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Updated: May 15, 2025
In the Marche Slav of Tschaikovsky Isadora symbolizes her conception of the Russian moujik rising from slavery to freedom. With her hands bound behind her back, groping, stumbling, head-bowed, knees bent, she struggles forward, clad only in a short red garment that barely covers her thighs. With furtive glances of extreme despair she peers above and ahead.
The most artistic of Russia's novelists, Turgenieff, was cosmopolitan; and it was a frequent reproach made during his lifetime that the music of Tschaikovsky was too European, not sufficiently national. Naturally, Anton Rubinstein suffered the same criticism; too German for the Russians, too Russian for the Germans. It was altogether different in the case of Modeste Moussorgsky.
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.
Which of the great concertos do I prefer? That is a difficult question to answer off-hand. But I can easily tell you which I like least. It is the Tschaikovsky* violin concerto I would not exchange the first ten measures of Vieuxtemps's Fourth concerto for the whole of Tschaikovsky's, that is from the musical point of view.
"Yes, there are other Russian concertos besides the Tschaikovsky. There is the Glazounov concerto and others. I understand that Zimbalist was the first to introduce it in this country, and I expect to play it here next season. "Of course one cannot always play concertos, and one cannot always play Bach and Beethoven. And that makes it hard to select programs.
Curiously enough, the Russian Moussorgsky, whose work was neglected during his lifetime, has proved to be a precursor to latter-day music. He was not affected in his development by Franz Liszt, whose influence on Tschaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakof, Glazounof he less than the others was considerable.
I mention only the names of those composers with whose music I am fairly familiar. Probably Stravinsky and his musical fireworks will be called a Futurist, whatever that portentous title may mean. However, the music of Tschaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakof, Rachmaninof, and the others is no longer revolutionary, but may be considered as evolutionary.
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