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February 26, 2016
MIKHAIL GLINKA
(1804–1857)
Mikhail Glinka is often called the father of Russian music, for his
distinctive style established a new ideal for Russian composers and
profoundly influenced the works of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and
even early Stravinsky. His two operas,
A Life for the Tsar
(1836) and
Ruslan
and Lyudmila
(1842), infused stories from Russian history and legend with
compelling melodies drawn from Slavic folk and liturgical sources.
Nevertheless, Glinka was as thoroughly cosmopolitan in his
influences as any Russian composer. Often dissatisfied with the
constraints and pettiness of St. Petersburg society, where he flourished as
a performer at upper-crust soirées,
he roamed restlessly throughout
Western Europe, using periods
in Madrid, Paris, Berlin, and
Warsaw to broaden his musical
skills. His three-year period in
Italy in the early 1830s deepened
his knowledge of the voice; he
was later to become a prominent
voice teacher in Russia as well as
the director of the Imperial Court
Chapel choir. Glinka was himself a fine vocalist as well as pianist, and an
exceptional interpreter of his own songs.
The year 1840 was the most difficult of Glinka’s life. A contentious
separation from his adulterous wife sparked a major scandal in St.
Petersburg. The composer withdrew from social life and drew close to
poet-playwright Nestor Kukolnik, who was notorious for his overblown
dramas but bolstered Glinka with his unwavering admiration for his
music (Kukolnik was himself a trained musician). Together, the two
created the first song cycle in Russian music,
A Farewell to St. Petersburg
,
which reflected Glinka’s desire to flee the St. Petersburg gossips.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky has chosen two songs from this 12-song cycle.
The lyrical “
To Molly
” shows how Glinka had steeped himself in the
Italian song tradition, for it resembles a flowing bel canto aria much more
than a typically Russian song. Though he would not visit Spain until
1845, Glinka was already fascinated with Spanish folk music. The bold
rhythms of that famed Spanish dance, strongly accented by the piano,
give a captivating masculine swagger to the love song “
Bolero
.”
Also from the troubled year of 1840 is “
How sweet it is to be with
you
,” set to verse by the little-known poet Pyotr Ryndin. The piano’s
dark, chromatically descending phrases lend a disturbing, almost tragic
background to what otherwise would be a gentle declaration of love
expressed in a graceful, cantabile vocal melody.
“
Doubt
” from 1838 is another setting of verse by Kukolnik;
subtitled “an English romance,” the poem is perhaps a translation from
an unknown source in that language. At this time, Glinka was already
suspecting his wife was unfaithful, and that probably intensified the
mood of suffering that elevates this controlled yet deeply felt song well
above the salon genre. Again, Glinka’s love of bel canto influenced the
beautifully shaped vocal lines as well as the poignant melody in the piano
prelude and postlude.
Glinka’s final years were dogged by increasing ill health. The
remarkable “
Say not that it grieves the heart
” (1856) was the last song
he wrote, coming just months before his death. Its bruised, cynical verse
by the Petersburg poet Nikolai Pavlov is matched by stark, pared-down
music introduced and concluded by bitter piano dissonances. Glinka’s
disenchantment with St. Petersburg society could not be more concisely
and cogently expressed.
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
(1844–1908)
Rimsky-Korsakov is known in America today primarily for his color-
saturated orchestral tone poems
Sheherazade
,
Russian Easter Festival
Overture
, and
Capriccio espagnol
, as well as for his edited and re-orchestrated
versions of Mussorgsky’s
Boris Godunov
and Borodin’s
Prince Igor
, now
somewhat out of favor. In Russia, he is known more properly for his own
operas, which reveal the scope of his talents and his imagination much
more fully. And he was a prolific and highly gifted songwriter, though
these works are virtually never heard outside his native land.
Like his predecessor Glinka and his contemporary Tchaikovsky,
Rimsky-Korsakov specialized in the romance, the most popular song
style in that country in the 19th century. This genteel genre was designed
primarily for singing in cultivated Russian households and had little to do
with the rougher nationalistic works that Rimsky-Korsakov’s colleagues
in the “Mighty Handful” group – especially Mussorgsky – were creating.
Nevertheless, Rimsky-Korsakov adopted a quality dear to the nationalists
in his songs: his clear and respectful setting of the poems he chose. Unlike
Tchaikovsky, he tended to set the words in a through-composed manner,
typically avoiding strophic musical repetition. And in contrast to Tchaikovsky’s
elaborate piano parts, he preferred understated accompaniments, placing the
emphasis on the singer and his declamation of the words.
The earliest two songs on the program come from 1866, when
Rimsky-Korsakov was only 22 and still a disciple of Mily Balakirev, the
founder and conscience of the “Mighty Handful.” At this time, he was
pursuing a career as a naval officer and was basically an amateur musician
composing songs and piano pieces for his social circle. Both songs set
poems by the giant of Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin.
Despite Rimsky-Korsakov’s youth, “
On the hills of Georgia
” is far
superior to a conventional salon song; it sets Pushkin’s beautiful words
with great sensitivity and restraint. Pushkin created this poem in 1829
when he was in Georgia and separated from his young fiancée, to whom
he’d recently become engaged. “
What is my name to thee?
” shows Rimsky-
Korsakov’s indebtedness to the stepwise motion of Russian folksong and
Orthodox chant, especially in its simple tolling accompaniment. As he
once said, “It is the folk that creates music. We musicians merely arrange
it.” Pushkin’s verse, however, is far more sophisticated and nuanced than
this straightforward folk treatment might suggest.
The other four songs we hear were written 30 years later in the late
1890s, when Rimsky-Korsakov had reached his full powers as a composer.
These songs draw on the poetry of Alexei Tolstoy (a distant relative of
the great novelist), whom Tchaikovsky called “an inexhaustible source
of texts for musical settings”). The supple, ardently lyrical lines of “
Oh,
if thou couldst
for one moment
”
are now a perfect
musical match for
the sentiments of
Tolstoy’s verse,
which exemplifies the spirit of the Russian romance.
As a former naval officer, Rimsky-Korsakov knew the ocean’s power
well, and “
The wave breaks into spray
” is a miniature of his larger sea-
obsessed works like
Sheherazade
and
Sadko
. Here, he shapes his surging
piano figures to mimic the waves breaking on the shore.
Nature imagery unites two songs from the prolific year 1897, “
Not
the wind, blowing from the heights
” and “
The lark sings louder
.”
The first is tender in its gratitude; the second bursts with the energy of
spring’s arrival – a theme that runs strongly throughout Russian art.
PROGRAM NOTES
By Janet E. Bedell
Glinka was himself a
fine vocalist as well
as pianist, and an
exceptional interpreter
of his own songs.
“It is the folk that creates music.
We musicians merely arrange it.”
— Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov