Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/457

 Modern Russian Popular Songs.

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only in the expensive and complicated accordions that the musical scale is more or less complete and exact in its tones. In those accordions accessible to the people the scale is generally narrowed and cramped. The melodies of the chastusliki are adapted to this poor music of the accordion.

Finally, the introduction and development of machinery have not been without an influence on the music of the newest songs. In the period preceding the introduction of machinery, a knowledge of popular songs was already widely diffused amongst the people. Working in their own houses, as was the custom of those times, the craftsmen were in the habit of enlivening their dull moments by singing. It is therefore natural that the Russian North has preserved for a longer time the epic tradition. The peasants of the North by the very character of their home industry, sitting long hours at their work, feel the strong need of singing, and shorten with songs their monotonous, dragging hours. Crowded together in vast factories, modern workers no longer indulge in this relaxation. The ceaseless rumble and clatter of the machines, the intensity of the labour, depress the worker so that he has no inclination for singing, and indeed what musical impressions can he derive from this monotonous buzzing .'' No wonder, therefore, that in the cJiastushka, which originated in the factory centres, the music is deprived of inspiration, and shows weakness of musical creation.

We have already mentioned that the cliastiisJika is a short song of from four to eight lines, and sometimes more. But the cJiastiishki of more than four lines are mostly made up of two or more songs. It must be acknowledged that the original form of the cliastushka is that of the quatrain, which is widely spread also among other nations, and especially in primitive communities.

The cliastushka discloses to us the ver\' process by which popular lyrics originated. The original germ of the chastushka, — that is the quatrain, — is, in the majority of