"He who pays the piper will, directly or indirectly, call the tune. If
he be a Mæcenas of wide culture and liberal tastes he will perhaps call
a variety of tunes; if, on the other hand, he be a home-keeping
millionaire with a narrowly patriotic outlook he will call only for
tunes that awaken a familiar echo in his heart. So an edict--maybe an
unspoken one--goes forth that a composer who expects his patronage must
always write in the 'native idiom'; which is equivalent to laying down
the law that a painter's pictures will be disqualified for exhibition if
he uses more colours on his palette than those which appear in his
country's flag. Something of this kind occurred in the ultra-national
school of music in Russia, and was realised by some of its most fervent
supporters as time went on. It is not difficult to trace signs of
fatigue and perfunctoriness in the later works of its representatives.
At times the burden of nationality seems to hang heavy on their
shoulders; the perpetual burning of incense to one ideal dulled the
alertness of their artistic sensibilities. Less grew out of that
splendid outburst of patriotic feeling in the 'sixties than those who
hailed its first manifestations had reason to anticipate. Its bases were
probably too narrowly exclusive to support an edifice of truly imposing
dimensions. Gradually the inevitable has happened. The younger men threw
off the restrictions of the folk-song school, and sought new ideas from
the French symbolists, or the realism of Richard Strauss. There is very
little native idiom, although there are still distinctive features of
the national style, in the work of such latter day composers as
Scriabin, Tcherepnin and Medtner. The physiognomy of Russian music is
changing day by day, and although it is full of interest, one would
welcome a development on larger and more independent lines."
In 1867 Nicholas Lodyjensky joined the circle. He was a young amateur
gifted with a purely lyrical tendency, who played the piano remarkably
well and improvised fluently. He composed a number of detached pieces
and put together some fragments of a symphony and an opera, on the
subject of "The False Dimitrius." Rimsky-Korsakov says his music showed
a grace and beauty of expression which attracted the attention of the
nationalist group, especially the music for the Wedding Scene of
Dimitrius and Marina, and a setting for solo and chorus of Lermontov's
"Roussalka" (The Water Sprite). But Lodyjensky, like Goussakovsky, was a
typical dilettante; almost inspired, but unable to concentrate on the
completion of any important work. After a time he dropped out of the
circle, probably because he had to earn his living in some other way,
and the strain of a dual vocation discouraged all but the very strongest
musical spirits.[36]
A musician of greater reputation who was partly attached to the
nationalists was Anatol Liadov, whose work does not include any operatic
composition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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