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Tschaikovsky did not admire Moussorgsky, spoke slightingly of his abilities, though he conceded that with all his roughness he had power of a repellent order. Turgenieff did not understand him. The opera La Khovanchtchina, notwithstanding the preponderance of the chorus in Russia choral singing is the foundation of musical culture I found more "operatic" than Boris Godounow.
The framework of his opera Boris Godounow is rather commonplace, a plethora of choral numbers the most marked feature. In the original draught there was an absence of the feminine element, but after much pressure the composer was persuaded to weave several scenes into the general texture, and let it be said that these are the weakest in the work.
Claude-Achille Debussy was born August 22nd, 1862, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He died at Paris March 22nd, 1918. He entered the Conservatoire at the age of twelve, studying harmony with Lavignac and piano with Marmontel. At the age of eighteen, he paid a brief visit to Russia. But it was not until several years later that he became acquainted with the score of "Boris Godounow," which was destined to have so great an influence on his life, and precipitate his revolt from Wagnerism. In 1884 he gained the Prix de Rome with his cantata "L'Enfant prodigue." During his three-year stay at the Villa Medici he composed "Printemps" and "La Damoiselle élue." "Ariettes oubliées" were published in 1888, followed, in 1890, by "Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire"; in 1893 by the string-quartet and the "Prélude
And then, at other moments, he is a certain forgotten individual, some obscure, nameless being, some creature, some sentient world like the monk Pimen or the Innocent in "Boris Godounow," and out of the dust of ages an halting, inarticulate voice calls to us.
Yet there is no score of Rimsky-Korsakoff's, no one of his fifteen operas and dozen symphonic works, which has, in all its mass, the living virtue that informs a single page of "Boris Godounow," the virtue of a thing that satisfies the very needs of life and brings to a race release and formulation of its speech.
Not so with Moussorgsky, and while few youthful composers have been so carefully counselled, he either could not, or would not, take the trouble of mastering the rudiments of his art. The result almost outweighs the evil his opera, Boris Godounow. The rest of his music, with a few notable exceptions, is not worth the trouble of resuscitating.
The plaint of Xenia in "Boris Godounow" is scarcely more than the underlining of the words, the accentuation of the voice of some simple girl uttering her grief for some one recently and cruelly dead.
It is difficult to conceive a time when, for Russia, Boris Godounow will cease to thrill. In the present volume I have examined, more out of curiosity than interest, the figures of Zola's book sales.
Of Moussorgsky, Debussy has remarked that he reminded him of a curious savage who at every step traced by his emotions discovers music. And Boris Godounow is virgin soil. That is why I have called its creator a Primitive. He has achieved the naïve attitude toward music which in the plastic arts is the very essence of the Flemish Primitives. Nature made him deaf to other men's music.
His preference for unrelated tones in his melodic scheme led to the dissociated harmonies of his operatic score, and this same Boris Godounow has much influenced French music, as I have pointed out earlier in this volume a source at which Claude Debussy drank not to mention Dukas, Ravel, and others whose more sophisticated scores prove this.
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