comparable to that of A5. For instance, #IV is approaching nearer particular, may never invoked, while #4 is invoked-and then reiterate that WVis a subversive harmonic ele- only once or twice in the entire cycle-only as ment, a threat from outside the normative set an element that functions within the norma- of harmonic relations. Thus, it is capable of tive harmonic range, in which capacity it incorporating associated concepts of deviance, tonicizes 5. The one exception to this rule is in decadence, or "outsider" status. It could, in the climax to the third number-the point at this sense, stand even as a symbol of which the protagonist's unhealthy obsession homoerotic, "unwholesome intimacy."68Even with his past is finally, although hardly cheer- more specifically, it could refer to the very fully, exorcised. The range of normative har- intimacy of poet and composer; or, perhaps, on monic relations, indicated within the two ver- the part of the composer, the wished for inti- tical dotted lines of ex. 21, embraces much of macy between the two. the modally mixed chromaticism, which, as Lacking at this stage is corroborating his- shown, is the vital component of the expres- torical evidence of the homoerotic, or even ho- sive tone of these numbers. This realm, there- mosexual, milieu. There is only a modest fore, covers considerable expressive range and amount of writing about homosexuality as a can still incorporate many of the elements of sociological phenomenon in nineteenth-century the symmetrical organization. As we have seen, the dichotomy between harmonic structuring based on modal mixture and that partaking of 68Again, this reading is loosely reminiscent of some as- symmetry is subtle and deliberately blurred pects of Jackson's reading of Tchaikovsky. See Jackson, throughout the songs examined. In the first "Aspects of Sexuality."

46 while the glance of the addresseeis ex- SIMON Russia in general.69What there is, however, that, PERRY might provide some intriguing suggestions. plicit in the text, there is also the implicit Mussorgsky's Consider, for example, Dan Healey's observa- glance of the protagonist;indeed, one may as- Sunless tion on the "significant glance" as an estab- sume an exchange of glances. The failure of lished means of covert sexual communication communicationcould speak of the loss of not between Russian males in public places, par- only the addresseeto the protagonistspecifi- ticularly, but not exclusively, in relation to cally, but also of the addresseeto the male forms of male prostitution.70Healey quotes an sexual/eroticcontext in general.Or failureto observant moral denouncer of the late 1880s as recognizemay, in a sense, referto the failureof follows: "tetki [lit. 'aunties'], as they call them- one partyto accept,or recognize,the overtures selves, recognize each other with one glance, of another-not becauseof their active wishes, by signs unnoticeable to passersby,yet, by these, but becauseof their (sub-)culturalexclusion. In experts can even define the category of tetka this context, the second line is highly signifi- we are dealing with."71This is not to propose cant. Suchpropositions clearly add another in- incongruously that Mussorgsky was a user of terpretativelayer to the text of the poem. And, male prostitutes (there is no evidence for or indeed, if we consider the "subversive"har- against that), but rather to acknowledge evi- monic role that the flatteneddominant (as de- dence for a cultural phenomenon of nonverbal gree,chord, or key)plays within normativehar- communication within the homosexual sub- monic functioning,the fabricof the song pro- culture of his place and time, and to acknowl- vides some further force to the idea that edge the obvious likelihood-especially given Mussorgskymight have interpretedit along the moral hostility of the eyewitness in the similarlines. passage quoted above-that such covert means Given that the song need not always "inter- extended beyond the world of mercantile sex. pret"the text in a way that might seem intu- So what we have here, possibly, is a world of itively obvious,or "optimal,"we can even pro- covert communication in which the "glance" pose that if Golenishchev-Kutuzov'ssemantic is a conveyor of meaning. intentions in the openingthree texts were not Now consider, in this light, the second line homoerotic,Mussorgsky's reading of them still of the second poem: "Yourglance [vzgliad] told might have been. The manner in which the me nothing at all." Here is a distinctive failure first three songs truck so heavily in the 1-4V of nonverbal communication. Of course, we juxtapositioncertainly is capableof sustaining cannot know precisely what Golenishchev- this idea. Of course, the more particularized Kutuzov meant by this "glance," or what the interpretationbecomes, the more vulner- Mussorgsky made of it. But this lack offers no able it is to valid assault. A partialretreat to reason to exclude readings outside of the stan- generalityis, giventhe lackof otherevidentiary dard heterosexual, romantic topos of the factors,probably unavoidable. It doesseem fairly spumed lover. And it is important to consider safe to assert, however, that the general cat- egoryof solitudeis a viablereferential element in this cycle,72and while the loneliness of the protagonistin all these numberscan speaksim- 69Nota great deal seems to have changed since Alexander Poznansky noted, in his study of Tchaikovsky, that "mod- ply of the loneliness of the lover spurned,it em social historians have yet to tackle to any significant also can speak, and to my reckoningclearly degree the question of homosexuality and the homosexual doesspeak it undoubtedlydoes in Schubert's world in Russia during this period [the later nineteenth (as century]"(Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the InnerMan [New music, which Mussorgskyopenly admired)to York: Schirmer, 19911, p. 465). Poznansky's own work, the solitude of the alienated individualwho however, may be cited as an exemplary starting place for doesnot fit within the normativeboundaries of reading in this area. See also Dan Healey, "Masculine Pu- rity and 'Gentlemen's Mischief': Sexual Exchangeand Pros- titution between Russian Men, 1861-1941," Slavic Re- view 60 (2001), 233-34. Healey also provides a necessarily brief review of some relevant literature;see p. 233, n.2. 72Vassina-Grossmannoted that "loneliness"was the "domi- 70SeeHealey, "Masculine Purity,"pp. 246-47. nant mood" of Sunless. See Walker,"Mussorgsky's Sunless 7'Quotedin Healey, "Masculine Purity,"pp. 246-47. Cycle," pp. 389-90.

47 19TH society, be those boundaries drawn on politi- CENTURY that, "he composesin a series of bold strokes, MUSIC cal, class, intellectual, aesthetic, or, indeed, but his incrediblegift of foresightmeans that sexual grounds. each strokeis boundto the next by a mysteri- Clearly one cannot, and should not, attempt ous thread."73This observation might easily to decode these songs to too precise a degree. applyto Sunlessas well; indeed,it hints power- Readings like that offered above, in relation to fully at preciselythe carefullyco-coordinated the second song, remain speculative. What I divisionof expressivemeans that has O; wish to emphasize, ultimately, is not any par- been elaboratedhere. %^& ticular "message" of the songs examined here, but the means of delivery that such a message but over- might take-the distinctly two-tiered, 73Claude Debussy, "The Nursery, Poem and Music by M. lapping system of communication. The man- Moussorgsky," La Revue Blanche, 15 April 1901, quoted ner in which these communicative means com- in Francois Lesure, comp., Debussy on Music, ed. and bine in the testifies to the trans. RichardLangham Smith (London:Secker & Warburg, cycle growing image 1977), p. 21. of Mussorgsky as an "intellectual" composer. There are improvisatory, spontaneous, "felt" aspects to the musical fabric of this cycle, but Abstract. there are also clearly preconceived, planned, Mussorgsky'sSunless cycle is aestheticallyand sty- "rational" aspects that are concocted with the listically an anomalousmember of his ceuvre.Its express purpose of subtle, symbolic, even co- notablyeffaced, pared-down, and withdrawnquali- Its vert, communication in mind. The evidence of ties presentchallenges to criticalinterpretation. rendersit a crucialwork for whole-tone and tritonal elements of harmonic uniqueness,however, the fullest of Mussorgsky the circumstantial furnishing possiblepicture organization, together with as a creative artist. The author of its texts, this as not evidence that might suggest cycle Golenishchev-Kutuzov(whose relationship with only a "subjective" but also an emblematic Mussorgskyat the time of its writingpossibly ex- work, conspire to support the idea of some tendedbeyond the platonic)has been identifiedby system of symbolic signification operative, of recentscholarship as an essential"eye-witness" for which I have proposed a putative, if still open- those to whom Stasov'spopulist characterization ended, reading. This, like any such, system is of the composer does not ring entirely true. somewhat separate in kind from the immedi- Golenishchev-Kutuzovbelieved that in Sunless ately experienced, emotional, "affective" com- Mussorgskyfirst revealed his authenticartistic self. munication of the cycle. But in this case it does According to Golenishchev-Kutuvoz, Mussorg- his achievement in Sunless to out and at certain important junctures sky regarded signal grow of, have been the eradication of all elements other than the method of harmonic organi- overwhelms, "feeling." In other he had thrown off the of that words, zation that is the driver immediate, stylistic shackles imposed by the aesthetics of real- affective level-that is, the very individual, ex- ism and relied entirely on intuitive harmonic inven- pressive chromaticism based on modal mix- tion as the sole conveyor of a purely subjective, ture. In this continuity between one means of "affective" meaning in the cycle. This hypothesis signification and the other, as I stated earlier, forms the point of departurefor an investigation of lies the cycle's unique power. The carriers of select numbers of the cycle. Analysis reveals that symbolic meaning are, indeed, "felt" as the the affective aspect is not the only significant ele- most extreme elements of the affective chro- ment operative. Alongside remnants of the realist of of matic language, as those elements that most style, there is evidence, varyingdegrees subtlety, for a use of the established harmonic system. knowing symmetrical pitch organiza- challenge tion. not adapted the usual refer- not themselves as a stark con- Mussorgsky only They do present ential attachments of symmetrically based chromati- trast;rather, they emerge and impinge precisely, cism-typically found in Russian operas of the sec- and powerfully, at the moments of greatest ex- ond half of the nineteenth century-he also, through pressive reach. They are thus patently there, extremely simple but effective means, synthesized strongly felt, their symbolic apparatusready to the "intuitive" harmonic and "rational" symmetri- be "read."Debussy once wrote of a very differ- cal elements of the cycle's pitch organizationso that ent Mussorgsky work, The Nursery (Detskaia), the latter emerges seamlessly out of the former.This

48 remarkablesynthesis ensures the cycle's uniformity the composer. Irrespective of such potentials for in- SIMON of tone while also allowing for a reading that ex- terpretation, the most significant achievement in PERRY Mussorgsky's tends beyond the generally affective to the symboli- the cycle remains the synthesis of the intuitive/ Sunless cally more specific. This symbolic level of reading affective and rational/symbolic elements of its orga- offersseveral interpretativepossibilities, one of which nization. Songs 1, 2, 3, and 6 of the cycle are consid- may refer even to the relationship of the poet and ered in detail.

IN OUR NEXT ISSUE (FALL 2004)

ARTICLES JOELHANEY: Navigating Sonata Space in Mendelssohn's Meeresstille und glickliche Fahrt

CARLOCABALLERO: Silence, Echo: A Response to "What the Sorcerer Said"

LAURA BASINI: Verdi and Sacred Revivalism in Post-Unification Italy

MAIKO KAWABATA:Virtuoso Codes of Violin Performance: Power, Military Heroism, and Gender (1789-1830)