While intercourse with Dargomijsky contributed to the forced maturing of Moussorgsky's ideas about music, the circumstances of his life still hindered his technical development. But he was progressing. His early letters to Cui and Stassov show how deeply and independently he had already thought out certain problems of his art. Meanwhile Balakirev carried on his musical education in a far more effective fashion than has ever been admitted by those who claim that Moussorgsky was wholly self-taught, or, in other words, completely ignorant of his craft. The "Symphonic Intermezzo," composed in 1861, shows how insistent and thorough was Balakirev's determination that his pupils should grasp the principles of tradition before setting up as innovators. Here we have a sound piece of workmanship, showing clear traces of Bach's influence; the middle movement, founded on a national air, being very original in its development, but kept strictly within classical form. His earliest operatic attempt, dating from his schooldays, and based upon Victor Hugo's "Han d'Island," was quite abortive as regards the music. Of the incidental music to "OEdipus," suggested by Balakirev, we have Stassov's testimony that a few numbers were actually written down, and performed at some of the friendly gatherings of the nationalist circle; only one, however, has been preserved, a chorus sung by the people outside the Temple of the Eumenides, which does not in any way presage Moussorgsky's future style. Faced with the prospect of service in a provincial garrison, Moussorgsky resolved to leave the army in 1859. His friends, and more particularly Stassov, begged him to reconsider his determination; but in vain. He had now reached that phase of his development when he was impatient of any duties which interfered with his artistic progress. Unfortunately poverty compelled him to accept a small post under the government which soon proved as irksome as regimental life. In 1856 he fell ill, and rusticated for a couple of years on an out-of-the-way country property belonging to his brother. During this period of rest he seems to have found himself as a creative artist. After working for a time upon an opera founded upon Flaubert's novel "Salammbô," he turned his attention to song, and during these years produced a number of his wonderful vocal pictures of Russian life, in its pathetic and humorous aspects. The music which he composed for _Salammbô_ was far in advance of the _OEdipus_. Already in this work we find Moussorgsky treating the people, "the human crowd," as one of the most important elements of opera. "In conformity with the libretto," says Stassov, "certain scenes were full of dramatic movement in the style of Meyerbeer, evoking great masses of the populace at moments of intense pathos or exaltation." Much of the music of this opera was utilised in later works. Stassov informs us that Salammbô's invocation to Tanit is now the recitative of the