Dargomijsky was one of the older generation, a sort of father confessor to the neo-Russian group. This group worked under the inspiration of Mily Balakireff (1837-1910), a young enthusiast with fine visions and a considerable knowledge of music, mostly self-learned. It was he who first of all gave the great emphasis to the use of folk-songs in Russian composition and this he made the cornerstone of the new school. As members of his little group he was lucky enough to have two geniuses of very nearly the first order, one Modest Moussorgsky (1835-1881) and the other Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakoff (1844-1908). Balakireff’s own songs show artistic qualities of a high order; they are marked by unfailing taste and proportion and range over a broad field of expression, nearly everywhere successfully. But, though his artistic and critical sense was superb, he had not the creativeness of most of the group. One man who has done much finer work in song than he is Alexander Borodine (1834-1887). Borodine entered the neo-Russian group as a mere amateur, but he became filled with the new enthusiasms and set himself to work in earnest. The high and consistent creative level of his work, considering his short and interrupted study and the smallness of his output, is amazing. He wrote some twelve songs in his lifetime and fully half of them are masterpieces. Borodine was courageous in his attitude toward new musical principles and extremely happy in his use of the new materials. Expressive dissonance, in particular, he uses with rare effectiveness. The ballad or romance entitled ‘The Sleeping Princess’ is surely one of the finest things of its kind in existence. The spell of the enchanted forest, the calm beauty of the sleeping princess, are suggested in a succession of major second dissonances which weave a web over the mysterious melodies of the accompaniment. The same power of creating ‘atmosphere’ with simple means is shown in ‘The Sea-Queen,’ which is an exquisite inspiration. The romance, ‘A Dissonance,’ is a gem of concentrated lyricism. But the most original of Borodine’s songs, one of the most memorable of the whole Russian product, is ‘The Song of the Dark Forest.’[33] This is written purely in the Russian idiom, with a great and savage melody which is irresistible in its vigor. The accompaniment only duplicates the voice part, with the addition of dissonances that sound forth like trumpet blasts. With his handful of songs and his definite quantity of genius Borodine has made a place for himself in the history of lyric music.