The Mentor: Russian Music, Vol. 4, Num. 18, Serial No. 118, November 1, 1916

RUSSIAN MUSIC
Anton Rubinstein

TWO

There has been a curious uncertainty as to the date of Anton Rubinstein’s birth. He was born on November 28, 1829, but due to a lapse of memory on the part of his mother, he always celebrated his birthday on the 30th of November. He was the son of a Jewish pencil manufacturer at Wechwotynetz, Russia, who later went to Moscow. In his autobiography Rubinstein tells of this migration: “My earliest recollections are of a journey to Moscow in a roomy covered wagon, undertaken by the three families, with all the children and servants, – nothing less than a tribal migration. We reached the city and crossed the Pokròvski bridge. Here we hired a large house belonging to a certain Madame Pozniakòv; it was surrounded by trees and stood near a pond beyond the river Iowza. This was in 1834 and 1835.”

The mother of Rubinstein was an excellent musician, and she gave the young boy his first music lessons. In addition he had as a teacher a master of the piano named Alexander Villoing. To the end of his life Rubinstein declared that he had never met a better master.

When he was only ten years old Rubinstein made his first public appearance as a performer, playing in a theater at Moscow. Two years later he went to Paris, and roused the admiration of Liszt and Chopin by his playing.

After this Rubinstein traveled for some time in Holland, Germany and Scandinavia. In 1842 he reached England, where he made his first appearance, on May 20th. He made a brief visit to Moscow in 1843, and two years later went with his family to Berlin, in order to finish his musical education. There he made friends with Mendelssohn.

Then Rubinstein’s father died suddenly. His mother and brother were forced to return to Moscow. Anton went to Vienna to earn a living. For nearly two years more he studied hard there, and then went on two concert tours through Hungary. The Revolution broke out in Vienna and prevented his return to that city, so he went to Petrograd, where he studied, composed and lived pleasantly for the next few years.

About this time he came near being exiled to Siberia through an unfortunate error of the police. He was saved from this by his patroness, the Grand Duchess Helene.

He composed several operas during the next few years; and he visited Hamburg and Leipzig and then went on to London, arriving there for the second time in 1857. He remained there for a short time and reappeared the following year, in the meantime having been appointed concert director of the Royal Russian Musical Society. In 1862 he helped to found the Conservatory at Petrograd. Of this he was director until 1867.

Rubinstein then traveled for some years, visiting America in 1872 – a tour which brought him $40,000. So popular was his playing that he was afterward offered $125,000 for fifty concerts; but he could not overcome his dread of the sea voyage. He returned to Russia from America, and after a short rest continued his concert tours. For the remaining years of his life he lived in turn at Petrograd, Berlin, and Dresden, devoting his time to concerts, teaching, and to composition. In 1885 he began a series of historical recitals, which he gave in most of the chief European capitals. Rubinstein died near Petrograd on November 20, 1894.

RUSSIAN MUSIC
Modeste Petrovich Moussorgsky

THREE

Moussorgsky’s artistic creed might be summed up in one sentence – he was devoted absolutely to the principle of “art for life’s sake.” This is quite the opposite of “Art for art’s sake.” Moussorgsky looked on musical art not as an end in itself, but as a means of vital expression. He was a full-blooded realist, and his music throbs with life.

Modeste Petrovich Moussorgsky was born on the estate of his father at Karevo on March 28, 1839. His father was a man of moderate means, and the boy spent his first ten years in the country and in close touch with the peasants. This early environment inspired his later feelings of sympathy with the land and its people. Long before he could play the piano he tried to reproduce songs that he heard among the peasants. His mother was pleased at this, and began to give him lessons on the piano when he was still a young child. At the age of seven he was able to play some of the smaller pieces of Liszt. Sometimes he even improvised musical settings for the fairy tales that his nurse told him.

In 1849 Moussorgsky and his brother were taken to Petrograd, where they were entered in the military cadet school, for the boy was intended for the army. At the same time, however, his parents allowed him to pursue his musical education. Moussorgsky’s father died in 1853, and three years later the youth entered his regiment. It was in 1857 that he began to have a distaste for his military duties, and two years later he resigned from the army. During the summer following his resignation, however, he was unable to do any work with his music, as he was taken sick with nervous trouble. Also from the time he left the army he was never free from financial embarrassments.

Moussorgsky went to Petrograd, and he and five friends formed themselves into an intellectual circle. He soon, however, began to feel the pinch of poverty and was obliged to do some work of translation. Later he even took a small government position. His mother died in 1865, and he wrote a song at the time which is now regarded as one of his finest works. Toward the middle of this year he was once more attacked by his nervous trouble. It was necessary for him to give up his position and to go to live in the country. He improved gradually, and during the next two years he wrote some songs which later attracted some attention. Most of the year 1868 was spent in the country. In the fall of this year he returned to Petrograd. He secured another position, this one in the Ministry of the Interior. This left him with some leisure, which he employed with his music. About this time he began to work on the music of his opera, “Boris Godounov,” based on the work of the dramatist Pushkin. This was first produced in Petrograd on January 24, 1874. Shortly after he began to work on “Khovantchina,” another opera, which had its first complete public performance in 1885 at Petrograd.

Shortly after the production of “Boris Godounov,” Moussorgsky began to devote himself to the composition of songs, among which was the song, “Without Sunlight,” and the “Songs and Dances of Death.”

Then Moussorgsky began to enter into a mental and physical decline. He was low in funds, for the small salary derived from his government position was insufficient for his needs. He began to play accompaniments at concerts, but very little work of this kind was obtainable. In 1879 he made a long concert tour in South Russia with Madam Leonoff, a singer of repute. This was very successful. He did very little work during the following winter; his health grew worse, and he was forced to give up his government appointment. He lived for a time in the country. At last it was necessary for him to enter the military hospital at Petrograd, where he died on March 28, 1881. He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky cemetery. Some years later a few friends and admirers erected a monument over his grave.