The great body of Russian folk-songs is far nearer to the primitive than is the popular music of Italy, Scotland, and Germany. Many of the loveliest tunes are mere snatches of melody. The more highly organized tunes are frequently irregular and crude. The scales are usually distinctive, and the tonic is inclined to be very movable, if not entirely absent. The minor, of course, predominates, as in all primitive music. It is used with the utmost distinction, showing how utterly Russian life (except in the highest classes) has for centuries been isolated from the influence of Western Europe. The common impression, because of the predominance of this minor, is that Russian songs are all ‘sad’ or ‘moody.’ This is not just, for the minor, which is an expressive means with us, is nothing more than a convention in Russian folk-music. It is the material out of which the music is made. It can be manipulated to express almost any emotion which the singer can feel. Hence the notion that the range of Russian folk-songs is narrow is quite false. They have a remarkably wide range, from the deepest gloom, through the tenderest sentimentality, to the fiercest exhilaration of physical life. The irregularity of the melodies, too, is not necessarily a sign of crudeness, but often an instrument of the highest expressive potency. The brief studies which will be made later in this volume into Russian art-song can have but little meaning, except in relation to the folk-songs which are the source of it. The irregularity of metre in Moussorgsky’s songs, the barbarity of some of Borodine’s and Rachmaninoff’s, are the direct outcome of these composers’ studies in folk-song. It is difficult to mention these songs by name, since few of the texts have been translated into English. Yet it would be a pity if the student were altogether debarred from a knowledge of this wonderful literature on that account. The standard collections of Russian folk-music are available, though somewhat difficult to obtain. And though the words are printed in fearsome Russian, the music is in an international language. And it is of course true that many of the Russian songs are to be found in general folk-song collections and may be discovered with a little searching. Those who read French will find in Mme. Lineva’s work, published in two languages by the Russian government, an admirable discourse on Slavic song, thoroughly scientific, yet clear and without great technicality. In this work the interested musical student will find one of the most fascinating subjects imaginable--the growth of independent polyphony and counterpoint spontaneously among the singers of the melodies, a thing unthinkable to those of us who have learned counterpoint from dry text books.