“C. Cui is a gifted amateur. His music is not original, but graceful and elegant; it is too coquettish--‘made up’--so to speak. At first it pleases, but soon satiates us. That is because Cui’s speciality is not music, but fortification, upon which he has to give a number of lectures in the various military schools in St. Petersburg. He himself once told me he could only compose by picking out his melodies and harmonies as he sat at the piano. When he hit upon some pretty idea, he worked it up in every detail, and this process was very lengthy, so that his opera _Ratcliff_, for instance, took him ten years to complete. But, as I have said, we cannot deny that he has talent of a kind--and at least taste and instinct. “Borodin--aged fifty--Professor of Chemistry at the Academy of Medicine, also possesses talent, a very great talent, which however has come to nothing for the want of teaching, and because blind fate has led him into the science laboratories instead of a vital musical existence. He has not as much taste as Cui, and his technique is so poor that he cannot write a bar without assistance. “With regard to Moussorgsky, as you very justly remark, he is ‘used up.” His gifts are perhaps the most remarkable of all, but his nature is narrow and he has no aspirations towards self-perfection. He has been too easily led away by the absurd theories of his set and the belief in his own genius. Besides which his nature is not of the finest quality, and he likes what is coarse, unpolished, and ugly. He is the exact opposite of the distinguished and elegant Cui. “Moussorgsky plays with his lack of polish--and even seems proud of his want of skill, writing just as it comes to him, believing blindly in the infallibility of his genius. As a matter of fact his very original talent flashes forth now and again. “Balakirev is the greatest personality of the entire circle. But he relapsed into silence before he had accomplished much. He possesses a wonderful talent which various fatal hindrances have helped to extinguish. After having proclaimed his agnosticism rather widely, he suddenly became ‘pious.’ Now he spends all his time in church, fasts, kisses the relics--and does very little else. In spite of his great gifts, he has done a great deal of harm. For instance, he it was who ruined Korsakov’s early career by assuring him he had no need to study. He is the inventor of all the theories of this remarkable circle which unites so many undeveloped, falsely developed, or prematurely decayed, talents.