Chapter 24: Slavic Harmony and Disharmony

I. Smetana A. Introduction 1. The ideas proposed by the New German School influenced composers in other areas as well, notably Smetana (considered the first important nationalist composer from the Czech lands).

B. A Czech Abroad 1. While the use of the Czech increased in the last half of the nineteenth century, Smetana’s music was not appreciated. 2. He left Prague, moving to Sweden. 3. He visited Liszt in Weimar and joined the New German School. He became one of the most progressive composers in Europe, but music history has been written differently. 4. Smetana returned to Prague to write a Czech opera (for a competition) for a new national theater. 5. Smetana wrote seven operas in different genres. a. He did not use folk songs but did follow the rhythms of Czech speech patterns. b. Despite this, today Smetana is considered a nationalist composer. c. It might be because the Czechness (českost) does not come directly from style but from musical symbols which carry associations.

C. Má Vlast 1. In the 1870s Smetana composed music that represents českost, including the cycle of symphonic poems entitled Má vlast. 2. The most popular of these is Vltava, most commonly known by its German name, “Die Moldau.” a. Smetana painted musical pictures that represent possible events and aspects of the river itself. b. Although he never quotes an actual folk song, the popular character of the music is appealing.

D. The Fate of a Tune: From Folk Song to Anthem 1. The main theme representing the river became the most popular theme Smetana ever composed. It has come to represent českost.

E. Competing Reputations at Home and Abroad 1. Smetana’s comic operas presented harmonious existence between the upper classes and the peasantry. 2. The best known of this is The Bartered Bride. 3. The opera is known for its folk life and characters demonstrated through national dance rhythms. 4.At home Smetana’s more progressive compositions were favored; abroad, the more folksy ones. 5. A pan-Balkan movement arose in mid-century, but Smetana was not interested in it.

II. Balakirev A. Slavic Disharmony 1. Dissension existed among Russian composers, who tended to fall into the camps forming in Germany. 2. Balakirev aligned with the more progressive ideas; Rubenstein held to a more conservative line. a. A piano virtuoso, Rubenstein sought to raise Russian music training to a more professional level by importing master teachers (paid for by aristocratic patrons). 3. Balakirev, in response, formed the New Russian School. a. He gathered a group around him to defend Russian music against the Germans. This group, kuchka (bunch), is known as the “Mighty Five” or “Mighty Handful.” b. They were Balakirev, Cui, Borodin, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. 4. Even though they claimed status as Russian composers, Glinka was the only Russian composer they claimed. Thus, they claimed legitimacy as a group because of their ethnicity.

B. Kuchka Music 1. The kuchka built a school of Russian music on a foundation of folklore based on Glinka, who didn’t exactly use folk music. 2. Balakirev studied folksongs to use as the basis for his works. a. He collected and arranged folksongs from the Russian heartland. b. His harmonizations were unique and sounded nothing like peasant music. c. Nonetheless, this style became known as Russian, based in part on its use by later composers. 3. Ironically, Balakirev’s music structurally followed German models (sonata form).

C. Mussorgsky’s Realism 1. Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov proved to be the heir to Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar. 2. He was one of the most progressive composers of the century and rejected all that Glinka had absorbed (the beauty of Italy and brains of Germany). 3. Realism was the driving force for Mussorgsky, along with a contempt for fine manners and convention, and the falseness of the other musics. 4. Rather than use poetic verse for the libretto, Mussorgsky chose to imitate conversational speech.

D. Art and Autocracy 1. Historical themes were popular stories for operas in the nineteenth century. 2. In the late nineteenth century, the tsar controlled everything, and censorship was stringent. 3. Russian art moved away from Romanticism toward realism, regarding beauty with skepticism. 4. Mussorgsky used the past to comment on the present. a. Pushkin wrote Boris Godunov in deliberate imitation of Shakespeare’s history plays. b. The play is a commentary on kingship and legitimacy, and it was not performed until 1866.

5. Mussorgsky took out all scenes that did not include Boris, leaving Pushkin’s text intact but succinct and direct.

E. The Coronation Scene 1. The Prologue (Coronation Scene) is the most famous scene in Boris Godunov. 2. Musical realism extends from the declamation of text to instrumentation and harmony.

F. Revising Boris Godunov 1. Mussorgsky could not get Boris Godunov performed at first, because there was no role for a prima donna. a. He added the role, which had existed to a degree in Pushkin already. 2. He made other revisions, and not necessarily against his will (as has been told). a. Upon hearing the opera, a group of friends did not receive it the way Mussorgsky had intended. He was dissatisfied at not having communicated effectively. 3. Much of Mussorgsky’s music has been edited by other composers, most notably Pictures at an Exhibition. a. Originally composed for piano, Ravel orchestrated it. b. Rimsky-Korsakov reorchestrated Boris Godunov and other works.

III. Tchaikovsky A. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1. Tchaikovsky was a pupil of Rubenstein and Russia’s first great international musical celebrity. 2. Like Mozart, he composed both instrumental music and opera, and he excelled at writing ballets. 3. His Eugene Onegin (also on text by Pushkin) is a tribute to Russian realism. a. Its emotional strength lies in its use of symbols as they relate to genres of popular art. 4. Tchaikovsky had a gift for imbuing life and emotion with power through conventional form. a. He was especially interested in presenting people in social contexts, showing how we view experiences through our own lenses as dictated by social and cultural classes.

B. Russian Symphonies 1. The two music camps each produced an outstanding symphonist in the 1870s. a. For the kuchka, it was Borodin. b. For the conservatory composers, it was Tchaikovsky. 2. Even with the connection to traditional European music, Tchaikovsky still felt like an outsider. 3. The Fourth Symphony marked a break with symphonic tradition. a. Instead of motives, Tchaikovsky used expansive melodies, as well as reference to songs and dances. b. His symphonic music demonstrates an affinity for French symphonists. c. Because most music textbooks have been written from a German-dominated view of history, Tchaikovsky’s music has been overlooked.

4. But what to express? In the first movement, Tchaikovsky presents a strident and violent waltz, in with dramatic flair. 5. Mme. von Meck asked Tchaikovsky what the first movement meant, and he replied in a famous letter.

C. Autobiography in Music? 1. In spite of his homosexuality, Tchaikovsky accepted a proposal of marriage in 1877. 2. The resulting fiasco, in which Tchaikovsky fled the marriage, has been associated with the Fourth Symphony for years. a. The correspondence with Mme. von Meck supports an autobiographical reading of the Fourth Symphony. 3. Tchaikovsky used dance genres as a code in the Fourth Symphony. a. He told Mme. von Meck that the brass fanfares represented fate. b. He pairs aspects of the waltz with the polonaise (associated with military parades). The manner in which Tchaikovsky uses the two tells us that the polonaise always trumps the waltz. 4. Nonetheless, one must be careful not to read too specifically into such works, as the example of the Sixth Symphony shows.